"Hope Lives" A Sermon Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Chesapeake City, MD. September 26, 2021

Jeremiah 31: 27-34

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of humans and the seed of animals.

And just as I have watched over them to pluck up and break down, to overthrow, destroy, and bring evil, so I will watch over them to build and to plant, says the Lord. 

In those days they shall no longer say: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” 

But all shall die for their own sins; the teeth of everyone who eats sour grapes shall be set on edge.

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah.  

It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the Lord.

But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord;  I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.  

No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other “Know the Lord,” for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.

My husband and I recently moved to Maryland's Eastern Short from Georgia, where we were both born and had lived for over half of our married years, including our four years in seminary.   We are both ordained pastors in the PCUSA, but about ten years ago, after several years of us trying to balance vocational ministry in two separate congregations with our then three teenage sons, I felt a tug to take a break from “traditional” ministry and to listen for how God might be calling me in more creative, less traditional way to be a “minister.”  

At the time, our oldest was entering college and I was primary caregiver for my dad.  I wanted and needed fulfilling work that would utilize my gifts and skills, but would allow me the freedom and flexibility to be the mother and daughter that I needed to be at that time. 

So I returned back to my original calling, that of a math teacher and tutor. For over thirty years now, I have taught and tutored math from 6^th grade up to PreCalculus.

No, I’m not here to give you a surprise math lesson or a pop quiz, and no, I didn’t learn about teaching math in seminary.  But I did learn a lot about hope.  I didn’t learn about much about teenagers in seminary, but I did learn a lot about grace. 

Jeremiah’s words to the Israelites that we read this morning are all about grace and hope.  And let me tell you, when you are dealing with teenagers who don’t enjoy math and struggle to “get it,” and with parents who are at wit’s end with CoVid learning, virtual lessons, and plummeting grades, and teachers who are pressed to cover the material at a certain pace in order to meet state standards, there is plenty of room for grace.  Plenty.  And it is from this grace that hope can arise.

So when people ask me what ministry I’m in now, I usually reply that I’m in math ministry. Because truthfully, the work I do, the things I see, it’s not so different from the stories we find in scripture. Both include cycles of orientation, disorientation, and reorientation. Both involve stories of comfort, then discomfort, then the promise of hope and the arrival of renewal. 

Darkness and Despair

Many students are feeling the depths of despair these days.  And as a society, we are trying to figure out how to keep our students and our teachers healthy and safe as the world wrestles with a pandemic.  Students are coming off of a year of virtual learning with little to no supervision. Many live in households that are not conducive to concentration, some even lacking reliable internet access.  

I suspect a lot of the students did whatever they could to pass and didn’t really learn the material they should have.  I try to show them grace, but it’s frustrating.  Anxiety is high, and we are all stressed.  

“I have a 52, and I don’t remember any Algebra! How am I going to pass PreCalculus?”

“My son was quarantined for ten days and is now totally lost. He is so far behind in all of his classes. Can you recommend a tutor? 

“Is it too late to change her schedule?” 

Just as students, teachers, and parents find themselves in spiral of frustration that seems to have no end, in today’s passage, God has been beyond frustrated with the Israelites for years, and for a variety of reasons.  

In Jeremiah 1, we find out that they have made offerings to other Gods (Jeremiah 1:16), and they have worshipped the work of their own hands (1:16)

In chapter 2, they have defiled God’s land (2:7) and made God’s heritage an abomination (2:7)

It’s like it is midterm and the Israelites have found themselves failing miserably.  Life has been difficult for them for a while, and they have not quite lived up to their potential. God is not pleased, and Jeremiah is the one in the middle of it all.

They have been ripped from their homeland, utterly displaced.  They no longer have access to the temple, the place where they literally believed God lived. It sits miles away from them, in ruins.  They are quite sure they had been abandoned.  They are living the dark night of the soul.  

Enter Jeremiah, with these words of grace in the midst of despair, with words of assurance that hope that is on the horizon for God’s chosen people Israel.  

