"Recipes that Last"

John 4:5-42
Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, "Rabbi, eat something."
But he said to them, "I have food to eat that you do not know about." 
So the disciples said to one another, "Surely no one has brought him something to eat?" 
Jesus said to them, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.

Jesus had a knack for connecting the ordinary stuff of life to the sacredness of God's promise for the people. This story of the woman at the well is no different. A woman going about an ordinary task, encounters a man (Jesus) who does the extraordinary deed of talking to her in a society that, for a multitude of reasons, would have looked down on the verbal exchange.

The disciples can hardly believe Jesus is doing this. And the disciples continue to be amazed at the way he defies conventions. And yet, in the midst of an extraordinary encounter, this passage also has a very common everydayness to it when they begin to worry about whether or not Jesus has had time to eat a meal.  They tell him to eat something. To which Jesus replies in that cryptic way Jesus almost always replies: "I have food to eat that you do not know about. My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work."

This week's heirlooms of faith focus on favorite heirloom kitchen items, favorite recipes handed down to you and all things related to food and drink.  We inherit much more than just a recipe card when we inherit that card with Grandma's carrot cake recipe scribbled on it. We inherit the memories of that cake, perhaps the joy of seeing her own penmanship on the card, the sensory connection to taste and smell that takes us back to so many places and times in our past.  Food and drink connects us to memories of people and places that we cannot connect to in any other way. I dare say it almost ranks right up there with music in the way it has an immediacy of connection to the past.

What favorite kitchen items have you inherited or have you passed down to your own kids? What recipes do you have that you got from a beloved relative that connects you still to that person's kitchen and to a place and time?  Bring those to share with us all on Sunday.

Jesus mentions to the woman at the well that living water will set her free. He mentions to the disciples that his food is to do the will of the one who sent him.  What do we need to ingest in the message of Christ to us today? What can we ingest in the songs and the sights and the sounds on Sunday? What sets us free like the living water of the Samaritan woman?

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