The Whole Enchilada

A few days ago I had occasion to speak with a younger friend. He's been reading Donald Miller and the sort of stuff that you see in Relevant magazine, and seems to have been moved by their sincere call for a religion of the heart, rather than the head. That's great....except I worry about what will happen to him and a lot of other folks like him when they finally realize that following Christ is not an either/or situation, but a matter of both/and, the "whole enchilada."

Modernism held faith and reason to be opposed rather than complementary, and placed its trust in Reason. It's as if they decided to make enchiladas with the stiff circular form of the tortilla alone, discarding that messy sauce and filling. Now the postmodern pendulum, rightly sensing the disaster this has been, goes to the opposite extreme and disses the intellect, making faith exclusively a matter of feeling. This is like making an enchilada without its tortilla, allowing the spicy sauce to spill into a shallow pool covering one's plate. To do so taps into our Pietist heritage, repeating their rebellion against the scholasticism of the Lutheran Establishment, but it is to still be playing the game according to the rules of Modernism

"Look at it this way," I said tomy friend. "Someday you will love a woman. It may happen one of two ways.

1. Enchiladas need tortillas

"It may be that you fall in love at first sight. You don't know anything about her, but you are overcome with passion and absolutely cannot let her get away. You imagine her as some sort of goddess, holding your heart in thrall. What do you do?

First, you ferret out some information so you can get to know her. You discover her name, her phone number, where she lives, and in turn give her the same information about yourself. You ask her out. Laughing, she confesses that she's noticed you, as well, and is thrilled you would ask.

This just whets your thirst to know her better. You discover that her favorite group is Coldplay and her favorite film is The Shawshank Redemption. You learn that she played soccer all through elementary and middle school, but that she now is getting into ultimate frisbee and is trying to perfect her bidding. You are told by her close girlfriend that she works at Ross and is applying to Gonzaga next fall.

Then you get to know her even more. You discover that she has a brother with cerebral palsy, which caused her parents' marriage to collapse when she was twelve. You learn that her dream is to someday go to Prague, where her mother's people are from. She admits that she has been intrigued by Eastern Orthodoxy and has been going to St. Stamatios on the west end of town with that girlfriend for the last three months.

The point is: you can't love her apart from having some knowledge about her...knowledge that eventually reinforces your initial feelings for her and that leads to deeper feelings, so that finally, at some point, the knowing and the feeling become so entwined that it becomes impossible to separate them.

2. Enchiladas need filling

"But it could happen another way. You may be working with this girl, day after day. You know a lot about her. The two of you went through elementary, middle and high school together, and she always seemed quite ordinary. You aren't attracted to her at all. If anything, you think she is rather odd. Her ears are too big and stick out from her dirty blonde hair.

She likes to wear stripes, often in bright colors. You know that she got a scholarship from the U of O and double-majored in Biology and Computer Information Science. She lives close to work, and bikes everywhere. She always takes cream in her coffee and brings her lunch in a brown bag, so she can spend her lunch hour under the trees outside the office. There’s a small movie poster of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman in Gattaca neatly pinned to the wall of her cubicle. She’s currently reading
Searching for God Knows What.

But over time, you see how she treats everyone around her with dignity and respect. You see her work long and hard, and how she helps others who are falling behind. You begin to notice her honesty and smile. She doesn’t yell at you when you are late getting her your part of the project. You start anticipating the monthly staff meetings because she will be in attendance. Funny. Those ears start reminding you of Galadriel. You forward her a humorous story that has crossed your screen, and are pleased when she returns one to you.

Then it escalates. You start finding excuses to use the copier near her cubicle so you can take in her scent. You begin to dread the end of the week because it means a weekend without your paths crossing. Slowly, imperceptibly this woman you know so well becomes the woman you desire. When she announces she is being transferred to San Francisco, your heart shatters and you have to face up to your feelings, to your fantasy of someday holding her in your arms.

The point is: sometimes knowing can lead to loving.

Now tell me, which is the way to fall in love? Story one, or story two?

Nonsense, you say. Relationships can start either way!

All righty then, let's switch gears. It is clear that you can’t have a genuine enchilada without both the tortilla and the filling. But does it matter all that much which you prepare first, the tortilla or the filling? What if a relationship with Jesus Christ is like making an enchilada? What if His first approach to us is through the “tortilla” of Four Spiritual Laws, or a catechism, or Bible verses memorized at Awana, or Aristotle’s Metaphysics? Or what if His first approach is to us through the “filling” of a Wyldlife camp, a team sport, a film, the sound of ocean waves crashing, or the sacrament of communion?

Following Christ is a love affair. How did it begin for you?