This is a kebab on chips with taco sauce and cheese. Nothing about the naming of this meal makes sense. Unlike a typical kebab - it’s not lamb meat shaved off a rotisserie - it’s diced up fried chicken. The taco sauce tastes nothing like tacos - it’s more of a ketchup-mayo and spices concoction. For the Americans, these aren’t chips - they’re french fries. The cheese is appropriately named.
Naming conventions aside, this meal is important. Not because it’s incredibly delicious. Don’t get me wrong - it is incredibly delicious. But that’s not what makes it important. It’s important because it’s meals like this that serve to bring us together while we’re all serving in Northern Ireland.
Putting on a two week program together, you end up sharing a lot of meals. While some of them are more memorable than others, they all share a common theme of being shared together. While we eat we talk about what Jesus is doing all around us. What he’s teaching us. What he’s preparing us for tomorrow. Where we saw him work in the life of a student today. We just talk real life that overflows from doing what he called us to do - loving one another and making disciples.
This meal doesn’t look very much like the bread Jesus broke and the wine he poured out on the night he was betrayed. But his intentions for that meal take place - we all do it together with great thanks in remembrance of him.