Promise and Hope

The only ones more in need of grace and hope than the Israelites might just today’s teenagers.  So I sit with students before or after school and I say something like this:  “Let’s forget everything that’s happened from March of 2020 until now, and let’s just look forward.”I say this because I’ve learned that with many of these kids, it’s a psychological game.  When you have a 54 average and the last 18 months have been like nothing any of us have ever experienced,  the pit can feel so deep that finding a way out seems next to, if not impossible.  

It’s not over yet, I tell them.  There’s still room for hope. 

They come for extra help after school, they watch endless videos online and retake assessments. We talk about renewed effort, about moving forward and not looking back.  We talk about new agreements and a new mentality. As teachers, we practice grace and embody hope, and the students begin to hold their heads up and move forward, taking one step at a time, day by day, grade by grade. 

Hope lives. 

Just like my students, the Israelites are so mired in their troubles and their failure that they are sure God has forgotten them.  It is to these people that Jeremiah brings words of hope and promise.  “The day is coming,” the prophet writes, “when God will again sow and build and plant.” 

Destruction, despair, failure—these do not get the last word.

Jeremiah assures them, assures us, that the way forward is paved by God, but it looks different than we might expect.  It’s a new way, a new covenant, unlike the old.  “You see, as much as I love you,” God says, “you just can’t do it. You’re not capable.  This will not be a covenant that you can break, nor will it be a life that you can choose to live.  This new covenant, this new law, will be written on your hearts. It will be a part of you just as the color of your eyes or the texture of your skin.  

God promises a new future, and the Israelites grasp it, holding on for dear life, grateful for the grace, leaning into the promise,  and keeping their focus on the hope of the future.  

Looking forward, forgiving and forgetting

As my students approach me after that first failed test, I begin to gently urge them out of the pit.  We sit down with their grade sheet and make a plan for the next week, the next unit, and maybe even the rest of the quarter. The future is clean and fresh, empty of F’s and 0’s.  Sure, we know the old ones are still there, but there’s something about those empty squares that make the hope more believable, more real.

The empty squares don’t remind them of the past, but rather point toward the promise that lies in the future.  It’s a new day, and they are confident they can do this.  They look forward, focusing on the horizon. 

Just students who come through my door with their heads down and their hearts aching, the Israelites also know they are in a mess.  They are quite sure God has abandoned them.  

But Jeremiah shows them another way, promising them that God is faithful despite their unfaithfulness. It’s not over yet, Jeremiah tells Israel. There’s still hope.  God is a God of justice, of faithfulness.  The God who created and loves this world has a new covenant in mind. A clean slate. A new plan. 

Unlike the old covenant, which is an external, law-based yoke, this new covenant has walked among us and been written on our hearts.   This new covenant is not rigid or forced or legalistic, but rather it is “embodied willingly in those committed to it in their behaviors.”  

Just like students find hope in the empty squares of a forward-looking grade sheet, so too we can find hope in God’s promised new covenant—one that focuses more on conversation and less on commandments, more on relationship and less on rules.   

For the House of Israel, indeed for us with each new day, God is turning the page in the grade book, wiping each column, each row, clean.  “I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more,” says the Lord. 

As one theologian puts it “God’s strategy is to practice divine amnesia, an amnesia rooted in forgiveness and forgetting, for in (these) God gives optimistic opportunity.”  

Today’s voice of hope from Jeremiah suggests that there is light no matter how deep the darkness may seem.  Grace abounds, God’s promise is sure, and hope is on the horizon.   “The days are surely coming, says the Lord…”

What is the horizon which you seek? What are the days for which you wait?  

Are you waiting for the pain of grief to subside, to no longer feel the weight of it with each breath, with each step?

Are you waiting for the day when your loved ones can find a job, return to work, and make enough to keep the mortgage paid, to have food on the table, and maybe even a little left over for a movie and some popcorn at the end of the week?

Are you waiting for the one you love to finally realize that she is worth loving, or to realize that God loves her despite her failures and her rocky past?

