I admit it, I was one of those guys. You know the ones at work that have to mess with the new guy. It was never personal, we just wanted to see how far they would go. We were curious how much they were willing to take to keep the job that they just got. We never did any really bad hazing. It was never anything to make the news or to harm anyone. We just needed a laugh and it was always at the new guy’s expense. Soon enough the new guy was hazing the next new guy and on and on it went.
It was my first real job. The paper route when I was ten didn’t count. This was how I paid insurance on my car, and how I could afford to have a girlfriend in high school. I was proud of it, I was a bag boy at Buchanan’s Food Mart in Oklahoma City. I was still 16 but had already worked my way up to head bagger. As if that actually had a title. But it was important because I trained all the new baggers. In those days paying for your groceries included someone to check it out for you, bag it up, and take it to the car. That was my crew. It was important for one other reason too, it afforded me the opportunity to “break in” the new recruits.
There was no left handed blue buggy wrench.
While it may have been a made up tool, it was fun watching the new kid go from person to person in the store asking for it. And yes, every single employee played along. One of my favorites was pulling produce at night. Each night the closing bagger had to pull all of the leaf produce from the rack, put it in bins, and take it to the cooler so it stayed fresh longer. When I trained the newbies how to do this I told them, “Customers don’t want hair in their lettuce”, so we would have to take a clear produce bag, the ones that come on the rolls in the department, and blow them full of air. Then we wore them standing up like chef hats while we worked with the produce. It was classic!! Employees would sneak over to look and laugh all at the expense of the eager and unsuspecting new kid.
As I grew in my skills I came up with different ways to humiliate them. Then I found the best one of all. I had created the perfect never ending prank. You see back in my day we had what we called the glass isle. It was an isle with the pickles and honey and salad dressings. All of these were in glass bottles or jars. A big part of grocery then was appearing full and neat even if we were thin on a certain product. We pulled all the items three deep to the front of the shelf with all the labels facing the same way. We called it “facing” the isle. On the glass isle was my perfect tool. Italian salad dressing! We all know that it is half oil and half herbs and spices. We also know at adulthood that the oil separates from the spices. But 100 percent of teenage boys didn’t know this! So in order to make the isle look right for the customer, I made the new guys shake up the salad dressing to be blended and more appealing. They had to start on one end and work their way down. Then come get me to inspect their work. By the time they were done and they came to find me, you guessed it, the dressing had settled again and it made the job look like they had never been there!
You should have seen their faces when they took me over to brag on how well they did and the power of the herbs and spices had been muted and pressed back down by the slick nasty looking oil. The flavor, aroma, and beauty of that dressing is all in those spices. When you take that bottle and shake it up, it releases all that is good about the dressing! Pour it out over your food without shaking it and being mixed together and all you get is a slimy mess. Once that bottle is shaken and all the herbs are released from the bottom of the bottle and dispersed through all of that oil it becomes an amazing agent of change. Salad goes from grass to zesty, chicken goes from boring to flavorful, and elegant. Even bread gets better when you slide that roll through a little dressing to lift it to a whole new plane.
Being created in the image of God means we were created to be creative
God created us in his image. Genesis tells us in 3 places that this is the case. We were made like God. He is our creator, He is love, He is hope, He is grace in action. He is all that is good in us. Yet so many people stifle that creativity and hope with conformity, fear, and liturgy. When we first meet the Savior and feel the release from the bondage of Sin we know freedom. We tell everyone around us and people can see the difference in our voice and see the new found joy on our face. Somewhere along the way that slips away from us. We lose the fire, the excitement, the joy. We are told we have to look a certain way, talk a certain way, and smell like the expectations placed on us. This “oil” presses down our smiles and the new energy in our hearts is muted to conform to the expectations of others. But Jesus didn’t create us to look like everyone else. We are called to be light and salt. Both of those things permeate whatever they touch. They are agents of change and not conformity.
The scriptures are full of examples of men and women who kept the flavor God created them to spread. They kept the creativity God made them out of. From David’s Psalms, to the poetry of the Songs of Solomon, from Martha anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume to Paul seeing the promise of Timothy’s life in Christ.
Doing things differently, more creatively has been the mode of action Jesus used.
Think about it. He spit on the ground, made mud and stuck it on a blind man’s eyes. Then he sent him away to find the place to wash it off to be healed. He rode a donkey’s colt and not a steed into Jerusalem. He touched a leper! He broke the religious laws made by man over and over again. He hung out with prostitutes and the dregs of the Earth. He cursed a tree, killing it for not bearing fruit. He washed the disciples’ feet. He called an average guy with anger problems to preach Pentecost. He forgave a screwed up guy who tried to fill his life with relationships to write some blog about salad dressing. I could go on and on.
Galatians 5:1 “So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.”
When we try to conform to what some preacher or “saint” in the church tell us we must look like, we allow that religious law or expectation of man to press down and block our free expression of creativity in Christ. Be who, and what God made you to be, not what someone else tells you that you are made to be. Paul said to work out your own salvation, he also said he died daily to his own sin and chose daily to live for Christ and not for himself or any other man’s approval. Paul also tells us in Romans how absurd it is to “Continue in sin.”
There is a vital connection between this freedom and responsibility. Jesus came to set us free from sin, not free to live in sin. The life Jesus created for us is one where we are free to choose what we do and don’t do, but that comes with it the conviction of the Spirit, the biblical teachings of Jesus, and frankly, common sense. No man can tell you what sin is for you. What causes harm in your life, or that causes separation from the Spirit. No man needs to tell you, if we are honestly living in the freedom he gives, we are living in connection with the creator. Simply put, you can’t be that close to a holy God and not know when you need to remove or avoid something in your life.
Dive into the things Jesus sees and loves in you. The spices that make your life a fragrant offering to Him. The herbs that fill your life with the flavors of love, acceptance, mercy, and joy. Instead of focusing on the “sins” we are tempted with, focus in the relationship with the Creator that overpowers the desires for the things that bring pain and death. Focus on the Savior and not what He wants to save you from. Give Him the power in your life and take hold of the peace and freedom that He offers. Let Him “shake” the bottle of your life and watch the oil of your past be flavored by the spices of God’s future for you.
In part two of this post we will dive into what this freedom is and how seeing the world as Jesus does will change how you see yourself. Find your joy and break the chains of addiction, fear, and sin in your life. Create, shine, grow, and flourish in freedom! Worship without limits and love beyond measure awaits! Join me for part two and let’s be the one’s who look different because we are different.
Very nicely written.