What does coffee do for a Pastor? My journey to becoming a coffee lover and how it enriches my days with Jesus

Pastor Art Snow • July  3, 2022

What does coffee do for a Pastor? My journey to becoming a coffee lover and how it enriches my days with Jesus

The History of Coffee

Before I tell you of my love affair with coffee allow me to give you a bit of history of this dark brew that captured me as a young boy. 

Let me take you back to Ethiopia in the year 850 AD. A young goat herder named Kaldi was tending his small herd of goats when he happened to see them eating red berries from a nearby bush. Before he knew it the goats were wildly running about jumping over one another, shaking their heads and stomping their hooves on the ground.  He had never seen his goats act this way before so after a very long time they finally calmed down enough for him to get them back to his village, but before leaving he gathered some berries to show the chief of his village. 

The Chiefs assessment was that the berries were of the Devil so he threw them in the fire, well you guessed it, the entire area filled with a powerful aroma. They then poured water over the roasting berries to preserve the wonderful smell and then tasted the dark brew, and just like that coffee became a welcomed friend to many countries. 

A few years ago I found a book entitled “The Coffee Trader” by David List. This book set in Amsterdam chronicled how coffee made its way to the Dutch commodities exchange. It begins in a tavern owned by Geertruid, quite a wheeler dealer who was adept at making money through the front door or the back alley. She set a meeting with a Portuguese Jew named Miguel, her partner in crime. She explained she had a secret to reveal to him a brand new weapon to be used in their business deals that would make them both a great deal of money. 

She offered him his first drink of coffee and he was immediately exhilarated and after the shock wore off she said the following to him: This is what I think she said, her voice hardly loud enough to rise above the din of the tavern. Beer and wine may make a man sleepy, but coffee with make him awake and clearheaded. Beer and wine may make a man amorous, but coffee will make him lose interest in the flesh. The man who drinks coffee fruit cares only for his business. She paused for another sip. “Coffee is the drink of commerce.”

My journey with Coffee

Well with those two anecdotes let me tell you of my journey. As I was growing up as a child both my parents and grandparents always had a 30 cup coffee pot brewing at all times. They would drink beer until they passed out then wake up and drink lots of coffee. Coffee was always a way of life in our family and I acquired a taste for it at a very young age. But I must admit I began my journey with a lot of milk and sugar, it wasn’t until I became a young man that I began to drink my coffee black. 

As a young man I began to train show horses and would spend hours and hours in a cold barn riding horses, grooming horses, cleaning stalls and hauling hay. Coffee became my liquid heater, I warmed my hands with the cup and my insides with the black gold inside the cup. 

Then when I found Jesus coffee became more that a hot beverage to warm me on a cold day, it became not the drink of commerce as Geertruid suggested but instead a drink of fellowship. My new brothers and sisters in Christ would go to restaurants and coffee shops, drink coffee and talk about Jesus and His Kingdom for hours on end. 

Of course the inevitable happened I was no longer satisfied with just the run of the mill cup of Joe, but need to expand my tastes to other coffee experiences. Coffee was no longer just a beverage but it was now an experience. I then ran across a book called “The Coffee Companion” by Jon Thorn and learned about the different grinds of coffee the different beans and blends and where different coffee was found around the world. I would eventually add many books to my “coffee library” and experiment with various ways of making the brew to please my yielding taste buds. 

But along the line something happened to me that I can only describe as a “God thing”. My coffee experience became a spiritual thing rather that just a physical thing. I began to appreciate the beauty and aroma of the bean as part of God’s creation, seeing Him in the bean and smelling Him as the cup was poured, tasting Him upon the first sip. I began having coffee with Jesus. I could be in a coffee shop with someone or alone in my office and I just felt the beauty of His presence all around me as I savored the first sip to the last gulp. 

It would be some time later until I learned of the spiritual discipline called “Holy eating” where you invite Jesus to eat and drink with you, enjoying the beauty of His presence over food and drink. In the book entitled Silencio Reflective Practices for Nurturing Your Soul there are  64 essays on Spiritual Disciplines each written by a different author. In the chapter on Holy Eating Meah Herrington Arakaki writes the following; “As you sit at table, as you receive into our own temple of Christ, may you eat (I add drink ) for life, joy, community, and nourished wholeness. And may you savor the flavors that are the gifts of God.”

I invite you to invite Jesus to your next cup of coffee (it works with tea as well) and enjoy your cup with the second person of the Godhead, and breathe in His aroma. 

Pastor Art Snow | July 3, 2022

Edited and Adapted for Web Use by: Eric Muñoz Jr.