Are you waiting for the longtime friend or family member to take his last breath, declaring victory over the evils of cancer or aging or Alzheimer’s? 

Are you waiting for the day when the cloud lifts from your soul, when the overwhelming sadness that you feel, but that no one else can see, is finally overcome by a desire to keep living?

Are you waiting for the day when you feel again the unconditional love of a mother or a father, long gone, or maybe not so long-gone, who loved you more than life itself?

What are the days for which you wait?

Whatever they are, know that there is hope—a light shining in the darkness.

Wherever you are, know that there is forgiveness—from God and from those who love you.

Whatever you’ve done, know that God remembers no more—you’ve been washed clean. 

Whoever you are, know that God loves you enough to have written that love within you, on your very heart. 

Know that you are God’s, that God’s got you.  Despite the darkness that you might feel pressing in all around, God’s got you. 

And this God has not abandoned us, will not abandon, despite our failures and our disobedience.  Nothing we have done puts us out of redemption’s reach.  Nothing.

May you be renewed, refreshed, and rejuvenated this day by the promise of hope and the reality of grace. 

May you find hope in the empty squares of a grade sheet, knowing that with each new day, you are given the chance to start over. Again and again and again. 

May you find comfort in knowing that despite what you think your grade sheet says at the end of a week, or a semester, or a year, or a lifetime, God’s promises are for YOU, for us.  And God has got us all.  

Benediction

Go from this place today sure of God’s faithfulness and of God’s promise. 

Go form this place believing that hope lives. 

Go from this place knowing that God’s got you. 

And not only does God have you, but God’s got the one you’re most worried about. 

Indeed, God’s got us all. 

Thanks be to God.  

A Sermon on Genesis 22:1-14, preached in June 2011.

“Do What?”

A Sermon on Genesis 22:1-14

What was I thinking?  Seriously.  When I decided that this was the text on which I should focus our thinking this morning, what was I thinking?  Because this is hard stuff. 

I don’t preach often, but I do preach often enough to have a sort of rhythm to my sermon-writing—a way of listening, reading, studying, and writing that eventually leads to this thing we call a sermon.  But this text was different.

Now maybe it’s arrogant of me to think that because it was hard for me, it is hard for others as well.  But because it was hard for me, and because it IS a hard text, I wanted to share with you a bit about how I worked through it. 

Once I had committed to preach from this passage today—about a month or so ago—I started living with it in my head.  I read it a few times here and there, and really, that’s when the anxiety began. 

Just thinking about having to make some bit of sense of this horrific account would make me squirm.   But I persisted.  I wrestled.  I procrastinated.  And on about Thursday, when I could really procrastinate no more, I dove in and began my attempts at reconciling this story of Abraham and his God—this God who asks of him the unthinkable--the God who we worship…the God whom we have come to know in Jesus Christ…with our own stories. 

First, I tried to look at the story as a mother, as Sarah—a mother who is not mentioned at all in the narrative, but one who surely was aware of what was going on.I laid this narrative beside the reality of my week—walking beside a friend through the death of her own son Michael, gone too young, in his early 30’s. 

“God did not will this,” I told myself over and over in my head as I carried this family in my heart this past week. “God did not cause this,” became my internal mantra as I tried to be present for her in whatever way I could. 

And really, that only made this story more difficult, because as I embraced and leaned on a God who was mourning with my friend over the death of her son, I became more and more certain that God would never have asked this of Abraham.  And yet the story is there. 

These musings made it impossible to tell the story from Sarah’s perspective because I honestly think that if Sarah had had a clue about what was going on, she never would have allowed Abraham to take the first step up that mountain.  And the story would have been told and recorded very differently over the years.

And so I couldn’t get into Sarah’s head at all. 

So I tried to get into Abraham’s head. I read and re-read the story, searching for some clue as to Abraham’s emotions, his feelings, his doubt, his uncertainty, his anger…something.  Anything…but there was nothing there.  There was this vacuum of emotions—unlike the Abraham we have come to know earlier in Genesis who doubted God’s promise in Chapter 15, and laughed out loud when God told him that Sarah, age 90, would have a child. 

