Do We Let Coke Lead the Way?

Did everyone see the Cheerios commercial during the Super Bowl? The world was all a Twitter about it… literally. Comments on it flooded Twitter, I’m told – not having a Twitter account – not particularly wanting one either. In the commercial a little girl is speaking with her African American father about the eminent arrival of a sibling. They are pushing Cheerios across the table, one for mommy, one for daddy, one for her, and one for the baby… and then she says, “and one for a puppy.” I thought it was cute (I’m not sure it does much to encourage me to buy Cheerios, however.) The camera then pans out to see mommy, who isn’t clearly African American. She isn’t of Scandinavian descent; it takes a double take to see that she is white, and that’s where the trouble begins. That’s right, many people, it seems, were upset about the presentation of an interracial marriage on that venue. Are Super Bowl commercials not sacred anymore?

The Super Bowl is American Civil Religion’s Google it) sacred stage – its high holy day. Subsequently, the commercials ought to express the values of our culture. Then, if Cheerios was not bad enough along comes COKE which really stepped out of line and was sacrilegious. It featured people singing America the Beautiful in different languages, including, at least, Spanish, Hebrew, Arabic and Tagalog. As you can imagine, there were complaints about this – mostly complaining that they should all learn and speak English. But that’s not all, amongst the very short clips was one of two men skating with a young girl, implying that perhaps they were her gay parents. That was simply too much for certain segments of the American population. Some are suggesting a boycott of COKE. The folks at COKE aren’t stupid – they wouldn’t show anything suggesting two people as gay parents if they didn’t think it would sell more COKE! We should take the hint. Our world is changing, and there are a lot of COKE lovers out there – new ones even – who would benefit from knowing that our Church does not condemn homosexuality. This is an important reason for becoming a Reconciling Congregation. (Interesting fact that I learned somewhere through social media – the woman who wrote America the Beautiful was a lesbian.)

Why isn’t our denominational motto, Open Hearts, Open Minds and Open Doors, and our Statement of Inclusion enough? Why do we have to take this step to identify ourselves as a Reconciling Congregation? To me that’s the difference between saying to strangers, come and visit and if you like us you can stay, and actively attempting to reach out to others risking that we might be changed. It is going beyond tolerance to intentional inclusion, from passivity to taking an active stand. It says to the world, anyone who is upset with the COKE commercial, for either reason, or the Cheerios commercial too, needs to reconsider the Gospel and the Way of Jesus Christ. It also becomes a tool of evangelism. There are many people out there who really do not know a church like ours exists. The more vocal we are about this the more people we will reach who will have the opportunity to experience the love of God in Christ who otherwise wouldn’t because of a false perception they have of what Christianity is.

If anyone at this point says, but what about the Bible I must simply say, I believe we are doing this not in spite of what is in the Bible but because of what is in the Bible. It would take a long time to explain this, and I am willing to do so for anyone who is interested. I believe people read the Bible through an old, simplistic and tarnished lens, no longer seeing the heart of the message – if we have not love….

I don’t want for COKE to take the lead. I think WE need to take the lead and proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, firmly and with enthusiasm. I am committed to and excited about our Church becoming a Reconciling Congregation and ask everyone to support it too.

Pastor Jim