Goldfish crackers and broccoli

As often happens these days, I tired quickly and went to wait in the car for Robert to finish his shopping at our local thrift store. There were lots of people out in our small town--three young girls walking by all in black summer wear (is that an oxymoron?), a dressed up Asian couple, a black guy cruising on a stretched out motorcycle, an older lady under a denim jungle hat. It made me wonder, as I am sure you have wondered, surrounded by people from diverse groups, how do you introduce God into this shifting  kaleidoscope? How do you bring God to people who live in settings pretty different from yours? Maybe they know God better than you do. How would you know?

I once watched a psychology experiment with two kids, a one-year old and a two-year old. The psychologist put two plates of food in front of the one-year old, one piled with goldfish crackers, the other with broccoli. The psychologist took a goldfish cracker in her hand and made a big fuss about not liking the cracker. She was shaking her head and wagging her finger and saying, “Yuk! Ugh! Gross! No cracker for me!” Then she took the broccoli and started rubbing her tummy and smiling and nodding and saying, “Yum! Yum!” Next the scientist put her hand out to the one-year old and asked, “Can I have some food, please?” The one-year old didn’t miss a beat. She grabbed a goldfish and handed it placidly to the scientist. I mean, that’s what she would eat. Who would want that broccoli stuff? 

With the two-year old things went a bit differently. After the scientist made her preferences known and held out her hand for a cracker or a broccoli stick, this youngster cocked her head to one side, pursed her lips, scrunched her eyebrows together, and reached for the broccoli. But all the time you could see the thought bubble over her head, “You’re crazy, Lady, but here’s what you want.” Sometime between year one and year two of life, most humans learn that other people do things differently.  Other people like different things. This doesn’t make sense, but by age two, we gather it’s true.

Sometime later we also learn that groups do things differently, too. “We Joneses do it like this.” Or, “We Canadians do it like this.” Or, “We Baptists don’t do that.” What we do in our own group makes sense, and what other groups do doesn’t. This is how we are wired, and it takes a great amount of listening to understand that other groups really do want the broccoli.

I heard a great story on TED from an outgoing Italian NGO worker trying to help a Zambian community build its economy. The soil along the river where they lived was excellent for growing tomatoes, but the community never grew tomatoes there. In fact, they didn’t grow anything there. The land was wasted. So the Italian busily planted row and row of lovely Italian tomatoes and showed them off to the Zambians. The tomatoes grew. The tomatoes were a success. Until 200 hippos came up out of the river and devoured everything. “My God! What about the hippos?” exclaimed the Italian. “You never asked,” replied the Zambians. That other group wanted the broccoli, and he kept handing over the goldfish crackers. You know what this Italian titled his talk? Shut up and listen.

We make this mistake in the church, too. Yes, we sidestep the problem by setting out several plates: different worship services; a blend of hymns and contemporary worship songs; a Children’s Moment. The arguments start when there are several groups at the table and only one plate full of goldfish crackers. Then what do you do?

The problem is worse when we start churches in groups different from our own. If we aren’t asking the right questions, if we aren’t listening, they look suspiciously like our own churches back home but not much like the new group, and the hippos come. Christian history is full of hippos.

The very first church ever born had a problem trying to bring a new group to Christ that didn’t do things the same way as the original group. The book of Acts records the struggle. It shows how the Greek widows weren’t getting the same care as the Jewish widows. It explains how the Gentile churches felt pressured to become Jewish. It repeats Peter’s vision where God taught him to accept food from Gentiles, kosher or not. Finally it documents how the leaders of the very first church called a council in Jerusalem to decide once and for all whether Gentiles were bound by the Jewish way of doing things. Their answer was a resounding NO. Broccoli was acceptable.

Easy to say. Hard to do. I think of Peter, the one to whom God repeated that important vision three times, and yet after his own group pressured him, he stopped eating broccoli with his Gentile friends. I think all of us would agree now that God meets people wherever they are, in whatever group they belong to, and He gives them a new life and makes them witnesses to that very group. This is the meaning of the Incarnation: God comes to us. But accepting other groups without wanting them to do things our way does not come natural. It’s hard work and takes intentionality, even for Saint Peter. Our default mode is our own culture, so when we don’t think about it, we automatically go for the crackers (or the kosher food, as the case may be). And the hippos come. Where have you seen hippos lately?