Today’s narrative tells us that this same God who made unbelievable promises to Abraham—promises that he surely still doubted from time to time despite the fact that Isaac had, in fact, become a reality—was now asking that Isaac be given as a burnt offering. 

And I couldn’t really seem to get into Abraham’s head at all. 

So I sought out other voices.   

The commentaries had packaged it up a bit too neatly for me, the sermon blogs that I often consult left me with more questions than answers, and the few of my clergy Facebook friends who had committed to preach from this text were struggling as well.  I read comments and encouragement from folks in the same perpetual state of perplexity in which I found myself, and so I moved on. 

Friday morning, I asked our oldest son Adam why he thought God would ask this of Abraham.  His response…humorous but not altogether helpful…was that God must have done it because Isaac’s car insurance and college tuition was going to be too much of a burden on his parents and he was trying to ease their load.  Not at all helpful with the text, but it does give us all insight into the mind workings of a 17 year old young man. 

My final outside voice before I sat down to write was Joel. Now I think is a wonderful preacher, and he constantly amazes my dad with how he can find new things in the same Bible that he, my dad, has been reading for years.

The conversation began Friday night over dinner, carried us to the movie theater, then was suspended for a few hours while we went to the movie then picked up our younger two sons who had returned from a weeklong middle school church retreat.   It resumed just after 11:00 PM Friday night, and it grew heated as Joel shared his own take on the text, and I wrestled some more. 

Finally, at 2AM, I put my wrestling aside and lay my head on the pillow, hoping for clarity or brilliance or enlightenment to come while I slept.   It did not.  So I woke up yesterday morning and wrestled some more.  And here’s where I landed. 

GOD

Did God really intend to test Abraham in this way?  Did God really ask for a child sacrifice?  Sacrifice alone is a difficult concept for us to understand in our context, but we know that it  was a part of the ancient Jewish rituals. 

But human sacrifice?  Especially a child?   

Despite the fact that the Israelites had been warned NOT to offer child sacrifices, it was this time, a part of some ancient rituals. 

And this is where it’s helpful to look at what scholars say. In OT Survey class in seminary, Walter Brueggemann cautioned us not to bring our own modernist, 21^st century assumptions to our analysis of the text b/c we simply don't know from experience what life was like then.

At some point, we have to move on from the details to the larger picture.  Difficult texts like this cannot be ignored, but at some point, it is okay to move from wrestling with the “why” and the “how” to the “what.”  We can linger on the “Why did God ask this of Abraham?” or even “did God really ask this of Abraham?” for a time, because the wrestling is good.  But as with everything we read in scripture, our focus should eventually come to rest on what the story tells us about GOD.  And this text tells us that despite the difficulties life brings our way, God is faithful, and God provides. 

OBEDIENCE

Abraham was obedient.  Although the text doesn’t tell us how Abraham questioned or doubted the message he received to sacrifice Isaac, I am quite sure he did. But tradition told him that God required sacrifice.  Tradition told him that God demanded obedience.  And his commitment to tradition is what, I think, allowed him to take his beloved son Isaac and bind him to the altar. 

Is Abraham willing to give up the promise that is wrapped up in Isaac’s very life to allow God to be the one in control, to allow God to fulfill the promise in God’s own good yet often frustrating time? Apparently so.  In following what he believes God is commanding him to do, Abraham chooses to turn is life, his very future, over to God. 

Abraham is obedient   But so is Isaac. 

Can you imagine what he must have been thinking as his father bound him to the altar?  We’re told very little about him in this story, but as several people have pointed out to me this week, after their journey down from the mountain, Isaac and Abraham have little to do with each other anymore.  There is no record of Isaac having anything to do with his father until Abraham’s death a few chapters later. 

Can you blame him? 

Whether we identify with Isaac in this story, or with Abraham, the story calls us to listen--for God’s voice amidst the trials and tribulations of life, and to do the sometimes very difficult things that God calls us, demands us, to do.  . 

