HANGING OUT AT THE GROCERY STORE

I like hanging out at the grocery store, it is one of my favorite places to be. I usually go there at least once a day. I do that because I like my ingredients as fresh as I can get them. I don’t necessarily spend a lot of money there, but I just like to shop and price things and plan. Yes I know that sounds strange. What is really strange is that in general I don’t like to shop. I make it to the mall maybe twice a year and I can’t stand to walk into a clothing store. When my wife does manage to drag me to the mall, I moan and groan the whole time we are looking at clothes. I hate shopping! I love walking around the grocery store though. All that food, all the possibilities of things that can be cooked with it! My love affair with grocery stores started in college at the University of Idaho. I did most of my own cooking in college and my roommates and I would go shopping at 2 a.m. in the morning. At that hour we had the whole place pretty much to ourselves. It was a fun place to hang out for a few hours before the donut shop opened at 3:30 in the morning. My friend knew the donut shop owner and she would let us in and we frost our own fresh donuts. There is nothing like a warm freshly frosted donut. Then we would all go home and finally sleep.
My love affair with the grocery story increased when I went to Seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The seminary required that all unmarried students live on campus and eat at the cafeteria, something I had never done in college. The problem was the cafeteria food was awful. The building was officially called Katherine Lutheran Hall in memory of Martin Luther’s wife. The food was so bad though we called it Kitty Litter Hall. My friend and I detested the food so much that we usually ate out at one of the local restaurants instead. So I was paying money for board and then paying money to eat somewhere else, but at least I didn’t have to eat bad food. I have always believed that life is too short to eat bad food. Another thing my friend and I would do was to go to the grocery stores. We never bought anything mind you, we had no way to cook it, but we window shopped. We would walk down the meat aisle looking at the all the things we could be cooking if they would let us move off campus. The main two grocery stores we would go to were Cubs and Lions Foods, they were superstores. Superstores were new in those days, we liked them because they were huge and had tons of food. We sometimes wondered if we could buy some of this food and then break into the dining hall and cook it while everyone slept. We never did, but just dreaming about it made life a little easier.
I like visiting grocery stores and comparing them to each other. I know that certain stores carry this brand and other stores carry that brand and I am also pretty good at knowing what that brand costs and how it tastes compared to another brand. I always have my ears open to new stuff and new tastes. A good grocery shopper has to know their stuff. For instance with meat, different stores call the same grade or type of meat two different things. Sometimes an ingredient called for in a recipe has a different name at the store. I study to go shopping. It is almost like a sport. If I do it right and get the right ingredients and then I use the right techniques to cook it, well I have had a good day and everyone is happy.
Sometimes I think I am strange because I am fascinated by this stuff, but then I read in Scripture that this seems to be important to God as well. When God wants to point out that something is good, he uses food talk. He tells the Israelites that they are going to receive a land filled with milk and honey, he even gives them recipes. For the Passover they have to cook a lamb and they are given precise instructions on how to do this. When the Israelites are in the desert he sends manna and rains quail down upon them, you could say the grocery store came to them. In the New Testament Jesus is always eating with someone. When the disciples realize that they are in the middle of nowhere with five thousand people they tell Jesus, “Hey dismiss these people so that they can go to the grocery store and buy food.” Jesus instead, again, brings the grocery store them and feeds the people himself. The book of Revelation pictures heaven as a big banquet where God brings out of the storehouses, the grocery stores, the finest of meats and the finest of wines. Many people believe that when we get to heaven we will have jobs to do there. If that is so I call dibs on being the guy that gets to do the shopping, especially since it’s all free.
So is visiting the grocery store a little vision of heaven? Well I wouldn’t go that far, but is a wonderful relaxing place to be most of the time. So much food, so little time. What are you eating tonight?

Pastor Fred