Chocolate Chip Cookies and Faith

You are one smart cookie. If you haven’t heard that before, I am telling you now, you are one smart cookie. To the untrained eye, a chocolate chip cookie is a chocolate chip cookie, but that is completely false.

Let’s examine the humble chocolate chip cookie. In every basic chocolate chip cookie recipe there is flour, baking soda, white sugar, brown sugar, salt, vanilla, eggs, butter, and of course chocolate chips. Each ingredient has its own unique properties. Flour; it provides structure, sugar; it adds sweetness, baking soda; leavens, etc. These single ingredients are mixed together in one bowl and come together to form a dough. The dough is portioned out and baked, sometimes. I say sometimes only because sometimes a batch of dough never reaches the oven, its eaten straight from the bowl, no judgment there.

Regardless, the ingredients have been thrown into a single bowl and transformed from single ingredients into delicious chocolate chip cookies. The ingredients alone are nothing spectacular, but when they come together they turn into something quite delicious. The whole cookie tastes better than its individual parts.

The sum is greater than the whole. Last week during Morning Prayer, the reading for the day reflected this simple idea. The reading was a letter from Paul to the Corinthians, and stated, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses. For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body so it is with Christ.” Each individual has their own gift. It may be something as simple, like drawing a funny cartoon or calling a friend, but it is a gift to embrace and share. That gift is important to everyone. These different gifts, support all individuals in their daily life and work whether we recognize it or not. We are connected by these gifts through the Holy Spirit, God.

Come back to the simple chocolate chip cookie. Yes, the ingredients are different, and perhaps they can stand alone, but it is when they come together that spectacular things happen. Remember we are all smart cookies, we all come from one bowl, and through faith in God; we will never crumble.