{"id":17851,"date":"2011-11-26T19:13:54","date_gmt":"2011-11-27T00:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=17851"},"modified":"2011-11-26T19:15:24","modified_gmt":"2011-11-27T00:15:24","slug":"if-jesus-came-for-dinner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2011\/11\/if-jesus-came-for-dinner\/","title":{"rendered":"If Jesus came for dinner…"},"content":{"rendered":"
At a church meeting a little while back, a priesthood leader was encouraging young couples to pay a generous fast offering. \u201cYou may eat really cheap meals or beans and rice or ramen,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you make your fast offerings based on the cost of those meals, you will not be paying a generous fast offering. What would you serve the Savior if he came to your house for dinner? Would you give him beans and rice? Or would you buy a good steak and make a nice meal?\u201d Then he encouraged us to make our fast offering calculations based on the cost of the meal fit to serve our Lord. <\/span>I sat there, thinking about this. My conclusion was that, yes, I actually would serve the Savior beans and rice if he came to my house. Especially if He came unannounced. That is one of our staple meals that we eat a couple of times a week. And I\u2019ve been making this dish for so long, that I can make it really well.<\/span><\/p>\n

Imagine this: black beans, cooked with bay leaf and coriander, with saut\u00e9d onion, pepper, garlic, and cumin added at the end of the cooking time. Maybe some corn fried up in the cast iron skillet after the onion mess has been tossed into the beans. Brown rice. Fresh pico de gallo. Homemade salsa. A little crumbled cotija cheese. If I\u2019ve got time, and I’m feeling fancy, add fresh <\/span>p\u00e3o de queijo and farofa. If Jesus came the next day, he could eat those leftovers with us, in freshly pressed corn tortillas (the kids love rolling out the balls of masa and squishing them in the press).<\/span> For dessert, He can join us in eating homemade bread and preserves.<\/span><\/p>\n

We usually drink water. I don\u2019t have wine to offer, but if He wants it, I\u2019m sure He can manage. <\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good solid meal, unpretentious peasant food. It\u2019s kosher, which is only polite when serving someone raised Jewish. It\u2019s vegetarian, a nod toward the millennium, a time that many latter day leaders, including Grant and Snow, believe none of us will eat flesh. It is one of the best meals I have to offer, and I can make it, from scratch to finish, in about an hour. I do make other good meals; our Thanksgiving dinner was fantastic. But that took at least eight hours of cooking and cleaning before we were able to move the food out of the kitchen to the table. I think it would be better to serve the simple meal, and have to time to sit and talk with Jesus, than the be confined to the kitchen, stressed about taste and presentation, engaged in a massive cooking effort that requires an equally massive cleaning effort. Remember the dinner party hosted by Mary and Martha?<\/span><\/p>\n

Years ago, our ward Primary president was trying to get one of the more unruly boys to behave. “Is this how you would act if Jesus were here?” she asked him. He thought about it for a moment before responding, “If Jesus already knows who we are, why act? He would know it’s just an act, right?” That question, “Why act?” was the most profound thing my husband heard in his six years of being Primary pianist. We do no one a favor with false offerings and vain pretentions. We should strive to do each thing well so we may be confident in fruits of our labor, not proud or ashamed. If what our family is eating is beans and rice, that is what we should serve the Savior when He drops in. It is what we can honestly share with any soul who comes to us for hospitality.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is clearly not what the church leader had in mind as he was counseling us to be generous in our fast offerings. I have no complaint with the admonition to be generous. And although it appears that the Savior would get a very different meal at my house than at his, I am thankful he gave me a chance to think through what I would feed Jesus if He showed up at my door.<\/span><\/p>\n

What meal would you feed the Savior, if He came to your home?<\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What would you serve the Savior if he came to your house for dinner? Would you give him beans and rice? Or would you buy a good steak and make a nice meal?\u201d I sat there, thinking about this. My conclusion was that, yes, I actually would serve the Savior beans and rice if he came to my house. Especially if He came unannounced.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-corn"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17851"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17861,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17851\/revisions\/17861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}