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Commentary
Church Basement memories Mary Jacobs, Apr 25, 2007
Mary Jacobs, Associate Editor
By Mary Jacobs Associate Editor
Three women -- a Roman Catholic, a Baptist and a Methodist -- arrive at the Pearly Gates seeking admission. St. Peter says, "I will need to see proof that you're worthy of admission."
The Catholic holds up her rosary and St. Peter waves her through. The Baptist holds up her Bible; St. Peter waves her through as well. The Methodist hands St. Peter a dish and says, "Don't burn your tongue on the casserole."
If you've spent much time in the Methodist Church, you are chuckling with recognition. Food is part of our Methodist identity. (It was no accident that Food Network guru Alton Brown taped his recent TV segment on casseroles at a Methodist church.)
For me, food has been part of my Methodist faith journey.
Joining the church as an adult in 1982, I underwent the sacrament of Holy Baptism. About a year later came the second step of my initiation into church life, which I've jokingly dubbed the Sacrament of the Holy Strata.
At Lakewood UMC in Lakewood, Ohio, every soul who joined was soon after summoned for a new member brunch. Inevitably, the centerpiece of this meal was a cheese strata: a layered casserole of American cheese, milk, eggs and Wonder bread, prepared the day before by a group of church ladies in the kitchen (which, now that I think about it, was located in the basement.)
So my first volunteer job at the church, serving on the welcoming committee, meant learning how to make that strata.
While that moment didn't have exactly the same sacred significance as my baptism, the memories of preparing the dish are etched just as fondly and as vividly in my mind. I can still see the young mother and the retired woman who shared the strata-making chores with me one Saturday afternoon. We cut the bread, we sliced the cheese together, we talked -- a sort of feminine, domestic communion.
Memories of my first church meals (as someone who didn't grow up in a church) remain delicious to me, almost 25 years later. I was a single woman, 22, living alone for the first time in my first apartment, working 12-hour days and rarely having the occasion to prepare real, home-cooked food. Usually I slid into Sunday morning worship just behind the choir -- no time for breakfast -- or dashed to a Wednesday night dinner straight from the office. By the time the strata or the meatloaf was served, I was starved.
I don't recall any meal since that tasted better than that homely square of strata. And as an escapee from the Me Generation, looking for something more, those simple, communal meals stand out as joyous times of fellowship.
Almost 10 years later, I found myself at another Methodist church, University Park UMC in Dallas. Having recently moved to Dallas, my husband traveled and worked long hours. I was a new, exhausted and somewhat bewildered mother. Wednesday night dinners were a treasured oasis in the middle of my long week -- a hot meal enjoyed peacefully while other church members cuddled and passed my baby boy around. When my husband was on the road, that meal was often my only relaxed, face-to-face adult conversation of the work week.
I've taught Sunday school and led Disciple Bible studies -- an attempt to serve up food for the souls of fellow church members -- but doubt I've ever achieved the ability to minister to others in the way those church meals ministered to me.
We poke fun at the casseroles and the hallowed Jell-O salads and the cheese stratas that are a part of our edible Methodist canon. But we should always do so with tenderness. We must never forget how those simple meals minister to hungry souls, maybe in ways we'll never know.
Even in a country where food is plentiful and fast food is sold at almost every corner, there's something that's still rare -- perhaps more than ever before -- in the simple act of sharing an meal in fellowship. Even while many are watching the Food Channel and building their industrially-equipped gourmet kitchens, those unpretentious Jell-O salads still beckon. There's something that's still sacred in the breaking of bread together in a church.
I haven't seen the play Church Basement Ladies yet, but when it comes to my town, I'll be there. According to the producers, it honors what may be a disappearing breed: the Marthas of the world who give of themselves to minister to others with food. Theirs is a ministry that is often as nourishing to the soul as it is to the body, and for which I am grateful.
Mary Jacobs, Associate Editor
