A lesson from a recipe book
If I could ban one phrase from every preacher’s vocabulary, starting with my own, it would be ‘it will do’, accompanied with a shrug. I know that preachers are busy people, always combining the task for preaching with many other demands. However, if we once allow the idea that a sermon lazily constructed or poorly finished is good enough to get away with, we have crossed a line. Will Self called preaching ‘twenty minutes to love the congregation’, and he was right. If I offer them something which I would find unsatisfying, why should I expect them to be blessed?
This week I have had all those lessons reinforced by…a recipe book. Over the months I have followed the progress of Hortense Julienne Nguepnang-Ntepndie as she has worked towards creating a cookbook for people subsisting on food from food-banks. When the book was first launched as an online resource, I was so impressed by the care taken with the recipes and the attractive way in which it was all presented. However, the book is now available in print form and it is beautiful.
CLICK to download your own copy of the book
In this case, the beauty of the presentation really matters. People who find themselves reliant on food-banks often feel wracked by guilt and shame. Hortense has chosen to create something which is not only useful but beautiful precisely to counter that perception. ‘The background colour is royal purple’, she explained ‘because these people are like princes and princesses in the eyes of God’. Although the book is also available in a PDF version with black text on white, this full colour version is a gem offered to those who feel far from precious.
Please consider making use of this book. It can be read online, downloaded for your own printing, or printed professionally with your own logo on the back here. In an age when some food writing and television seems to teeter on the brink of soft porn, this is an entirely wholesome little book. The Apostle James tells us in James 2 v. 16 that Christian love must be practical – but there is no reason why the practical should not be beautiful too, is there?