politics and the candidates we support. Or maybe it is a social issue – abortion, for example, continues to be a polarizing issue within the Christian community. Or maybe it is the very nature of our beliefs. My ancestors were driven from the Pyrenees hundreds of years ago because their beliefs and practices weren’t quite the same as the majority of that era. But what if those very differences that threaten to divide us are, in fact, a part of how God designed the Church to be?
Almost two hundred years ago, back in 1824, a man named Henderson William Brand was serving as chef to King George IV of the United Kingdom. Brand created a sauce that could be used for fish, meat or fowl. The story goes that the king was so pleased with the sauce that he immediately proclaimed it, “A number 1.” And so A1 Sauce was born.
Back in the glorious days of my youth when calories meant nothing, I used to employ vast amounts of A1 on just about everything. Today, a bottle can last for quite a while in our refrigerator, but it remains a special treat.
So how many ingredients do you think there are in A1? Both the number and the variety are surprising. They include: tomato puree, raisin paste, distilled vinegar, corn syrup, salt, crushed orange puree, dried garlic, onions and celery seed among others. What an extraordinary palette Chef Brand must have possessed to combine so many different ingredients in the creation of such an exquisite sauce.
Our God has done nothing less in the creation of the Church. Our differences aren’t a weakness. They are the very things that make the Church the glorious community that it is.
“For just as the body is one and has many [different!] members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” (1 Corinthians 12:12)
- Pastor Chris
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