If I was to ask if you like pickles, most would say they do. Lobster? Absolutely. Bacon? Of course! Buffalo wings? Oh yeah! Sweet corn slathered in butter and salt? A seasonal favorite. Mashed potatoes? Bring it on!
Then, there are some other food items that might be more of an acquired taste like goat cheese, blue cheese, garlic, anchovy, oyster, jalapeno, and asparagus.
Do any of these activate your taste buds? I’ll bet I can shut them down in a hurry. Yesterday was National Creative Flavors Ice Cream Day. And every food item I mentioned is available, mixed in with your ice cream.
Go to a place that serves Hershey ice cream or to Handlers in Ft. Wayne and you will see that the days of strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla are nearly extinct. Yes, they are available, but they are overshadowed by umpteen different flavors and combinations. And
those are sensible creations! But who would even conceive the idea of pickle ice cream, lobster ice cream, blue cheese ice cream, or asparagus ice cream? What kind of a warped mind would have thought oysters should go in ice cream?!?
I am not making this up! This is real – and really disturbing! There are places across the United States that serve these ice cream experiments.
Just as crazy as these flavors might seem, I wonder if people thought the same thing about the early church. There were some crazy “flavor” combinations that must have made people on the outside gasp with horror, wondering how this could be?
Galatians 3:26-29 says, “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. (27) For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. (28) There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. (29) And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
A few other “flavors” are added in Colossians 3:9-11. “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; (10) And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him: (11) Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free: but Christ is all, and in all.”
Barbarians in the church?!? Slaves? Jews and Greeks together? If that’s not unfathomable enough, let’s add Samaritans to mix! And the Lord says that we are all one!
Now, I’m not even tempted to mess with the flavors of ice cream. As far as I’m concerned, there are certain food items and tastes that just don’t belong in ice cream. I don’t think of it as “creative.” I think someone needs a brain scan for even thinking that mashed potato ice cream or sweet corn ice cream was a good idea.
But I sure am thankful for God’s church where there is a blend of all the available “flavors” into one dynamic body. Through Jesus, all the “flavors” belong together and they are wonderful.
Acts 15:3 shows that God’s Creative Flavors are something to celebrate. “And being brought on their way by the church, they passed through Phenice and Samaria, declaring the conversion of the Gentiles: and they caused great joy unto all the brethren.”
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