Consider the Ketchup Bottle

Consider the Ketchup Bottle

1 Peter 3:13-17 |   5/25/2014

The Church of the Wayfarer

Norm Mowery, Pastor

          I’ll bet you never heard a sermon about ketchup.  

          I had to come up with this one before I retire because my favorite food group, after Lula’s Sea Salt Caramels, is ketchup.

           It's the condiment found in nearly

                   Every American refrigerator and on

                   Every table in

                   Every real American diner.

          We put it on everything from eggs to fries to hot dogs.

          It takes some well-placed whacks on the bottle or a healthy squeeze to get it moving from bottle to plate, but, as the old commercial jingle said, "Anticipation" makes it worth the wait.

          Ketchup isn't something that pastors normally talk about.

          In fact, we rarely talk about it at all.          

          It's just something we take for granted.

          I love to put ketchup on everything— except ice cream.

          Momma Tomato, Papa Tomato and Junior Tomato were all strolling down the street.

          Junior Tomato was lagging behind Momma and Papa Tomato and this was making Papa Tomato irritated.

          Finally, in exasperation, Papa Tomato stomped his foot and yelled, "Come on, Junior! Ketch-Up!"

          The idea for this sermon came to me from Malcom Gladwell and his article, "The Ketchup Conundrum.”

          The history of ketchup reveals an interesting story.

          Before H.J. Heinz started making ketchup and putting it in the glass bottle, putting ketchup on anything was the equivalent of pouring toxic waste on it.

           Eating ketchup could be dangerous. Ketchup in 1866, just after the Civil War, was according to one cookbook, "Filthy, decomposed and putrid."

          A short tomato growing season, coupled with the lack of clean storage and the addition of highly flammable coal tar, to enhance the red color, all combined to make ketchup a potentially lethal concoction.

          In an 1896 study, for example, 90 percent of commercial ketchups were found to contain “ingredients that could lead to death."

          Enter Henry J. Heinz.

          In 1876, the Pittsburgh visionary bottled his first batch of tomato ketchup.

          Heinz was a morally strong man who believed that "heart power is better than horsepower," and developed a safe process for ketchup to be produced in a way that was transparent, consistent and pure.

          His factory was spotless.

          His workers were encouraged to be meticulous about cleanliness, and Heinz rewarded them with fresh uniforms, free laundry and even an in-house manicurist to make sure that every worker's nails were immaculate.

          The result was a perfect environment for making ketchup that would not only not kill you;

          it was so good that it became a staple on American dinner tables for the next century!

          Heinz was so focused on transparency that he refused to bottle his ketchup in the opaque brown bottles that were common at the time, choosing instead to use clear glass bottles as a way of demonstrating the product's purity.

          Heinz even opened his factory to 30,000 visitors per year so they could see that the company had nothing to hide.

          By 1906, Heinz was selling five million bottles of preservative-free ketchup every year, and chances are that the next transparent bottle of ketchup you reach for today still has the Heinz label on it.

          Henry Heinz built a lasting legacy and the trust of consumers because he focused on three things: transparency, consistency and purity.

          That clear, quality bottle of ketchup, whether it's the traditional glass design or the squeeze bottle, is still something that people trust.

          If we want people to trust the church must have transparency, consistency and purity.

1. Living lives of transparency
          Heinz made ketchup, but he was even more concerned about making the world a better place.

          Are we as "eager to do good," as Peter puts it in our scripture reading?

          Are we living lives that are equally transparent, "doing what is right" no matter what it might cost us, having nothing to hide?

          Peter offers us some advice on how to live the Christian life in such a way that everyone who sees us will know exactly what's inside our hearts.

          Peter is writing to churches in Asia Minor who are undergoing a great period of distress and persecution for their faith.

          Their environment stinks worse than fermented fish guts, and they're suffering in a world where the hidden agendas and filthy tactics of their opponents are “ingredients that could lead to death."

         

          Rather than retaliate or turn up their noses at this situation, Peter encourages the churches to live lives of transparency in the midst of suffering, "keeping a clear conscience so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander".  

          Peter says, "even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed".

          The real test of the Christian life is the ability to stay transparent, even when others are trying to dump the spiritual equivalent of toxic coal tar into your life. Suffering is inevitable in the Christian life, but the way we react to it makes all the difference.

          There's actually a website that I discovered. It is: www.transparency.org. Its mission is to "stop corruption and promote transparency, accountability and integrity at all levels of society.

          Their Core Values are needed in the church: transparency, accountability and integrity.  

          According to their website their vision is "a world in which government, politics, business, civil society and the daily lives of people are free of corruption."

          Some of their "guiding principles" work well for us to adopt as individuals or as congregations like, “We undertake to be open, honest and accountable in our relationships with everyone we work with, and with each other.”
         
          This is important for our church as well when it comes to our decisions, our finances and our beliefs. We need to be an open book.

2. Living lives that are consistent

          Have you ever thought about why ketchup has remained unchanged over so many years, while other condiments and sauces continue to adapt?

