It’s that time again. The Best of Me Symphony #59 put together ever so colorfully and eloquently by The Owner’s Manual. This week, Gary once again demonstrated his prowess by the “guest-conducting” of Fran Lebowitz.



My entry for this week’s repertoire is a piece I wrote after reading a very popular blogger flaunt what she calls evidences of the superiority of Western Culture.

When I tried to raise doubt on the wisdom, the appropriateness as well as the validity of the claim, I was all but shut out. So I came back to my own corner of blogosphere and penned the post which is profiled at the top of this week’s Symphony. It is also one that is quite appropo to the recent kerfuffle over the moral superiority debate.

Perhaps you are tired of this debate already. Let me assure you mine is not the only post on this Symphony. There are others as well, all well presented by Gary once again. Enjoy!

My wife loves Iron Chef. This evening, while watching the Iron Chef America Preview Special. I learned a valuable object lesson about differences in culture and value systems.

During the Preview program, a profile of a past competition between American chef Bobby Fley against Japanese Iron Chef, Marimoto, the American team did the unthinkable in the minds of the Japanese Chef community.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Iron Chef competition, let me briefly explain. The Iron Chef Challenge takes place in Iron Kitchen Stadium, a specially designed kitchen set where chefs comepete while television cameras roll, in front of a live audience.

Iron Chefs are the top chefs in their particular cuisine. They are: Iron Chef Japanese, Iron Chef French, Iron Chef Italian and Iron Chef Chinese. At the start of each program, a Challenger Chef, along with his team of assistants , are introduced. The Challenger chooses to go against one of the reigning Iron Chefs.

Once the Challenger team has chosen the Opponent, the Moderator introduces the Ingredient of the day. Then the competing teams have 60 minutes to come up with several creative dishes of their choice, with the condition that each must contain the main Ingredient of the day.

Adrenalin rush ferociously as the teams race the clock to whip up their best culinary fare to claim the coveted prize. At the end of the 60 minutes the chefs serve their meal to a panel of judges who score the dishes on the basis of taste, presentation and creativity. The team with the highest aggregate score wins.

During the program I watched this evening, they showed Bobby Fley’s team was so juiced up that when they completed their dishes in the allotted time, his team lifted him up onto the counter and Fley stood on the chopping block and lifting up both his arms cheered loudly “lifting the roof.” His team and the American stadium audience cheered rambunctiously along with him. The Japanese team stood in stunned, jaw-dropped silence, . You see the chopping block, the chopsticks and the cooking utensils were sacred in the Iron Chef culture. It was inconceivable to them for a professional Chef to stand on the chopping block!

They showed not only Iron Chef Marimoto and his team, but also another Iron Chef, Iron Chef Sakai, and other Japanese members of the audience, watched on in shocked disbelief while the American cavorted on top of the sacrosanct chopping block.

Later they interviewed Sakai who explained the cultural values of the Japanese chefs. To them the Americans had committed a terrible faux pas. Iron Chef Sakai smiled, shrugged his shoulders and quipped, “I guess that is done in good intentions. He was excited. It was all good! Maybe next time I will do it!”

I thought, “Oh wow! What generosity, humility, understanding and demonstration of world citizenship!” Perhaps something for us all to learn!

My pastor preached on James 2 today and I believe that this passage throws light on some issues surrounding my recent reflections about comparative culture and morality.

My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, “Here’s a good seat for you,” but say to the poor man, “You stand there” or “Sit on the floor by my feet,” have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is my first entry to the “Jesus as Logician” project (but see Jeremy Pierce’s objection to the title of the project). It is taken from John 8:3-11.

When the Pharisees brought a woman who was caught in adultery before Jesus, they intended to entrap Him in a moral connundrum. The Law of Moses, they said, required that such a woman be stoned to death. They were hoping to force Jesus to have to either advocate killing the woman or to be accused of breaking the Law by letting the woman go.

Jesus’ response threw them for a loop,

“He who is without sin cast the first stone.”

Rather than be caught in a false dilemma, Jesus demonstrated that there isn’t just the choice of carrying out or ignoring what the Law of Moses demanded.

He demonstrated that the Law of Moses is not simply a legal document that one consults concerning the rightness and wrongness of actions, meting out punishment by the execution of “blind justice”.

Jesus demonstrated that contrary to the Pharisees’ understanding (and that of many Christians and students of the Old Testament today) the Mosaic Law is first and foremost based on the grace and mercy of God (as demonstrated, for instance, in the Day of Atonement - see Leviticus 16), and rooted in a vital and dynamic relationship with God (as demonstrated in the Preamble to the giving of the Mosaic Law in Exodus 20:2, Deut. 6:1-4).

By inviting the first person who is without sin to cast the first stone, Jesus not only underscores the relational priority of the Law, He also exposed the hyprocrisy that belies the Pharisees’ accusations. He also showed that the Law was given not for condemnation but for empowerment and freedom (Isaiah 61:1-3).

They were more interested in condemning the woman who was caught in the act of adultery than they were in offering God’s grace and mercy towards a person desperately in need of divine intervention.

Jesus’ next words showed that the logic of the Law is undergirded by the grace and mercy of God.

“Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”

“No, Lord.”

“Neither do I condemn you. Go and leave your life of sin.”

Law, Jesus shows, is to be understood in the context of relationship. And the basis of this relationship is the proactive love of God who came to first love us and to give us His Son to repair the brokenness and to fill the emptiness in our lives.

Note: For further meditations in this passage, see my previous post on the implications of those powerful words, “Neither do I condemn you.”