144 Gross

    (Note: This blog entry is based on the text for “Gross”, originally shared on August 30, 2021. It was the 144^th video for our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw), co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)

   What food do you eat that other people might consider gross? Whole cultures have such foods. But we eat them, and we enjoy them. They have meaning for us that goes beyond the things themselves. What foods do Christians eat that other people might consider gross? Today we’ll find out what, and why.

   My favorite lunch is built around a peanut and jelly sandwich.

   Today, though, I am having two foods that I like that other people might consider gross: sauerkraut and pickled herring in sour cream.

   Sauerkraut is finely cut cabbage that has been fermented. It has lots of vitamins and beneficial bacteria for gut health. I especially like it with a little caraway seed. You can make your own or buy it fresh or canned in grocery stores, and it has a long shelf life, though the fresh kind needs to be refrigerated.

   Our favorite restaurant in LA, Nate ‘N Al Delicatessen in Beverly Hills, used to put sauerkraut on the table with the pickles as soon as you sat down. They still provide it for free, but you have to ask for it. I guess that many people thought it was gross.

   It can be eaten on a sandwich, or on its own. Mmmmm.

   Herring in sour cream is just pickled herring in a sour cream sauce with onions. You can also make your own or buy it in grocery stores in a refrigerated section. You get the health benefits of fish as well as the dairy goodness of sour cream. Mmmmm. Some people think it’s gross but, hey, lots of people eat sushi, right?

   Every culture has foods from their history that are meaningful to them, and many people eat them, but which other people might think is gross. Haggis. Chitlins. Lutefisk. Gross. Gross. Gro… well lutefisk is pretty good, but most people think it’s gross.

   One of my uncles liked pickled pigs’ feet. Pickled pigs’ feet! Gross. They came in a big jar, and you could buy them in bars and mom-and-pop grocery stores when I was growing up. Well, certain kinds of bars, and mom-and-pop grocery stores. They were available right next to the pickled hard-boiled eggs, also gross.

   I once ate raw, pickled octopus. I had been studying in Israel in college. Though we were in another country, we followed our American academic schedule and so we had a break for Thanksgiving. Most of our group went to live on a kibbutz and pick oranges, but my friend Larry and I decided to take a trip on our own. We took a bus to Sharm El-Sheik on the Sinai Peninsula, which was controlled by Israel at the time. It was warm at that time of year and so we slept on the beach with a bunch of other students from all over the world. In the morning we gathered our backpacks and took a bus to a city on the map called Dahab which looked like a jumping-off point for the road across the desert to Mt. Sinai.

   We got off the bus at around 4:00 p.m. and found that there was no city. Only a sign. And the road was a just a path, really, a military road that the Israeli army used for patrols.

   We met a Bedouin man there who agreed to guide us across the desert to St. Catherine’s, a monastery at the base of the mountain. We walked all night, walking in 3-hour stretches and then resting for ½-hour. When we ran out of water, he shared his from a 5-gallon former olive oil tin that he carried with two fingers.

   We arrived at St. Catherine’s and the surrounding village at about 10:00 a.m. We gave him some money for his trip to the dentist there, and our deepest thanks.

   We arrived at the monastery with almost no money and no food or water. There was an argument between the receiving monk and the cook over whether feeding tourists was part of their ministry but, in the end, they brought us to the kitchen.

   I think that they made bread once a week, and we were there on the 6^th day. So, they gave us some stale bread. They put plates of some disgusting brown thing in front of us, and I asked Larry what he thought it was. He said, “I think that this is one of those times when it’s better to eat first and ask questions later.” Which we did. We later found out that it was raw, pickled octopus.

   Gross. But, when you’re hungry, it’s appreciated.

   We were at a point this summer in the 3-year cycle of the Revised Common Lectionary used by most churches around the world where bread was the theme of the Gospel lesson for five weeks in a row. Nestled in there were these words of Jesus, in John 6:51:

   ⁵¹ I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”

   He expands on these words, after some questions were raised, in John 6:53-58:

   ⁵³ So Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ⁵⁴ Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; ⁵⁵ for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. ⁵⁶ Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. ⁵⁷ Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. ⁵⁸ This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever.”

   Gross, right? The early Christians were accused of cannibalism by their ignorant and/or hostile opponents. Even today Christians in places where Christianity is newly forming are accused of the same thing.

   I don’t think that Jesus is speaking primarily about Holy Communion here. I think he is speaking here of the restoration of an intimately personal relationship with God that is made possible by the cross. Later Christians, however, would find these words meaningful in terms of what Holy Communion means.

   We believe that the forms of bread and wine in the Sacrament (sacred event) of Holy Communion don’t chemically change even as Jesus is present in, with, and under those forms.

   But whatever Christians believe about the mechanics of Holy Communion, we believe it is holy communion. We commune with the one true holy God in a sacrament begun and commanded by Jesus Christ. In this sacrament, as 16th century Church reformer Martin Luther writes in his Small Catechism, “we receive forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. For where there is forgiveness of sins, there is also life and salvation.”

   But, Luther says, “It is not eating and drinking that does this, but the words, given and shed for you for the remission of sins. [He puts those words in bold] “These words,” Luther says, “along with eating and drinking are the main thing in the sacrament. And whoever believes these words has exactly what they say, forgiveness of sins.”

   “Gross” can also mean something big, and “forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation” are about as big as you can get. We commune with God, in, with, and under, the forms of bread and wine in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and we receive the full benefits of the grace of God.

   This is our 144^th blog in our pandemic series. As a unit of measurement, 144 is a gross. It’s 12 times 12.

   Numerology was part of the Biblical worldview. That is, they believed that numbers had meaning just as words did.

   The number 12 conveyed wholeness and perfect completeness. It’s seen in the 12 tribes of Israel and the 12 disciples of Jesus. The number 1,000 conveyed a sense of hugeness, as it was used in many instances in the Old Testament.

   In the Bible’s book of Revelation, its final book, we see a vision of the last days and of the Final Judgement of humanity by God in highly symbolic terms written during a time of Roman persecution of Christians. In Revelation 7:4 we read of those who will be saved:

⁴ And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the people of Israel:

   The number 144,000 is a gross (12x12), times 1,000. It conveys the meaning of the right number which will be hugely large.

   So, when we say something is gross, we could say that it is disgusting, like when my Grandpa Berkedal once advised, “David, when you’re crossing the 8^th street bridge by Lake Michigan, and you look up to see the seagulls, remember to keep your mouth shut.” Gross.

   However, Christians also say that if something is gross it is something huge, like receiving forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation in Holy Communion.

   And Christians say that it could also mean the occasion to praise God for God’s gross, great justice, grace, and mercy in the Last Judgement.

   “Gross” can carry many meanings, but I’m going to go with the gross forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation and the great gross grace of God for the foundation of a life that endures. And I hope you will, too.