Two of my favorite things these days are brie and blueberries. When I want to indulge, I pick up a package of each at the grocery store. They are so decadent that they make me feel like a queen when I bite into them. And together? Oh I think they might be a contender for the greatest edible combination on earth. Seriously, though. Forget peanut butter and jelly or nutella and strawberries. Chocolate chips and cookies or pie and ice cream. Who needs tomato and mozzarella or wine and cheese? Okay, I definitely do, but the point is…brie and blueberries were made for each other.
The creamy bliss of brie, with its sharp flavor that lingers on the tongue. And the flavor-bursting, liquidy coolness of blueberries, just the perfect combination of summery sweet and tantalizingly tart. And together, on the same plate? A seriously sensational combination of heavenly tastes and textures. Brie and blueberries would be a complete course in my culinary last supper. No crackers. No bread. Just brie and blueberries.
The funny thing is, I hated both of these luxurious food items as a kid. Blueberries were not my fruit. I found them to be overly sweet and fake tasting, like when you know something has Splenda or aspartame in it. Blueberry filling in poptarts, blueberries baked into pancakes, blueberry flavored candy, I constantly turned my nose up in refusal to it all. It didn’t taste good. It tasted like you were trying too hard to make it taste good, leaving it grossly sweet with little flavor. I preferred the tanginess of strawberry or tartness of apples.
But the thing is, no one ever put a bowl of fresh, untouched blueberries in front of me. The only blueberries I was eating weren’t really blueberries at all, but over-processed, over-sweetened blueberry flavored products, like candy or poptarts or donuts. They all left a nasty aftertaste, but none of them were pure, unprocessed, whole blueberries.
I think this is why people don’t like Jesus. They don’t like Him, because everyone around them is feeding them fake, over-processed Jesus. And no matter what form they serve it in (a simple sermon, a conversation over coffee, a small act of kindness, or a smile), it often leaves an aftertaste of Splenda. It’s too sweet and lacks pure flavor. Because the real Jesus is like blueberries, bursting with flavor that wakes you up, quenches your thirst, and leaves you hungry for more. Untainted by humanity’s oversimplification and often well-meaning but over-processed serving of Him, Jesus is as tantalizingly sweet, refreshing, flavorful, and surprising as an untouched blueberry. If we were serving up real Jesus, people wouldn’t be able to get enough. But instead, crowds are turning up their nose to the awful aftertaste of fakeness. And I don’t blame them. If I thought Jesus tasted like a blueberry poptart, I would’t want anything to do with Him, nor would I think I needed him.
I didn’t like brie as a child either. It was my mom’s favorite cheese, but I couldn’t get over that bitter taste of the thick rind that stained my tongue enough to enjoy the splendid creaminess of the rich, gooey cheese on the inside. My mom made it out like brie was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Oohing and ahhing at its decadence and deliciousness. All I heard was how wonderful this brie was. She described it as scrumptious and heavenly, but I thought she was nuts. I mean that awful rind was chewy and bitter and ruined the cheese entirely. I didn’t buy it.
But that’s because I didn’t understand the beauty of bitter-sweetness. That the harsh rind that first touches your tongue allows you to fully appreciate the rich creaminess that follows. I was so stuck on the rind that I couldn’t get to the soft, sensational filling. And since everyone obsessed over how remarkable this cheese was, I was convinced they were insane.
Similarly, we give a false reputation to what following Jesus is really like. Yes, there are rich, heavenly moments in His presence and perfect peace. But you have to get through a seriously bitter rind to make it there most of the time. Following Jesus isn’t a shortcut to the creamy center. You gotta eat brie the same way everyone else does. But because we talk about it like it’s magical deliciousness, people are immediately turned off when what they taste isn’t so sweet. They sense bitterness and they yell, “Hold it, this isn’t what you said it would be.” They encounter struggle and based on personal experience, call us out on our crap and give up on Jesus, because they tasted for themselves, and we were wrong.
We have to stop acting like life with Jesus is a fairytale. Like following Him is easy and struggle-free. It’s hard. And there’s a lot of bitterness to cut through. And even though that makes the sweetness He offers all the more sensational, to not honestly admit that we encounter trials along the way feeds others lies that will cause them to harden their harts and turn away when they meet hardship on their own journey with Jesus.
God deserves better. We have to stop over-processing Jesus like fake blueberries and over-sensationalizing Him like He’s the rind-less, creamy center of brie. The people around us deserve to taste the real Jesus in His fullness, like a summery sweet and tantalizingly tart bowl of fresh-picked blueberries. They deserve a life of following Him, full of the incomparable bitter-sweetness found in a bite of brie.
Let’s serve up Jesus just as He is, and talk about life with Him as we actually encounter it. Anything less just leaves a bad aftertaste and nobody asking for seconds. I’ve tasted His goodness and only desire to fill my plate with more, just like I can’t get enough of blueberries and brie. Don’t you want others to desire the same?
