In this episode, Matt and Dan contemplate two of life’s great mysteries: plants and potatoes and, by a winding path that would make perfect sense in a Chinese garden, the joys of priesthood.

The Asians approach priesthood without focusing exclusively on priests. This is partly for the obvious reason that neither of them is one, and partly because fomenting class warfare within the Church seems like a poor use of an afternoon. More importantly, however, it is because Christian priesthood only makes sense when we begin with Christ and his Church.

Matt and Dan explore the persistent temptation to imagine the Church as something done by priests while everybody else watches, occasionally volunteers and brings a plate.

Against this, they recover the biblical vision of the People of God as a priestly people: the continuation and fulfilment of Israel’s vocation as a kingdom of priests, in which every member of Christ’s Body shares, according to their own calling, in his priestly mission.

Perhaps counter-intuitively, this leads the Asians not first to Holy Orders but to matrimony. Marriage offers a particularly concrete example of how the baptised exercise their priestly vocation: receiving the ordinary stuff of human life - love, work, children, suffering, meals, money, ageing parents, burnt rice – and learning to offer it to God. Beneath every vocation, then, lies the same deep root: baptism. Like water finding its way through a rice terrace, baptism draws every Christian into the life of Christ and therefore into his priesthood, his self-offering and his mission.

None of this makes the ordained priesthood less important. Quite the opposite. Matt and Dan consider how the ministerial priesthood serves the priesthood of the whole Church, and how both find their meaning in the great movement at the heart of Christian existence: receiving creation as gift and, through Christ, offering it back to the Father. There may also be potatoes.

Matt and Dan begin by demonstrating that they learnt absolutely nothing from their previous episode, returning almost immediately to their unconscious devotion to the rubrics - and, with the serene confidence of an auntie rearranging your kitchen, innovation at exactly the same time.

This naturally, or perhaps unnaturally, becomes a discussion about complexity and what the Asians detect as a cultural crusade against it: the conviction that everything, including the intellectual and spiritual life, ought to be made simple, preferably before the tea gets cold.

But when did simplicity become a measure of value?

The Asians consider simplicity not merely as a technique, occasionally useful and occasionally not, but as an ideology which, like an overenthusiastic relative with a cleaver, can reduce something complicated into manageable pieces while insisting nothing important has been lost.

This becomes rather more concerning when it wanders into the life of the Church, where the demand for simplicity can quietly become a demand for reduction: of legitimate diversity, mystery, creativity, and the wonderfully inconvenient lifeworld of historical faith. Some things, after all, are more dumpling than chicken nugget: what matters is folded inside, and flattening them rather defeats the point.

The Asians then consider what this drive towards simplicity actually does to theology, liturgy, and ecclesial life—and whether a faith concerned with the inexhaustible mystery of God was ever supposed to fit neatly on a slide, even if the slide has very good branding.

In this episode, Daniel and Matt begin with the enduring contribution of Chinese cuisine to Australian civilisation before taking an unexpected detour into the murky world of idolatry.

Along the way they dismantle the popular idea that idols are simply pagan statues or foreign gods and ask a far more uncomfortable question: what actually receives our deepest loyalty, trust and desire?

Drawing on Scripture, the Church Fathers and a little Greek word-nerdery (because, of course, everything is Greek), they argue that idolatry is less about explicit acts of worship and more about the quiet ways we organise our lives around success, security, comfort, status and control. Golden calves are easy to spot. The idols of calendars, careers, culture, relationships and our own ambitions are considerably harder.

Expect the usual awkward Asian tangents, a healthy dose of self-deprecating humour, an Augustinian twist, and a surprisingly important discussion about logos... and pickles. By the end, you'll discover that idolatry isn't simply about worshipping the wrong god, but about loving good things in the wrong order. Come for the theological dumplings but stay for the spiritual examination of conscience.

Resources

Succulent Chinese Meal