Consider the Ketchup Bottle

Every bottle of one particular brand of ketchup is a design statement. And therein is a lesson for the church.

It's the quintessential condiment found in  nearly every American refrigerator and every table in every real American diner. We put it on everything from eggs to fries to hot dogs, and the thicker the better. It takes some well-placed whacks on the bottle or a healthy squeeze to get it moving from bottle to plate, but, as the old commercial jingle said, "Anticipation" makes it worth the wait.

We're talking about ketchup, of course, which isn't something that people normally talk about, especially on a Sunday morning. In fact, we rarely talk about it at all, even when we're pouring it on a burger. It's just something we take for granted.

The history of ketchup, however, reveals an interesting story. Before H.J. Heinz started making ketchup and putting it in the iconic glass bottle that adorns our table, putting ketchup on anything was the equivalent of pouring toxic waste on it. Eating ketchup could be dangerous. Ketchup in 1866 was, according to cookbook author Pierre Blot,...