Friends,

When I was a kid, I do not remember any of my peers asking it, but adults kept trying to give us the answer to the question, “What makes us human?” Many religious folks would say that our souls are the single factor separating us from animals, but what exactly does having a soul mean? What evidence of the soul can we gather? Incidentally, this what my secular education seems to have been trying to answer. The first answer I remember receiving to this question is that it is our big brains that make us human. This makes sense from the religious and secular perspective. It is our big frontal lobes that gives us personality, empathy and all sorts of fun stuff that looks and feels like a soul. The problem with this answer is that we don’t have the biggest or most complex brains. Dolphins and other mammals have highly developed brains that outpace us in several metrics. The teachers would often point this out as if it were an interesting bit of trivia, but I always thought it completely undermined their initial goal. That can’t be what makes us human or gives us a soul. Maybe, Dolphins have bigger souls than us? Child-Nick was perplexed.

By third grade the talking points shifted and it was less about our big brains, and more about our ability to use tools. Images of the beginning scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey come to mind. When the ape picks up the bone and uses it as a club a fundamental shift happens in the course of humanity. This species of ape suddenly became something more. It could change its environment for tremendous good or evil, the outcome not being terribly different than taking a bite of that forbidden fruit. I feel like as soon as I started to hear that we are the only animal that used tools, I started to see documentaries on Animal Planet about orangutangs and chimpanzees using sticks to get termites. This was clearly an animal using a tool. Now you can find quite a few well-documented examples of animals using tools and other things that we thought were just for us bi-peds. They aren’t even all mammals with nice big brains. My favorite example of tool use in animals are the crows who know how to use traffic lights as a tool to open hard nuts. You find David Attenborough blowing young Nick’s mind in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGPGknpq3e0

What are some objective things that make us unique on a foundational level as a species? So far, grade-school science classes and nature documentaries have only offered disappointment, but I have the answer. It’s grilled meat.

No other animal cooks meat, and there is good reason Weber Grills are in such high demand, even when there is a perfectly good stove top in the house. It’s not just about cooking the meat; it’s about gathering around it. I absolutely love being the grill master at outdoor parties. Different groups of people form cliques and little circles, but everyone gathers around the grill to check on how things are going. The one with the apron and tongs gets to greet the petitioners, chat and enjoy the sight, sounds and smell coming from the charcoal. We should not be surprised that grilling or similar activities are so popular around the world, because it is right there is scripture. In Genesis 4:4 Abel’s offering of burnt fatty meat is favored by God over Cain’s grain offering. Even for those who have stricken meat from their diet can see the appeal of this ritual and social activity. The large market of meat substitutes is evidence that it’s not about the meat itself. Hanging around a heat source and watching our collective meal cook is something we seemed to be hardwired to enjoy.

All of this is to say, the BBQ ministry at St. Luke’s is a caretaker of a sacred thing. I invite people to Church a lot. I never force the invitation, but when it comes up I encourage people to try us out. More times than not, I see a familiar awkward face that is indicative of some sort of block that would prevent them from trying us out. This could be a commitment to another Church, even one they haven’t been to in years, or a general aversion of Church altogether. Either way it's fine. When it comes to inviting people to our faith community, “no” is always an acceptable answer. I do not have this problem when it comes to the annual St. Luke’s BBQ. Whatever baggage people had stored about religion the Episcopal Church or whatever, flies out of the window, and people follow the amazing smell to our three giant smokers and form a queue as they wait for their turn to share in our communal meal.

On paper our annual BBQ is a fundraiser in support of our parish retreat at Shrine Mont, and it is a massive operation. Dozens of people gather to fill their specific role to make the first Saturday of May our special day to sell six hundred pounds of pork, one hundred and twenty pounds of chicken and dozens of big trays of coleslaw (the best I’ve had) and baked beans, and I don’t think they are drawn to this ministry to subsidize this retreat. The BBQ, craft fair, concert series, and pumpkin patch all exist on paper to make money for something. This isn’t wrong by any means, but I don’t think it’s why we do it. In the case of our BBQ, we a tapping into something that is part of what makes us human. For most, that smell speaks to our souls and bypasses lifetimes of hurt, baggage, or even general disinterest in what we do on Sunday morning, and invites them to a different sort of community meal. It’s not Church, but it kind of feels like it, and it is our opportunity to show without words or explanation what going to Church feels like.

Grilled meat is not the single unifying answer to the question posed by philosophical scientists or theologians, and I think maybe the question is flawed. We shouldn’t be looking for evidence of our soul or “the” thing that makes us human, when so much speaks to our souls and the souls around us. If there is an answer to this question, I suspect that it is something we feel rather than know. Most love grilling out but not everyone. Some, like me, love grilling out even though I cannot eat the meat. Other are drawn to concerts, while others prefer to sit those out. We are caretakers of sacred things, and the most sacred of these moments are felt and not known or quantified. When your soul lights up at the sight, smell or sound of something, follow it, and you might just end up at sacred ground, even if that is under Richard McFarland’s tent in the shadow of our steeple.

Blessings,

Nick