Pass the Chicken and Beam Me Up

by Matt Brown

Hey, let’s get the sauce on and then talk some God stuff, and how it may or may not relate to Star Trek.

2 cups of plain Kraft BBQ sauce
2 cups of Texas Pete
3 heaping tablespoons of frozen orange juice concentrate
3 heaping tablespoons of minced garlic
1 stick of butter

Place ingredients in a pot and simmer until the butter and orange juice are melted.

Heat charcoal. If you do not use a charcoal grill, then you should be banished from BBQ land, and you probably never really appreciated why some of us like to play with fire, but God probably loves you, so I guess you can stay.

If you are using charcoal, then watch those flames as they leap and dance out and around the Weber. Don’t tell your fireman friend, but sometimes the flames almost reach my tree in back. Anyway, as you wait for the charcoal to ash, and as you watch the smoke rise (hopefully not from your burning house or deck) you can ask yourself this question:

Ever wonder why the apostles saw Jesus “taken up into Heaven” Luke 24:50? I mean, that’s a metaphor. Jesus does not live in the sky – heaven is not in a blimp or something, so it makes me wonder: what would the ascension look like today? Now I am not saying that the ascension of Jesus did not happen, and I am not at all saying that Jesus did not go back to heaven, but what I am saying is that to the 1st century audience going up into the sky would be a powerful image. However, the 21st century audience sees stuff go into the sky all the time (small children’s balloons, heavy airplanes, UFOs, and blimps (blimps are cool). So if we saw Jesus ascend today, I think it would be more like seeing him get beamed up like on Star Trek. We would not even call it the ascension, but the beam up, or time-warp or something like that. All those paintings that depict Jesus going up on a cloud might look a lot more like an episode of Deep Space Nine or something (I’m not a geek, but I know a lot of geeks – no really, I can only name like 10 or 11 original Star Trek episodes by title).

You might say “hey that’s a stupid thing to think about” or you might roll your eyes and ask “hey is that charcoal ready yet?”, but here’s the thing that scares some people, but that I think is cool. God speaks deep truths to us in metaphor and image. Our broken and fallen language is often too feeble to even begin to touch some of the truths that God lays out for us. Our life, like scripture, is multilayered and rich with meaning. Sometimes I wonder if the people who want the Bible to be totally literally true are really afraid of the deeper meanings that they might uncover if they had to deal with its nuances.

Think about that while you watch the fire.

Now that the coals have ashed over, place the chicken on the grill (make sure to manage those flare-ups). Sprinkle the chicken with a nice dry seasoning (rotisserie seasoning works well) and cook covered for 5 minutes. Flip the chicken, sprinkle the dry seasoning again, and cover for 5 minutes. Now get the sauce.

Flip, baste, and cook until the chicken is done.
Heat the left over sauce for dipping.
Say grace.
Take no (chicken) prisoners.