FAITH

As I read and re-read the passage, looking for some sign of Abraham’s heart, I found a glimmer in one little phrase in verse 5. 

“Then Abraham said to (the two young men traveling with them), “Stay here with the donkey; the boy and I will go over there; we will worship, and then we will come back to you.” 

WE will worship, and WE will come back to you. Like so much of the biblical narrative, the heart of this message is not in the part of the text that first attracts our attention—the notion of Abraham sacrificing his son, but in that tiny word “we,” telling us that Abraham thought that both he and Isaac would actually return. 

I don’t think Abraham ever expected that God would actually require this of him. When he tells Isaac, in verse 8, that God will provide the offering, I think he truly did believe that God would provide it.  And God did. 

With  every step Abraham took, from the time he walked out of his camp, away from his home, away from his wife Sarah, and up the mountain, he trusted in God’s providence.    Not with a shallow faith that produces blind obedience, but with the gift of a deep faith that scripture tells us has been “reckoned to him as righteousness.” 

From The Message, Romans 4:3:  “Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point.  He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own.”  (Romans 4:3, The Message)

CLOSING

The stories found in these pages are hard.  And whether we believe that they are true stories and happened just as they are told on these pages, or that they are stories that were told to pass on a deep truth about the God to whom they all point, we cannot ignore them.  We must wrestle with them. 

Just as a few generations later, Abraham’s grandson Jacob wrestled with God in the night, so too must we wrestle with these stories, with this Bible…with this God.  And as we wrestle, keep this in mind.  In the end, God is faithful.  God provides, and grace abounds.  

This is a difficult story to hear. It’s not one we should ignore or gloss over, but we should ultimately end up focusing NOT on the horrific nature of it, but on what matters most—that Abraham trusted and God provided. 

What difficult thing is God calling you to do?  Whatever it is, my prayer for you this day is that you are able to step out in obedience, with the deep faith of Abraham, trusting that no matter what happens on the mountains or in the valleys of life, God is faithful.  God will provide.  And grace abounds. 

   

I wish I didn't have to preach this Sunday. The call to try to say something that matters, something that makes a difference, that hasn't already been SAID for God's sake, about the Good Samaritan text is overwhelming. We can say it, live it, do it, breathe it, but it just feels so helpless because NOTHING ever seems to change. What difference does it make? What difference do we make? If you call yourself a person of faith, any faith, surely you too are heartbroken and / or furious at the injustice and violence that have occurred in this country and the world this week. If it does not anger you the way that some who call themselves people of faith are reacting (or not reacting), the I invite you to consider this again: "We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." Elie Wiesel

I am so tired of holding in my anger and my reactions to the violence and hatred that I see ALL OVER the place. I hold back for fear of offending friends or family members, or adding fuel to the fire, or making things harder or uncomfortable for those around me. I'm tired of sharing only lighthearted kitten posts or articles with which no one can really argue on Facebook for fear of the responses anything more substantial will garner from those who follow me. Surely there is a better place for me to process all of this than on the Facebook Stage, but I don't know where that place is. So for now, I will go to the text for this week, Luke 10: 25-37, and I will try to find something fresh and new to say about this story, and I will pray that maybe, just maybe, someone will hear it and be moved to make a difference.

Adam and I have an ongoing conversation about how to respond to injustice. He gets angry, listens to podcasts and follows social media sites that, in my opinion, do nothing more than to incite further anger in him. He gives me (loving) hell about how I can be so calm, so "unconcerned," he says. I tell him over and over that I am not unconcerned, but that I operate from the Starfish method of justice-seeking. It is not enough for him. He wants to do more, do make a bigger difference. He wants a revolution.

I'd love one son, but I can't do it alone. You can't do it alone. We can't do it alone.

But what does it take? What will it take?

