Cabbages for the King (by Adrian Plass)

(Amazon UK link)

I have liked everything I’ve read by Adrian Plass, and reread his books regularly. I decided to delve into ‘Cabbages for the King’ in the past few days.  I last read it in 2015, so had forgotten most of the contents.

The overall theme of the book is that God uses inadequate people, and yet there are many wonderful things happening in Christian homes and gatherings. Unfortunately, most of us see what is wrong or boring rather than what is right and pointing people towards Jesus. 

Then follows a somewhat eclectic mixture of thoughts, skits, parables, poems and more. I’m not sure I followed the logic of the different sections - if there is any - but it really doesn’t matter. Plass likens his offerings to the cabbages at a greengrocer’s. He makes the important point that he is a Christian who writes, and that what he writes may be godly or not. A Christian greengrocer isn’t offering ‘Christian cabbages’, but does his work to the glory of God, in whatever ways are relevant: relating to his customers, for instance, or in declaring his profits and paying taxes.

At least, that’s my understanding of the purpose of this book. There’s an amusing skit near the start involving a greengrocer who prays over each sale, asking for specific guidance to match a cabbage with the customer. It’s exaggerated to make the point that we do our work in the way we’ve learned to do it; certainly we can and should pray for those we interact with, but we don’t have to submit every detail of every moment to divine scrutiny before we can take any action. 

I love the way that Adrian Plass admits to his failings and insecurities. Self-deprecating humour can sometimes be embarrassing or awkward, but he manages it expertly. He comes across as an extremely likeable person, albeit flawed. I find that very encouraging. 

He clearly adores his wife and four children, whom he mentions from time to time in this book, and yet never pretends to be an expert. When he’s asked to make a presentation to a conference on the topic of parenting, he manages to write something with a checklist of points to consider… only to have such a disastrous morning that he tears up his notes, and describes what has happened. And the audience respond very positively.

There are exaggerations and caricatures, of course; they’re sometimes a good way of making a point. So we see a couple discussing the perils of navigating in one sketch. Another involves a husband unable to get in more than a couple of words as his wife keeps expressing what she’s sure he must be thinking. I particularly enjoyed the skit about a couple involved in the important ministry of trapeze flying. 

Poems aren’t really my thing, and sometimes I skim or even skip poetry. I tried to make the effort, this time, of reading the poems in the book. They’re not long, but I had to slow down, to say the words in my mind, as poetry (at least for me) doesn’t read in the same way as other forms of writing. I don’t know that I understood what they all meant, but I thought they were well written and quite thought-provoking.

The parts I like best, however, are those when the author writes about himself, with his own anecdotes, questions and ideas. He manages to turn pat answers upside down, to challenge the silliness which some very devout Christians tend to spout. He delves below the surface, and exposes some of our hangups and worries, expressing all the time how essential it is to be real - to admit to our faults and failings, not to try to make ourselves look better than we are.

I don’t know that I’ll remember any of the details of this book for more than a few days, but each time I read books like this, I hope that some of the principles will have made their way into my subconscious mind. I shall probably read it again in another five or six years, and expect to enjoy it all over again.

It’s not my favourite of Plass’s books, but still well worth reading if you like his style. It would be good to dip into at odd moments, though I usually read it from cover to cover. 

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