Pork Chops, Jolly Ranchers, & Slim Jims

Last night my bible study and I went out to the lake to hang out and chat about God and life, but mostly to play in the campfire. But while we were out there, we had an interesting discussion about following God. It started with a passage the book of John, John 10:3-5, which says,

To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.

This led to a discussion about whether a particular situation is truly the call of the Good Shepherd, or the voice of a stranger. The line between the two got pretty fuzzy at times, and from that discussion, I have derived a metaphor for such situations.

A pork chop is a very good thing. When cooked correctly, a sliver of pork loin is one of the most delicious meals one can find. It is wholesome (meaning it contains stuff your body needs), it’s natural and un-tampered-with (with the exception of seasoning and cooking), and it is satisfying. After you have eaten a pork chop, you can sit back and say to yourself, “self, I’m glad I ate that pork chop because now I am no longer hungry and my body can use most of what I just ate to grow and move and live. Eating that pork chop was a good decision.” Unless you’ve over-indulged, you can feel good about ingesting a cooked piece of pig.

On the other hand, a Jolly Rancher is not as good in the sense that the pork chop is good. It does taste good, but that’s about it. When you eat a Jolly Rancher, you taste the sugar and other various things that are contained within, but after you’ve finished it, that’s it, your experience with that little piece of candy is finished. It’s not wholesome, it doesn’t contain much if any nutrients or other resources that your body can use, it doesn’t satisfy, it’s most definitely not a naturally occurring object. You’ll never find a Jolly Rancher farm, or a Jolly Rancher orchard. The only thing that the Jolly Rancher has going for it is the fact that it is good while you’re eating it. But after that, it has nothing.

If you haven’t picked up on the analogy yet, I’ll lay it out. If you have, good deal, but I’m going to lay it out anyway. The call of God, or the Good Shepherd, is like the pork chop. It is good, it is good for you, it is what we were meant to follow, and it is satisfying. The call of the stranger is like the Jolly Rancher; it may be good while you’re experiencing it, but it’s not good for you, it’s not what we were made for, and it doesn’t satisfy.

This is all pretty straight forward. But if life were always this straight forward, no one would ever have any trouble at all deciphering what is and isn’t the call of the Good Shepherd, but the fact is, it’s not that simple. People have trouble in some areas determining if what they are ‘hearing’ is the Good Shepherd’s voice or the stranger’s voice because there are more things out there than just pork chops and Jolly Ranchers.

Take for instance Slim Jims. If you don’t know what a Slim Jim is, it’s a ‘stick’ of processed meat product (or byproduct, I'm not sure which), that is meant to taste like barbeque or some other kind of seasoned meat. A Slim Jim is derived from natural products (meat), and it has some nutritional value. But it also was made through artificial means; it has a cocktail of preservatives and other unnatural agents in it. It tastes good, and has the potential to fill a person up (if you ate a large plate full of Slim Jims, you would be filled by those), so it can be satisfying, although not the healthiest thing in the world. But that’s not what it’s meant for, it’s meant for short term pleasure, not lasting. We see here that it has characteristics of both the pork chop and the Jolly Rancher. This is where things get a little fuzzy.

Given these three options (pork chops, Jolly Ranchers, and Slim Jims), if you are hungry, the best choice is obviously the pork chop. But sometimes we don’t have a pork chop where we are at. But Slim Jims are pretty much available everywhere. At almost every store you go into, you would be able to find a Slim Jim. The same could be said about a Jolly Rancher (or some facsimile there of). But the Slim Jim is a better choice for nourishment than the Jolly Rancher. But just because the Slim Jim is better then the Jolly Rancher doesn’t mean that it’s what is best for us. It may be better (and is definately better for us) to wait to satisfy our hunger when we can gain access to a pork chop. Instead of searching out a short term fix to our need, a better solution would be to practice patience and wait until the opportunity to eat a pork chop arises.

