You know how they say, “in all things Christ preeminent?” Well, that applies to dumplings too.
All dumplings — from crisp and tangy Japanese gyoza to sweet and creamy Malaysian kaya boazi — undergo a lot of torment. They are hit, twisted, stretched, torn, squished, flattened, rolled, and manipulated into all kinds of shapes. When you cook them, they experience heat and pressure and come out of the pan, pot, or steamer forever changed.
Consider the dumpling as the Christian life. For believers and nonbelievers, life throws punches, but the difference is what people do with those punches. Do they despair? Or do they become transformed?
When you make dumplings, you decide how you will finish them. There are a couple of ways: deep frying (very delicious, very painful), pan frying (very delicious, less painful), boiling (less delicious, less painful), or steaming (very delicious, little-to-no pain required).
In real life, you unfortunately don’t get to decide which way you will be cooked. I used to hope to be steamed. There is still pressure and intensity involved; it is still faithful and rich, but it is also pretty chill. Not a lot of stinging or bubbling or bursting like the other methods require (oil can really hurt).
A lot of the flavor of a steamed dumpling comes from within the dumpling — the sauce is just something a little extra that is added later, but the dumpling can be fine by itself.
On the other hand, boiled dumplings are severely lacking in flavor. I have only had boiled dumplings once — which are made by literally dumping dumplings into a pot of boiling water for ten minutes and scooping them out with a spider (kitchen tool, not arachnid) — and they are honestly disappointing.
However, they were terrific with the sauce: soy sauce, rice vinegar, sesame oil, chives, and ginger. Tangy, salty, strong, bringing out the hidden flavors inside the boiled dumpling. In order for the dumpling to reach its full potential, it desperately needed something else.
Hear me out: We should want to be a boiled dumpling and let Christ (the sauce) have the glory. I think we all tend to want to be a steamed dumpling — something that is delicious on its own with Christ as just a little extra something that will get us into Heaven. Not completely transformative. Just a cherry on top.
We should lean into the reality that we’re denying: that we are plain dumplings whose only goodness comes from Christ. Christ has folded us into His glory, using the suffering that has affected our lives for His good.