Spice of Life

Fostering meaningful friendships to find flavor in life

02/07/2018

1 Kings 10:1-10 The queen of Sheba, having heard of Solomon's fame, came to test him with subtle questions. She arrived in Jerusalem with a very numerous retinue, and with camels bearing spices, a large amount of gold, and precious stones. She came to Solomon and questioned him on every subject in which she was interested. King Solomon explained everything she asked about, and there remained nothing hidden from him that he could not explain to her. Then she gave the king one hundred and twenty gold talents, a very large quantity of spices, and precious stones. Never again did anyone bring such an abundance of spices as the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.

I am responsible for the discovery of America. Well, not exactly me personally, but my people from India. Do you remember the main motive for Christopher Columbus to leave Spain in search of the new world? He was actually searching for a shortcut to India, a faster way than the normal trade routes, to obtain Indian spices. The children’s nursery rhyme teaches: “In fourteen hundred and ninety-two, Columbus sailed the ocean blue. / He had three ships and left from Spain / He sailed through sunshine, wind and rain…Day after day they looked for land; / They dreamed of trees and rocks and sand. / October 12 their dream came true, / You never saw a happier crew! / ‘Indians! Indians!’ Columbus cried; / His heart was filled with joyful pride. / But ‘India’ the land was not; / It was the Bahamas and it was hot. / The Arakawa natives were very nice; / They gave the sailors food and spice. / Columbus sailed on to find some gold / to bring back home as he’d been told.” Sometimes we think explorers are only looking for gold – and most of the time they are – but spices ranked right up there with gold as a precious commodity. And it still does today.

Do you enjoy eating spicy food? A priest friend of mine loves habanero chilies, which are very spicy hot, and he says: “A good chili burns you twice.” (I will give you a second to chew on that.) The spicy heat of a chili pepper is measured by the Scoville Scale, named for its creator, the American pharmacist, Wilbur Scoville, in 1912. The hottest chili peppers in the world have intimidating names: the Carolina Reaper, Pepper X, and Dragon’s Breath. Those chilies will burn you more than twice. Columbus may not have been searching for the Dragon’s Breath chili pepper, but he was looking for the spice of life.

King Solomon also loved good spices. The Queen of Sheba (roughly modern day Yemen) rewarded Solomon for his great wisdom by giving him a ton of spices. We read in 1 Kings 10: “Then she gave the king one hundred and twenty gold talents, a very large quantity of spices, and precious stones. Never again did anyone bring such an abundance of spices as the queen of Sheba gave to King Solomon.” Maybe the queen hid a few Caroline Reapers in the mountain of spices she gave to the king. Solomon, no less than Columbus, was looking for the spice of life.

May I suggest to you, however, that the real spice of life is friendship? Friendship was the real spice that Columbus received from the Arakawa natives, and friendship was the real spice that Solomon received as a reward from the Queen of Sheba. Think about your friends. Are some friends too hot to handle, too spicy? Sometimes our friends “burn us twice” because they betray us, or lie to us, or spread rumors about us. We may discover they are like a Carolina Reaper chili pepper and we cannot handle their spice. But other friends (even though they are hot) may challenge us, make us think differently, help us to try a new activity and their friendship adds a delicious flavor to our life, like my priest friend loved habanero chilies. You may think sometimes that because a class or a sport or an instrument or a teacher is too hard – they are too spicy! – you want to give up on it. But I have learned that when I do something really hard that is when I have grown the most in life. And the hardest things in the world to work on are good friendships, the spice of life.

A good friendship is like a good chili: it always burns you twice, and probably more than twice. But discovering a great friend is also when you have discovered the spice of life.

Praised be Jesus Christ!