Bibs and Aprons, part 2.

This is the second in a three part series.  Here is the first.

Having spent many summers on Cape Cod, I treasure the flavor and messiness of eating lobster.  While my family did not have a commercial interest in lobsters, my father purchased permits for each of his 4 or 5 lobster pots; we enjoyed a lot of fresh lobster.  This was a source of great joy and puzzlement for some of our summer visitors; the flavor and delicacy always brought smiles while the complicated process of eating it always raised the eyebrows of those who had never eaten it before.

Not long ago, lobster was considered to be the food of indentured servants and prisoners.  The crustacean is a bottom feeder and its nickname was the “cockroach of the ocean;” it was considered to be “beneath” the palates of the well heeled.  Often employment contracts for household staff would include a provision that they not be fed lobster more than once a week!  The primary use for these crabs was as fish bait and as fertilizer.  But for the less fortunate, this “bottom of the food chain” was a valuable source of protein and nutrition.  (For an interesting read on how we came to see lobster as a delicacy, see this.)

Steamed lobster is not a clean thing to eat.  Aside from being a gatekeeper for drawn butter, the inner flesh of these water dwelling insects is tough to access. It requires a nutcracker and pick.  The resulting messiness runs down our arms and chin(s).  Lobster is hard work!  But, since we’ve come to regard it as a delicacy, it has become acceptable to wear a bib to protect our clothing – even if doing so causes us to question our dignity!

Wearing a bib is necessary when eating some foods even if we are adults!  The same is true of our faith life.  Every follower of Jesus needs to be nourished with the very basics of the faith “food chain.”  Every believer needs to chew on and digest the scriptures and to crack open the difficult issues of faith.  This feeding is not a once in a life time thing; we don’t contract with God to be fed only once a week, once a month, or twice a year.  It is necessary that each of us be fed and nourished repeatedly so that we can grow in the faith.  Even though we’ve “graduated” from confirmation classes and attained higher things in life and in the Church, we must don our bibs and nourish our faith.

Notice that I did not say we must don our bibs and be fed!  We must still feed ourselves!  We must choose to get our hands and chins into the work of cracking open the Word, wrestling with the hard shells to reach the succulent nutrition within.  It is necessary that the juices flow from our heads to our hearts and from the faith to our hands; only as a result of having worked through the issues of faith will that stickiness pass from our hands to our everyday work and lives.  The bib represents our willingness to delve in; it does not so much protect us as serve as a symbol of our need for God’s ongoing and ever-generous grace and care.  When we don the bib, it is God who feeds and nourishes us so that we will continue to grow in faith.

This is not to say that we wear the bib all the time.  Even an infant dons a bib only to eat!  We must use those learnings, burn those “faith calories” in service to others; for that we must don the apron.  More on that next time.