TacoBellpalooza

Ben and I decided to have a “TacoBellpalooza” on Tuesday. “What is a TacoBellpalooza?” you ask. Good question.

On Tuesday, from 2 PM until 6 PM most of the 5,800 Taco Bell restaurants in the USA were giving away a free taco to anyone who came in and asked for one. And I got the bright idea that it would be fun to see how many Taco Bells we could visit (that’s the palooza part… it was kind of a Taco Bell extravaganza, a festival of Taco Bells). There would be no drive through windows for us—the plan was to dine in and munch down our free crunchy taco and then move on to the next Taco Bell. (Alex could not participate in our TacoBellpalooza because he had to work. Karla also was at work, but she joined us at Taco Bell stop #3). The TacoBellpalooza was a great idea on Sunday when Ben and I first discussed it. It was truly inspirational before we started wolfing down taco after taco, but now that the TacoBellpalooza is over my tummy tells me it wasn’t such a great idea at all.

Ben, Ben’s friend, Cole, and I started our adventure at about 3:30 on Tuesday afternoon. We went to the following Taco Bells:

• Santa Fe by Hobby Lobby in Olathe,
• Blackbob and 119th in Olathe
• Quivira across from the Oak Park Mall in Lenexa
• 87th Street across from the Police Station in Lenexa
• 87th Street in front of the Sear’s Grand in Lenexa
• Santa Fe west of I-35 in Olathe
• And finally, the Taco Bell in front of the Great Mall of the Great Plains in Olathe

If you are counting, that’s seven Taco Bells and seven tacos each. Let the record show that Karla joined us at the Taco Bell visit #3 and ate a taco at the next three stops. She refused to eat one at the final destination. Wise lady, she is. But your honor, let the record further show that the boys and I ate the whole taco and nothing but the taco at all seven stops. Burp.

I discovered yesterday I am no Takeru Kobayashi. You know him—that’s the skinny hotdog-eating champion guy from Japan. I was feeling a little green under the gills at taco #5 (I can’t politely describe for you my feelings after taco #7, but suffice it to say, “It wasn’t good”.)—So how does that dude eat fifty dogs in ten minutes? And how does he stay so skinny?

I like Tacos. They are tasty and crunchy and meaty and yummy. But after taco #7, I was referring to them as greasy and messy and icky and yucky. In fact, according to the rhinoceros that now occupies my tum tum, I won’t be visiting Taco Bell for quite some time. Too much of a good thing is not always a good thing.

There could never be too much of a good thing in the church could there? We could never pray too much or read too much of our Bible or worship too much-- right? I’m not so sure….

Do you remember when Jesus and a few of the fellas hiked up the mountain for what had to be the world’s greatest worship service of all time? There was not a song sung or an offering taken, but check this out: Jesus’ faced glowed; his clothes became whiter than anything Clorox Bleach could ever do; a couple of guys who had been dead for only several hundred years showed up—Moses and Elijah; and the crème de le crème of the whole deal was when God Himself said, “This is my Son… listen to him!” Only one word could describe all of that: WOW! (Read all about it in Matthew 17 or Mark 9 or Luke 9).

Do you remember Peter’s response? He was ready to stay there forever. He wanted to build a retreat center—or at least build three shacks one each for Moses, Elijah and Jesus. I can imagine old Pete saying, “This is the coolest thing ever Jesus! Let’s never leave!”

But Jesus knew that his mission wasn’t to hang out on a mountain top and with a glowing face, rather his mission was to save the world. His mission was to reach out to the hurting, the poor, the messed up and troubled. The Bible says, he came to “seek and to save that which was lost.” (Luke 19:10) So as awesome as it must have been, I think we could say too much of a good thing would have been a bad thing—had Jesus followed Peter’s suggestion and stayed on the mountain, he would not have accomplished his mission.

It’s the same with us. Jesus doesn’t call us to simply sit in pews and “do church” and glow. He calls us to make disciples. He calls us to make a difference. And if the extent of our commitment to Jesus is simply sitting in a pew (even if it is an awesome service with a fantastic sermon and the greatest music ever—in other words a typical Sunday at Central. hee hee! ), then we are simply experiencing too much of a good thing.

Don’t get me wrong—worship services are important, and I think we should be in one every week (see Hebrews 10:25). I love to worship God with God’s people. But that cannot be the extent of our Christian experience. Worship is meant to be a place to express our praise to the Lord and to prepare our lives to reach the world for Him. Every Sunday should be a celebration of the Resurrected Lord—but we can’t be content to keep the celebration to ourselves. We’ve got to break out of the pews and get out of the church and start rubbing shoulders with those who are getting beat up in the world and share with them that Jesus cares and Jesus loves and Jesus is the answer to life’s deepest needs.

Anything less is just filling up on tacos while the rest of the world starves.