          Think about how mustard started as plain yellow mustard, but upgraded to Dijon mustard, and then diversified to honey mustard and so on.

          What made ketchup so perfect from the start that it never needed to change?

          Malcom Gladwell first raised this question in his article, "The Ketchup Conundrum," and it sparked me to think about how something as common and universal as ketchup could be so wildly successful and make for a good sermon.

.         Why does ketchup have no competitors?

          What was ketchup's secret?

          The scientific reason behind why ketchup has stood the test of time is in the secret recipe. Henry John Heinz perfected a recipe many years ago that balances all five fundamental tastes of the human palate—

salty, sweet, sour, bitter and umami.

          Malcolm Gladwell discusses umami as a key factor accounting for the sustained popularity of ketchup.

          Ketchup’s success is found in its perfect consistent balance. Any variation throws off this balance that wonderfully compliments so many different foods.

          Condiment makers have tried to make better ketchup variations since Heinz, but consumers continue to choose the original recipe. And to this day no one has found a more optimal version of ketchup.

          How does this apply to the church?

          The question that First Peter asks is: “Are we consistent in the midst of suffering.”  Are our message and our actions consistent over time?

          Peter addresses the question of how to live consistently as a Christian in the face of ultimate issues like death, ridicule, and persecution.

          In the summer of A.D. 64, a great fire destroyed much of Rome. Needing a scapegoat to blame, Nero, selected the Christians. Waves of oppression and persecution washed over the Christians in the Roman Empire. During this period Paul was killed by beheading and Peter was crucified upside down.

          Through it all, Peter’s life and message are consistent.

         

3. Living life with purity
          Today the word purity has taken on mainly negative connotations.

          It's understood as a sexual concept and is mostly seen as negative. For many people it connotes fear and timidity. Popular culture ridicules purity.

          That's sad because our lack of purity is one of the deep causes of sadness in our lives.
          Purity is not so much about sex as it is about intention. We need a certain purity of intention or we will always manipulate others.

          We are pure when our hearts don't greedily grab what isn't ours.

          Peter says, “Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” Have pure intentions.

Living life with pounding and suffering
          In reading through the New Testament it's clear that God somehow uses (but not causes) suffering to produce something in us.

          In Romans, for example, Paul says that

suffering produces endurance,

endurance produces character

and character produces hope.

          Jesus said that we should rejoice when we suffer, because it means that we're representing him and we're coming closer to the kingdom. Somehow, in a counterintuitive way, suffering can wind up producing the best in us.

          We only need to look at a ketchup bottle to be reminded of this.

          The classic glass Heinz bottle doesn't make it easy to pour out the ketchup. The thick tomato mixture is strengthened with xanthan gum, which makes it a "non-Newtonian fluid," or one that changes its viscosity or flow rate under stress.

          That's why you have to whack a bottle of Heinz ketchup repeatedly to get the good stuff to come out, but it has to be done correctly.

          Pounding on the bottom of the bottle only causes the non-Newtonian mix at the mouth of the bottle to get thicker, thus restricting the flow and making that hot dog a little less hot because of the wait.

          Instead, the way you get the ketchup to transform into sheer thinning fluid, or non-non-Newtonian fluid, is to tap on the top of the bottle or, even more ideally, to tap two fingers on the "57 Varieties" label on the bottle's neck.

          That's the force that produces the good stuff!

          The pounding of persecution and suffering can produce the same effect in us.

          It can either cause us to stiffen, or it can trigger a flow of the fruit of the Spirit in us that can season the world.

          Peter says that this is exactly what happened with Jesus, who suffered for our sins on the cross and yet produced the effect of bringing people to God.

          Peter goes on to say that baptism reminds us that we're people belonging to Jesus and that we're to reflect him in our conduct, our character and even in our suffering.

           As Jesus said, the true people of God will be "known by their fruits".

          Are we presenting ourselves to the world as an opaque bottle of rotten fish guts, full of hatred, sin and revenge?
          Or, are we transparent, consistent and pure?

          O, yes, what does "57 Varieties" refer to on Heinz labels?

          While riding a train in New York City in 1896, Henry J. Heinz saw a sign advertising 21 styles of shoes, which he thought was clever. Although Heinz was manufacturing more than 60 products at the time, Henry thought 57 was a lucky number.

          So, he began using the slogan "57 Varieties" in all his advertising.

          Q: How is life like ketchup?
          A. Like ketchup, good things in life come slow and are worth waiting for.

                                                Prayer
God of grace, we offer our thanks
          for all those who have given us the gift of new life;
          for those who have let us trust their faith when ours was full of doubts;
          for those who have been a beacon of hope when we were hopeless;
          for those who have shown us a light when we were surrounded in darkness
          for all those we name and remember who have sowed your kindness and love in our lives.

          In these moments of quietness, we ask that you would help us to do likewise.

          As others have shown us what a life of faith looks like, so might we reflect this light to each person we meet.

          You have lavished your love upon us, O God; let it be that the lives we live might readily show your love.

          This we ask in the name of Jesus Christ who came that we might know what a life of love looks like, and who taught us to say when we pray ...