I, like many others at the moment, have a special love for Chipotle. There’s something about a Burrito bowl piled high with brown rice, black beans, grilled chicken, pico de gallo, corn, sour cream, cheese, and guacamole that just sends my taste buds to a very, very happy place. However, the best part of Chipotle could be hidden outside of their incredible food in a rather unlikely spot. Their fountain drink cups.
The other day, as I sat down to eat the mountain of food I had sitting in front of me, I noticed that there was a relatively extensive piece of writing on the cup which contained my Root Beer. Upon further inspection, I realized that this was not some advertising gimmick telling you about how great the Chipotle corporation was. Instead, there was a series of questions written by a guy named Jonathan Safran Foer. Not just any old questions either. Serious ones. Ones that grabbed my attention so much that for a second my minds focus was no longer on the heavenly tasting food occupying my mouth, but instead pondering things like “if your deepest, darkest secret became public, would you be forgiven” or “is there anything you would die for if no one could ever know you died for it”. Heavy stuff to be sure.
Which then led to this question… Is Chipotle doing more to promote spiritual growth than the typical Christian Church service?
Ridiculous, interesting, or odd as this question may seem, it’s a serious one. I have been a person brought up and raised a Christian. My stances and definition of what that looks like now takes a completely different approach than it did just a couple years ago. However, through growing up in this system of belief and experiencing a year of Bible school, I feel like I know what your average Christian church service looks like. Typically, a church service will last an hour with an intro/welcoming, some music, a sermon, some dramatic prayer/offering music, and some more music. The point that is trying to be made is typically most directly found in the sermon, although the music will have lyrics that are tied into what’s being said as well. My focus though, is on the sermon, because this is where the “meat” really lies.
I’ve sat through countless sermons, and they are almost always focused on a certain message. The person delivering this message is known as the preacher… and this is where the fun begins. To preach, by definition, is to earnestly advocate for something. A church service, nine times out of 10, is telling you what to do, giving you direction, establishing guidelines. All of which is completely impersonal, unless phrased in a way that seems inclusive (a great trick learned in seminary). Usually the attendees of a church service will leave with smiles on their faces, feel a bit better about the world, and say hello to a person or two in the hallway. Then, by the time monday rolls around, focus is shifted to family, jobs, hockey practices, and all sorts of other things. This is because something that is preached, guidelines that are handed, heck almost spoon fed, are not what we learn from. They offer an “aha” moment or two, but they do not promote personal reflection, individual conclusions, or spiritual growth and transformation due to their lack of depth or personal impact.
Now, back to that cup. The complete opposite can be said of the side of a fountain drink cup from the fastest growing corporation in the world… The difference is so incredibly simple, it actually can be narrowed down to two punctuation marks; a period and a question mark. A sermon is preached. A question is asked. A sermon offers a blanket universal answer, a question gets personal and requires individual participation and thought. To preach is to think you know the answer, to ask is to learn what truth makes up an answer.
The Christian faith is not meant to be something that is preached in a way that gives guidelines. Instead, it is meant to be a dialogue, something people wrestle with, have doubts towards, and a system promoting communities that allows people to feel comfortable making those doubts known. That Chipotle cup asks us to be honest with the pain and longing to understand what is inside of us. A sermon on the other hand acts as a repressive band-aid, covering up the doubt for a week at a time only to replace the band-aid every sunday so it doesn’t fall off. What is sad is that church services are supposed to be spiritual, and yet they can at times be more processed and impersonal than the words that are printed on thousands of cups distributed worldwide to a corporation. People want answers but people need questions. Discovering truth is a process, one that requires individual reflection, communal discussion, and outward action. I submit that this process is established much more smoothly from a cup found at a Mexican food chain than it is from a church service thats agenda is about giving an answer instead of asking a question. Has mainstream Christianity become complacent in giving a 12 step plan instead of a life long journey and pursuit of wisdom? I could go on and on but I guess the real information we’d all benefit from is, what do you think?
