The world’s largest hot dog returns to New York City

At sixty-five feet long, Hot Dog: The Second Serving, is the world’s largest hot dog sculpture. It is now back on display in Duffy Square, a plaza within Times Square, and aligns with the United States’ 250^th anniversary.

Artists Jen Catron and Paul Outlaw first unveiled their sculpture in 2024. It spent the summer parked in Times Square as multiple events were held before it, including wrestling matches and Q&A interviews with food historians and local food vendors. Daily confetti cannon firings were held from inside the hot dog itself.

Now the hot dog is back where it was, prompting one writer to determine the number of actual hot dogs it could hold. He estimated that around 1.75 million wieners would realistically fit inside, enough to supply twenty-five thousand people in the US with their annual quota.

When I read the story, my thoughts turned to an event that could not be more dissimilar from the hot dog sculpture, but the parallels point to a principle worth considering today.

An altar that nearly started a war

Imagine someone from a distant country watching people do what they do in front of this giant sculpture. Would they perhaps wonder if it is a cultural and even spiritual icon, indicating that hot dogs occupy a central place in our lives and society? Would they even wonder if people gathered before it are worshiping it or something it represents?

You and I know this is absurd, of course. But people don’t know what they don’t know.

For example, Joshua 22 tells us of another giant sculpture of a sort, one that nearly caused a civil war within the nation of Israel. After the conquest of Canaan, the tribes of Reuben and Gad and the half-tribe of Manassah settled on the eastern side of the Jordan, where they “built there an altar by the Jordan, an altar of imposing size” (v. 10).

The Israelites on the western side of the river immediately assumed that those on the eastern side had fallen into idolatry that would lead to God’s judgment against the entire nation. So Phinehas, the son of Eleazer the priest, took ten chiefs, one from each of the tribal families on the western side of the Jordan, and confronted those on the eastern side.

Their accountability was well-intentioned: they even offered them land on the western side of the river if they built their altar because they thought their land was “unclean” (v. 19). But those from the west were ready to go to war if those who built the altar did not repent of their assumed idolatry.

It turned out that the altar was intended for a completely different purpose. Those who built it were afraid that in coming generations, those on the western side of the Jordan, where the tabernacle was located, would see those on the eastern side as having “no portion in the Lᴏʀᴅ” (v. 25). As a result, they built their altar to remind those on both sides that both sides were part of the same nation and worshiped the same God (vv. 26–29). This explanation made sense to Phinehas and his compatriots and averted civil war.

An “iconic symbol of New York City”

Here’s the part of the story that struck me: both sides were convinced that their present actions would lead to future consequences for generations to come.

Those who built the altar wanted their children to be included among the people of Israel (vv. 25–27). Those who objected to it were concerned that this alleged idolatry would cause God to “be angry with the whole congregation of Israel” (v. 18), including their children.

Contrast such spirituality with the hot dog sculpture in Times Square. Its makers said they hoped to use the “iconic symbol of New York City and American culture to examine class, consumption, capitalism, and the myths of the American Dream.”

They chose wisely: A hot dog is an apt symbol for an existentialistic, consumeristic, “post-truth” culture. When you eat a hot dog, it benefits only you and the person who profits by selling it to you. It tastes good in the present but has little to no redeeming nutritional benefits for the future. In fact, according to a registered dietitian with the Cleveland Clinic, hot dogs “increase risk factors for heart disease, diabetes, obesity, and certain types of cancer.”

If you believe the secular ideology that the secular is all there is, eating hot dogs won’t worry you. As Paul noted, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’” (1 Corinthians 15:32). 

But if you agree with the altar builders of Joshua 22, you will live in ways that honor God in the present and build a future he can bless.

Choosing altars over hot dogs

I am just as tempted as anyone else to choose hot dogs over altars and even to spiritualize the former as if it were the latter. Serving God so he will serve me is transactional religion in which God is a means to my end. Serving God so others will be impressed with my spirituality is the same. I am even tempted to impress you with my transparency in writing what I just wrote.

This is a vicious cycle, at least as I have experienced it. The only way out of it is to get off of it, to focus on Jesus so fully that I am no longer in the picture. As CS Lewis noted, humility is not thinking less of myself but thinking of myself less. It is agreeing with what John the Baptist said of Jesus: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

Then I will avoid the spiritual “hot dogs” of our fallen culture and consume what honors the Lord: “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things” (Philippians 4:8).

And I will build my best altar for God, whether others understand my motives or not, trusting that I cannot measure the eternal significance of present faithfulness.

The best way to avoid eating hot dogs is to spend our time building altars instead.

Would you agree?