Craziness in the Kitchen (aka Once-a-Month Cooking)

My life is rather crazy these days. Despite the fact that I have not held a fulltime, for pay job in many years, my hands are in many pots, and there are many things for which I am responsible.  Joel is a fulltime pastor at Oconee Presbyterian Church, we have three teenage boys--Adam is a sophomore at Presbyterian College, and Daniel and Michael are in 11th and 9th grades respectively at North Oconee High School.  I am also the primary point person for my Dad's care.  He lives in a nearby assisted living, so that's not as time-consuming as it may sound, but I am responsible for his medical care and financial affairs, and go visit with him or take him for a meal two or three times each week.   I am an ordained Presbyterian pastor, but my current ministry is math teaching and tutoring. I taught middle and high school math for a few years prior to the boys' arrival, and have tutored for the past twenty-five years.  I currently have both traditional and homeschooled students, and see about twelve to fifteen each week during the school year. I also dabble in pottery, and may one day get an Etsy site up and running.  For now, I sell mugs at Jittery Joe's in Watkinsvlle, and to friends and family here and there by word-of-mouth.  

It sounds like a lot, and some days it feels like a lot.  But mostly I feel blessed to be able to do so many things that I love.

My first venture into once-a-month cooking was when we were in seminary in 2003 or 2004.  We were both in school at the time, and the boys were 5, 7, and 9, or thereabouts.  I was feeling very anxious about our upcoming semester and our tight budget of both time and finances.  I didn't want our health to suffer, and knew we didn't have the money to eat out very often.  So at the end of the summer, once the boys had gone back to school but our classes had not yet started, I gave it a try.  I got the cookbook from my friend Steve Kopp, husband of fellow student Karen Jolly, and began to flip through the pages.  

My first thought was that there were many of the recipes the boys would NOT eat.  They were not overly picky eaters, but at the time they were not fond of anything with more than two food items combined.  So casseroles were out, with the exception of a very few.  And there were nights when I knew I would not need a ready-made meal.  We did wonderful cookouts on the playground each Friday night, we often had church suppers on Wednesday nights, and did occasionally go out to eat when time and money allowed.  So I flipped through the book and found ten or twelve recipes that looked like they would be winners, and set to work.

My kitchen was a tiny galley-style kitchen, but I managed to get a few meals put away. I loved the ability to pull something out of the freezer in the morning, and have a good meal that night.  For me, it's been more like once-every-six-months cooking because 15-20 meals will typically last two or three months.

So I've done this now several times over the past eight years, usually in late August when I know the back-to-school crazy train is about to start.  Then I'll do it again in the early months of winter, when there's little else to do, usually in early- to mid-January.  I've done it enough times that it's no longer daunting, and I have the preferred recipes down pat so that a lot of them are automatic for me.

As for exactly how it all gets done, it's something you'll have to figure out on your own once you decide what dishes to make.  I will say that I highly recommend you doing a mixture of chicken and beef (if you eat both) because if you don't, you'll get really tired of chicken pretty quickly. Trust me.

This is my freezer before. Notice our staple "go-to" meal of frozen pizzas.
I stock up on the good brands (Freschetta and DiGiorno) whenver they are less than $5.00 at the grocery story.  

The basic process is this:

• Find your recipes and make a master grocery list of how much meat, produce, freezer bags / containers, etc. you need.  (Make sure you have plenty of heavy duty foil as well as a Sharpie marker on hand.)  
• Two days before prep day, do all of your shopping. 
• The day before prep day, do all of your meat cooking.  It takes a long time to brown 12# of ground beef and cook 10# of chicken. While the meat is cooking, you can do all your chopping, dicing, spice gathering, etc.  
• Then on prep day, it's basically just a massive assembly of recipes--measuring spices, opening cans, blending, and stirring.  

Typically, I dice 6 or 7 onions and 3 or 4 peppers for the recipes I use.  

Browning the ground beef takes quite a while, so plan for that!
And borrow a large pot or skillet if you can to make it go faster.  

So here are just a few random tips, in no certain order.  Except #1 is most important  :-)

1.  Make sure you have a bottle of your favorite beverage on hand on prep day.  You will want it when you put your last meal in the freezer at the end of the day.  For me, it's a white wine in August, and a good red wine in January.

