The Great British Baking Show

Moses Project 2025

Luke 14:1-14

Sarah Ciavarri

In 2010, a tent revival began in the bucolic countryside of England. It was a big tent - big enough to hold the hopes and dreams of all who entered. This tent revival happened in the spring year after year and its popularity grew, more people wanted to join, the word was getting out.  When COVID hit, this big tent revival brought comfort to people across the globe. This tent revival isn’t put on by the Anglican Church, or the Billy Graham Association, and it wasn’t a satellite campus for the Revival in Belfast that gave us the great song, “Revival” by Mark Roberts.

The revival in the bucolic countryside has a singular focus.  Good food.  Specifically good bakes.  The Great British Baking Show. 

My family fell in love with this comfort show during the pandemic - maybe you did also. 

If you’ve yet to tune in, let me tell you about what you can expect:  12 contestants from across Britain competing in a tent over 10 weekends - they still do their regular life during the week! They put their aprons on **** and each week one baker will be crowned Star Baker and one will be sent home.

In the last episode one of the final 3 bakers will win the grand prize of a glass cake platter.  Each episode has a different theme: Bread week, patisserie week, caramel week, pie week and the contestants compete in 3 categories: Their signature challenge, the technical, and making a showstopper.  Sweet success is when you receive a handshake from judge Paul Hollywood or  judge Prui Leith says you have an instinct for flavors when you mix miso and lavender into a biscuit (that’s a cookie) and you have yourself ‘a little triumph.’  Our family has reignited our love for the BO this summer and as we’ve watched Juren, Guiseppe, and Sumaiah whisk eggs, plait bread, and laminate rough pastry, our oldest son has moved from just being a drooling spectator to an inspired co-creator; ordering the cookbooks and trying out his own ‘bakes’ at home. 

When you tune in, you see what is possible and what you can aspire to:  to know what a frangipane is, how to shine your chocolate, or how to avoid the dreaded ‘soggy bottom’ on your bake,

You see what is possible in relationships with other people.  Even with oneself.  It is a different reality. Some Americans love the BakeOff because it . . . isn’t American hyper-competition.  When a contestant is running down the last 30 seconds on the clock and the mad race is on to get their final piped rosettes onto their showstopper, you usually see a contestant who has completed their Vienna swirls run over and . . . help.  They show up and help each other thrive, even when the strategic advantage is to turn away. And then you hear, “Time’s up.  Bakers move away from your bakes!”

It is judgment time.

 When a contestant faints on camera, the music doesn’t sound like the Death March from Star Wars ramping up the viewers emotions and then for ratings - hold the viewers anxiety there through a well placed commercial break - no, what you immediately see is a quick response by the medics, the contestant being taken care of, getting the help they need. 

Contestants literally walk into the tent hand and hand, arms linked, happy - genuinely happy to be with each other, they praise each other's abilities, they share their mistakes and receive encouragement or help.  They work so hard week after week.  You see contestants all wanting to prove - not just their dough - but their ability to achieve but never, it seems, never at the price of their or another’s humanity.  It is Reality TV that calls on the best parts of our nature, not the worst.   Bake Off gives a view of a better world and the inspiration to believe we can create it - gingham tablecloths and all.

When someone does have to leave the tent at the end of the episode, the judges say words to right size the loss in their life, words like, “It’s just cake.  It’s just bread.”  Don’t define yourself by a few bad bakes; you are so much more than what you can produce.  The other contestants gather around, there are hugs, usually tears, and someone will always say, “I don’t want them to leave.  We’re like family.”

 At which point I’ve wanted to scream, “No, you’re not like a family - you’re better than a family!”

As pastors who have sat with people are hurt and wounded or have been scarred because of ‘family’, we know all the red flags this language can send up.  

Some families -

biological,

systems,

organizations,

churches, clubs,

jr. high lunch tables - 

make submission and obedience a prerequisite for love,

 compliancy and silence the price for a place at the table,

denial of one’s needs and experiences, the trade for a banquet of leftover crumbs, 

the slow selling of your soul, the cost of belonging.  

But you were not meant for crumbs.  And we do not trade in the selling of souls.

         *****

The Bake Off offers a different reality.  Oh sure, when 12 contestants enter the tent they hope to show their best baking skills and creativity, but at the end of each episode, and each season, the success of the GBO is that it is serving up hope, kindness, cooperation, and family:  a recipe for a good life.  It doesn’t just make better bakers across Britain, it makes better people whose hearts are a bit more open and because their hearts are open so are their minds and the love has a chance.

