No joke: I saw this sign in Taco Bell a few weeks ago. There are too many levels of irony to comment on here, but suffice it to say that I'm not so sure that the folks who came up with the concept really "get" Lent. Even so, they helped me "get" it a little better.
I've still got John 4 (the Samaritan Woman at the Well) on the brain. I'm still thinking about why Jesus goes about unraveling this woman's past. The obvious answer (which is usually the best answer when it comes to Scripture interpretation) is that he wanted to help her see how she'd been looking for love in all the wrong places. Jesus wanted to open her eyes to the way that she'd been trying to quench her deepest thirsts and hungers (for intimacy, meaning, security) in all the wrong places. He wanted to show her how she'd been filling up on cheap substitutes that could never leave her satisfied. He wanted to show her just how thirsty (and hungry) she was for Him, and what he could offer her.
It seems to me that Jesus wanted to show her that she was trying to fill up on Taco Bell when what she really wanted was Him.
That, of course, is one of the great questions we ask ourselves during Lent. Who (or what) do we look to to satisfy our hungers and quench our thirsts? Have we been duped into filling up on cheap substitutes and lost our appetites for the real deal?
Recently, a friend of mine posted this quote on her blog:
" Do not be surprised, therefore, when you have yielded your service, given your affection, and poured out your heart to that pleasure of yours, your idol,
your own lust and mischief--do not be surprised, then, if you have no appetite
for Christ, or for that heavenly food."
--Robert Bruce
She then went on to confess that she needs to give up reading anything but the Bible for a while. It's a drastic step for her because she loves books, loves words, loves ideas, loves stories. But she says that she's been so busy trying to satisfy her thirst with them--these "cheapo substitutes"--that she's lost her appetite for Living Water and Bread from Heaven. Books were her "Taco Bell."
I love her insight for it's honesty. But I also love it because it helped me see that sometimes, the things that we need to give up--those artificial substitutes--often aren't bad in and of themselves. What's keeping us from drinking deeply from the well of Living Water might not be something obvious: pornography, or gossip, or promiscuous relationships--those favorite sins of preachers. It may be something that is good in it's proper place--when our loves are properly ordered (as Augustine said)--but that has slipped out of place. It may be that we're filling up on books, family, work, hobbies. It may be that these good things that have become dangerous because we're too full of them to be full of Him. If you'll let me push the analogy--it may be that we're taking what's okay on occasion (Taco Bell?) and filling up on it all the time.
Of course, it doesn't have to be that way. Jesus says he's got something better than Grilled Stuffed Burritos for us. He says that we "he has food we may know nothing about (vs. 32) and that "...those who drink the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life."
The next time you're tempted to pull through the drive-thru at Taco Bell, think about that! He is the one who satisfies!
1 comment:
The following thoughts come to mind: How do we then bridge the gap between what Jesus did here in helping the Samaritan woman see how she had been looking for love in all the wrong places to those in our midst that are in the same place and for whom we long to have that thirst quenched? Is is because we are so filled up ourselves on cheap substitutes that others can't see that our thirst has been quenched by One like no other? We're pretty good at brow beating--or do we really need to go that deep in order for the true message to get through to those we love?
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