2.  You cannot easily do this with small children in the house, especially the first time.  Farm them out for at least five hours on prep day. Or have someone come over to entertain them while you work.  Or do it on a day when your spouse or partner can be responsible for parenting.

3.  Make sure your dishwasher is empty when you start.  Run it frequently, even if it's not full, or use it to place dishes to drain / out of the way.

4.  A deep freeze / chest freezer is a must for more than 6 to 8 meals.  It's worth the investment, trust me.  And a food processor is highly recommended.  Borrow one if you don't have one.  I will never not have either of those items again.

5.  Start simple.  Do 6 or 8 meals to start, just to get a feel for it.  Maybe 3 or 4 chicken and 3 or 4 beef.

6.  Clean as you go, but don't stress over how messy the kitchen is.  This is a hard one for me, but it's just not worth the anxiety.  Know that it will be clean before you go to bed, and if you are too tired, ask your significant other to clean it for you, or have a friend come clean it for you in exchange for his or her pick of a meal from the batch.

This was taken about 2 hours into an 8-hour day. 

7.  Either plan for one of your meals to be dinner on prep night, or better yet, plan to go out that night--if going out is not too stressful to you because of young children.  I typically will have the tetrazzini for dinner on prep night.

8.  Check the portions for each recipe, and split them if the numbers work better for your family.  Many of the casseroles (lasagna and meatball sub casserole) feed 12, but could easily be split into 3 smaller casseroles for 4 each.  The first couple of times I did this, we had a lot of leftovers each time, and we are just not a leftover-eating family--unless Adam is home from college, then he eats ALL leftovers readily and eagerly.  :-)

9.  Go ahead and make sure you have ALL ingredients for the meal on hand, even though the noodles may not be cooked until the night you eat that particular meal.  A very few require additional ingredients just prior to cooking, and it's frustrating to have something ready to cook and realize that you used that can of cream of mushroom soup for something else, gave those egg noodles to the food pantry, or forgot that you didn't have buns.  For the record, grated cheese freezes very well.

10.  Many recipes call for the old, red-label Campbell's soup.  These are not the healthiest soups, sometimes high in sodium and other nastiness.  Here is a link for homemade cream of (anything) soup if you are really feeling adventurous.  I haven't yet tried it, though.

11  These recipes are not lowfat.  My guys don't really have to worry about that, but I do, so usually I will have a small portion of the entree, and eat more salad or fresh veggies.

12.  Prior to shopping / prepping days, look over the recipes and make sure you have a general feel for the flow of things.  You will definitely want to multi-task, and the more you can do at once, the less time it will take you. I typically have 2 or 3 stations in the kitchen, with one recipe in process at each station, and I have the printed recipe right there at the station so I don't forget what I'm doing!  It might even help to re-do the recipes in a more "step-by-step" visual format rather than paragraph style.

That's all I can think of to share about this.  This is one of those things where DOING IT the first time is really hard, but after that, it's much less daunting.  It's funny to me how folks talk about all the organization or energy or whatever I have when I mention that I do this, but the truth is that I DO IT because I'm not very organized about meals on a day-to-day basis, and don't have the energy at 4:00pm to do anything about it, especially now that my primary work (tutoring) is done between 4:00 and 8:00 each day.  Massive-Meal-Prep gives me an out on those 30 days when I simply cannot decide what to have for dinner, or don't have time to put anything together because my day has been one, big interruption.  

And this is my freezer after--33 entrees, ready to be pulled out to thaw in the morning,
and cooked or warmed for dinner that night!  

If you haven't gotten the recipes from me yet, give me a tap and I will make sure you have access to the ones I use.  But I would suggest that you just browse for some online to see what strikes your fancy.  Every family is different, and now that our boys are older, the meals we like are not as toddler-friendly as they once were.

If you've been thinking about doing this, now is a great time to start.  Go for it!  And if you do try it, I'd love to hear about your first experience.