I eat it up.  I want to live in that tent with pastel mixers and fridges and all the love.  I want to be on the Bake Off.  . . . But I don’t care enough about fancy cake to become good enough to beat out the thousands who apply for the show. 

Give me Duncan Hines or Betty Crocker and I’m good to go. 

And I have the wrong papers, the wrong documents to belong.  I’m not British.  I am not a citizen.

****

If only there was another tent where the smell of bread baking wafted on the breeze. . .

Revive us, Revive us

Revive us with your fire!

You know the tent!  You are a co-creator with the Triune

God of that tent!

Let’s go to the tent where God the creator runs to the broken, battered and bruised in body, mind, and spirit as they come up the path, a robe, ring, and sandals are brought and given and God says, “My love, my love, this pain was never my intent for you.  This injustice and cruelty, this sin, that has crushed your spirit and heart into a thousand shards was never my hope or plan for you - mine was a future with hope and justice for the poor, the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner.  This, this pain was never what I wanted for you. So I sent my son, Jesus to share and bear your pain, to take away the sin of the world. He binds up the brokenhearted. 

Do you see Jesus over there?

Jesus is surrounded by friends you know - old and new, hey!  There’s the Moses Project gang!  And maybe that’s your Words with Friends buddy . . . you’ve never actually met IRL. 

The smell of bread baking wafts through the tent and there is a great cloud of witnesses here -

Elijah is saying, “Have I told you about the wildest meal I ever had? So, you see, these ravens . . . and Daniel answers back, “well, that makes me think of this diet the other Israelites and I used to honor God when we were in Babylon.  It’s vegetarian if you’re into that.”  And John says, “oh, I eat wild locust and honey.  It’s super ecofriendly.”

Noah, Nehemiah, and Ezra are curious how many cubits long the tent is and Moses tells the stories of setting up and taking down tents for 40 years in the wilderness and, let me tell you, it ain’t glamping.

Miriam’s in the tent talking about the flesh pots of Egypt, unleavened bread and the best ways to prepare manna and Martha is saying she’s not on kitchen duty today; someone else will have to scrub those pots.

The Sons of Thunder are making a raucous, and David dressed in priestly garments is about to dance before the Lord, and what are all these little kids doing running around?  They’re running around like this tent belongs to them! 

There is the Syro-Phoenician woman who had a thing or two to say about crumbs and Peter is telling fishing tall tales and Jonah pipes in, “Have I got one for you.” 

The Magi are in the tent - they brought spices and the women who went to the tomb are yelling, “Same!” Mary is looking for jugs of water and the woman at the well says she knows where to get it. 

There’s a whisper in the air, that Jesus will soon turn water into wine and Presiding Bishop elect Yehiel Curry is sharing

         “part of my vision is to find a way to bring more people to the table so that we might embody this work instead of it just being a written document.”

And speaking of written documents Martin is saying, “Oh? That whole bartering for souls issue?  We sorted it out back in 1517. 

Now, does anyone want a creme puff?  It’s Bavarian.  Let’s indulge a little.”

And you are there, with your Moses Project friends and as you eat your creme puff, you catch a glimpse of someone you think might be, could it be,  Judas, you can’t know for sure, you don’t know for sure, but what would it mean if he was here? 

A wolf, lamb, leopard, baby goat, calf and lion cub are all cuddled up together and not only is it super cute - your mind is blown - what is this place?  What’s in the water here?  You want to stay in this reality forever.  You want everyone you love and even those you tolerate - and why not even those you despise to be here too, because they’d be different here . . . you’re different here.

But then you hear, “Time’s Up.  Bakers move away from your bakes.”

It is judgement time.

The last trumpet has been sounded, you are called to come forward for the final judgement, knowing you can’t hide the underproved or overbaked bits of your life, all you’ve done and or failed to do under icing or sprinkles. You cannot sugarcoat anything.  You come forward with fear and trepidation, looking at your meager offering

It is way more Betty Crocker than frangipane-

It isn’t a showstopper - more like a deal breaker

 and you do not want to leave the tent, you have found love, joy, forgiveness and family here.  You have found the abundant life Jesus talked about. You know Jesus who will come again to judge the living and the dead.  In this final moment of judgement, instead of the condemnation you fear, you hear

your name, child of God, you were sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever. 

Enter the marriage feast that has no end.  Amen.