Kitchen Nightmares

November 7th, 2008 Tim Posted in SevenLakes Info |

(Nancy) My family and I like to watch the TV show Kitchen Nightmares.  In case you’ve never seen it, the concept is that Chef Gordon Ramsey (of “Hell’s Kitchen” fame) is asked to help a struggling restaurant. The word “nightmare” is usually not an exaggeration: the food is terrible, the owners and cooks and managers and waiters are lazy and fighting, debt is mounting… Chef Ramsey comes in, tries the food (I think he stays slim because he only eats more than one bite when the food is good) and asks the owners and staff what they think the problem is. He gives them advice, spruces the place up a little, adds a few special menu items and they have a revamped dinner service. Things do not go much better.

So, he digs deeper, much deeper. He finds the rotten lettuce, the lazy chef, the drunken manager, the stealing cook. After they throw out the canned or tainted food, he sets the staff and owners to do a thorough cleaning. During this, he tours the area to see what the surrounding culture is like, often finding farm-fresh produce or fresh-caught fish or clientele preferences that were completely ignored by the restaurant owners/managers.

He returns, shows them how to reach the culture and gives them a passion for local food and people. His staff redoes the decor to match the new theme. Chef Ramsey often facilitates them working out their teamwork problems.

Now, Chef Ramsey is certainly not Jesus. I doubt Jesus used profanity as regularly as he does and he certainly has pride issues. But I do see parallels in how Ramsey helps the restaurant and how Christ exposes and heals sin in our lives. I am reminded of the Chronicles of Narnia story in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Eustace’s sinful heart causes him to become a dragon. He realizes his sin and laments his scales. He tries to scratch them off himself. Many fall around him but, after each attempt, he looks at his reflection in the lake and there is no visible change. Then Aslan, the Christ figure, comes to him and makes a deep and painful cut with his claw and tears off the old dragonish skin, leaving new, raw human skin.

Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. (Psalm 34:8-9 NIV)

No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. (Hebrews 12:11 NIV)

because the Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son. (Hebrews 12:6 NIV)