If you haven’t followed me this far, I’ll lay it out again; if you have, good deal, but I’m still going to lay it out. We’ve already established that the pork chop is the Good Shepherd, and the Jolly Rancher is the stranger, but what about the Slim Jim? The Slim Jim has redeeming qualities, it is possibly derived from a pork chop, but is not a pork chop. We might taste some of the pork chop in the Slim Jim, but it doesn’t taste or satisfy like a pork chop. So, what is it? The Slim Jim is still the stranger. Shocked? Don’t be. Anything that isn’t the Good Shepherd is a stranger. Even if they have some aspects of the Good Shepherd, they are not the Good Shepherd. Only the pork chop is the Good Shepherd. Some good may come from the Slim Jim stranger, but not nearly as much as the pork chop Good Shepherd.

I think many people get led astray by the Slim Jim. They’ve never tasted the pork chop, just read or heard about it (if that), and when they taste the Slim Jim, they recognize a part of the pork chop in it and say to themselves, “I think I can taste pork chop in this, this is what I need.” But in reality, it’s only the Jolly Rancher masquerading as a pork chop to deceive those who don’t know what it is to truly be satisfied by the pork chop. And it leads many down the wrong path.

If you’ve never tasted the pork chop, or aren’t sure if you have or haven’t, ask God for a taste. Pray, “God, I need to taste the pork chop, I’m tired of Jolly Ranchers and Slim Jims. I need the real deal.” God wants nothing more than for you to be satisfied by the pork chop.

Paul Unpacked

Romans 6:20-23

When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed? The end of those things is death. But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. –Romans 6:20-23

So in Romans 6, Paul is talking about how we (Christians, believers) have died to sin in our baptism in Christ and have been raised again along with Christ, therefore sin will not be our master any longer. He goes on to explain that whatever or whoever we act in obedience to and obey has become our master and we its slaves. Paul continues by saying since we have been released from sin’s mastery over us, why would we continue to allow it to be our master. He drives this point home with verses 20-23.

Before 20-23, Paul mentions that we are now slaves to righteousness. This helps explain his first statement in verse 20 which says “When you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness,” or when you were under sin’s mastery, you were free from the mastery of righteousness. But he then adds to that, “But what fruit were you getting at that time from the things of which you are now ashamed?” or what did that get you? The fruit of those things, Paul says, is death.

I believe for many people this is a very abstract saying that is hard to grasp. How does sin result in death. Some might say “I’ve sinned before, but I’m not dead.” That’s not what Paul is saying here. Paul is saying that a life lived for sin and lived in sin naturally results in death. To understand this, we must contrast this statement with a later statement in verse 22 where he says “you have…become slaves to God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life”, or the fruits of obedience to God (not sin) is righteousness and eternal life.

Let’s take a more practical approach to this lesson. Where does a life of sin, chasing after money, women, things of this world, ultimately get you? Taking this life all the way to its conclusion, what will result? Well, when you die, what happens to the money that you’ve chased after? What happens to the women that you’ve pursued? What happens to the car, the house, the family, the things of this world you have lived for when you die? They leave you, right? When you leave this world (die), the things of this world are no longer yours, right? All the things that you’ve worked for are no longer in your possession. Only one thing remains when you die: death itself. Everything is gone, but you’re still dead. If you’ve lived life for things of this world, when you die, all of them are left behind and you are left with only death itself.

You might ask, “How is that any different from a life lived for God?” Christians still leave this world, they still die, this much is true. However, what is it that Christians spend their lives pursuing and trying to possess? Christians do have things of this world. They do have money, they do have a car (at least most American believers), they have a house or shelter of some kind, they might have a spouse and a family. Most of those things are necessary to live in this world, but that’s not what they pursue and strive for. What a Christian strives for and pursues is not of this world. They pursue Christ, a relationship with the living God in and through Christ Jesus. A Christian’s entire life should be spent pursuing Christ. So, when a Christian dies in this world, yes, the things of this world pass away, but those things are not what that person has been living for. He’s been living for Christ. Christ is outside this world, so when we die and leave this world behind, we still have Christ and from Christ comes righteousness and eternal life.

Therefore we see the logic behind Paul’s statement that the fruit of a life lived for sin (the world) is death, but a life lived for God (Christ) produces the fruits of sanctification and eternal life.