—It is written, One does not live on bread alone.—

It’s always something about food isn’t it? God seems to like to use food as symbol and metaphor. He’s even gone so far as to use food as the means of conveying Himself to us.

In reading over the scriptures for this Sunday I couldn’t help but focus on food.

As many of you know, I am the cook in my family. I love cooking for my family and for relatives and friends.

The whole concept of cooking is multi-faceted. It’s the joining together of tastes, textures, and atmosphere into something that delights the senses, awakens memories, and ingrains new memories.

Cooking has become one of the trendiest activities out there. We have a television network dedicated to food with Iron Chefs, mega-chefs, CIA chefs, and down-home chefs. We have celebrities like the ubiquitous Emeril, BAM!, Nigella, and local celeb, Rachel Ray. I still remember the days of the Galloping Gourmet.

Moses stressed the importance of food —“ as a gift to God —“ long before there were Iron Chefs:

Moses spoke to the people, saying:
—The priest shall receive the basket from you
and shall set it in front of the altar of the LORD, your God.

Not any food of course, but the firstfruits of a person’s labor were for God. The people were to say:

Therefore, I have now brought you the firstfruits
of the products of the soil
which you, O LORD, have given me.

They were to give from the top, the best stuff to be burned-up as an offering to God. The best is for God, because God provides all.

In his second epistle St. Clements says:

What return, then, shall we make to Him, or what fruit that shall be worthy of that which He has given to us? For, indeed, how great are the benefits which we owe to Him! He has graciously given us light; as a Father, He has called us sons; He has saved us when we were ready to perish. What praise, then, shall we give to Him, or what return shall we make for the things which we have received?

Cooking is very much like our Lenten journey.

The process of cooking starts with thought and preparation. Cooking challenges a person on many levels, combining timing, temperature, mixing, and artistry.

I looked at a particular incident that happened in the course of cooking this week, and this happens to me a lot. I want to talk about, and I want you to think about spillage —“ that’s right, spilling things.

Have you ever tried to transfer things from one container to another? Perhaps you’re combining flour or sugar into one canister. For my part I can never seem to pour the ingredients safely from one canister into another. Some always goes over the edge and spills out.

This week I would like you to consider how God spills His gifts out before us. Malachi 3:10 is very famous and is very pertinent:

—Bring your whole tithes to the storehouse.
And trust me in this. I will pour out such a blessing upon you
Your storehouses will not be able to contain it.—

What we bring to God during Lent is ourselves, and if we are sincere and humble enough we bring the firstfruits of our lives before God during Lent. We bring God our all and everything, and we lay it before Him as a sacrifice. We literally empty ourselves out, and like an empty canister, God will fill us, fill us to overflowing.

God’s love and grace will fill us to the point of overflow.

That overflow will be evident in our actions towards and with each other. That person next to you and me, our spouse, our friends, our children, our buddy at bingo or at the club will be affected by God’s outpouring. Our enemies, those right here in the Capital District who hate our Church, will be won over.

In Malachi God challenges us to trust Him. He literally says:

And trust me in this.

Test Me, Check Me out, put Me to the test. If we bring our all, our tithe, our firstfruits into the storehouse of God, if we place our lives in God’s hands, He will pour out such a blessing upon us that our storehouses will not be able to contain it.

We will be changed, and because of the change in us, the world will be changed, one person at a time.

This is what we are to believe, ponder, and live. That by our acceptance of God in faith, by our Lenten humility and penance, by our heartfelt commitment to emptying ourselves out, we will be changed, and as Paul says:

For one believes with the heart and so is justified,
and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved.