Everyone should know how to catch monkeys. It’s important. It’s simple too. You take some coconuts and drill a hole in them just about big enough for a monkey to put his flat hand into. You put something sweet inside the coconut and then tie a rope from the coconut around a tree. Then you wait. When a monkey comes along (this could be a long wait in the UK!) he will smell the sugar and come running to the coconut, reach inside, and close his fist around the desired sweetness.
The trouble, of course, is that the hole you drilled is not large enough for a monkey to get his fist out. Only an open hand will leave the coconut. But the monkey will not let go. Oh no. He will keep his little fingers tightly coiled around that sweet prize until the trap owners come and take him away. This is the cost of being a greedy, closed-handed monkey.
Enough said. The application is obvious. The scene is a ready-made youth group drama. You’ve got to let go. You’ve got to say ‘no’ to temptation. You’ve got to resist the shiny sweet stuff, and keep walking so you don’t get trapped. Yep.
Obvious. But what if the sweet stuff isn’t bad? What if the sweet rice is religion? What happens if what God wants us to let go of isn’t sin and temptation and desire but the things that limit him in our lives? What if God is calling us to a greater understanding of just how big the kingdom of God is, and yet we are content to sit around our churches with our hands in our coconut worship meetings enjoying the sweet rice of the latest contemporary worship songs? What if open-handed meant something bigger than we could imagine?
Peter had an experience just like this. He was upstairs (over lunch and was hungry) and had an open vision. In the vision a sheet was lowered from heaven with every kind of animal on it. Even the dirty ones that Jewish people wouldn’t imagine touching - let alone eating. Even the Egyptian food that was detestable to a Jew. All of it. Lobsters, crabs and PIGS. Yes, even pigs. And then he heard God say, ‘Kill and eat’. And then he did something incredible. In the vision, Peter’s immediate response to God was ‘no’.
Wait.
Pause.
Reflect.
Peter’s immediate response to God was no. Wow. This is the man God was going to use as a foundation stone in the new community he was making on the earth. His first response was to tell God ‘no’. Because obviously to a good Jew and a follower of Jesus, ‘no’ was the right answer. Peter not only said ‘no’ but he also said ‘never’. I would never do that. It’s against my ‘religious code’. God tried again. And then again. Three times. This is an important number in Peter’s life of course.
If you don’t let go, you get stuck with baggage
It comes up a few times. Three times is the amount of time it takes to get things through to Peter’s brain. He might be more like a monkey than we think. (Of course, I don’t want to throw the first monkey stone, as I’m sure I’d fall short here too.)
Three times the Lord gives him the same instruction and then tells him to kill and eat, because nothing God has made is unclean. This is supposed to remind us of Jesus and the Pharisees I’m sure. You remember when they were having a discussion about what makes a person unclean and Jesus said: ‘It’s not what goes in you that makes you unclean…it’s what comes out of you!’ This is not rocket science. My four year-old delights in talking about the unclean things that come out of the body. Jesus was telling the Pharisees that they were full of poo (insert four year-old boy laughing his head off here). Seriously. There was no external thing that made people unclean – uncleanness happens on the inside. It’s in the heart. You can tell what a heart is like by what comes out of it.
In this moment, Peter probably remembered the time Jesus was attacking the Pharisees. And he probably realised that Jesus is saying the same thing to him! It’s a bit disorienting. He still doesn’t quite understand what God is saying exactly. Should he go right now to an ocean and look for a clam or something? Thankfully God helps him along. Right then there is a knock at his door and two servants from a roman officer’s house ask for Peter by name. What?
Peter is a Jew. Jews do not associate with Gentiles. And I can tell you this – they most certainly do not like Romans. Romans are the enemies of the Jews. In order for Peter to share the gospel story with any authenticity at all he’s going to have to let go of some sweet rice.
Exclusion. This is for me and my family (we are the chosen ones).
Prejudice. Romans are bad. Roman leaders are worse.
Infection. I’ll get dirty (the Jewish cleanliness laws were extreme).
Reputation. What will the others think if I’m ‘friends’ with a Gentile (and a Roman!).
Future reality. Will this keep happening? Do I have the resources?
Now let me tell you about a kid with a tricycle. My friend was a missionary at a compound in Papua New Ginea. A very poor country. The compound was a mixture of missionaries from abroad and those from the local area. That Christmas a little American boy was sent a tricycle as a gift. He loved it. He was out on the compound with his new tricycle, riding it around. A little PNG boy was his friend and was running around with him while he rode. The little American boy got bored and decided to go for the swings. He got off his bike but noticed his little friend waiting to take his turn. He promptly picked up his tricycle in his little arms and dragged it over to the swing set so his friend couldn’t ride his bike.
This is the thing about not letting go. You get stuck. With baggage. You get loaded down with stuff and religion and more stuff and more things that are ‘yours’. Soon you are the church youth group that is simply ministering to kids inside your church instead of looking for ways of sharing the gospel with authenticity. Because of risk management (infection) and programmed busy-ness (exclusion) and because ‘those’ kids are hard to reach (prejudice) and will I lose my job as a result (reputation) and do I have the energy (future reality) - you never leave your church. Ouch. This is simply the truth. Why don’t churches have outreach programmes to the poor? Why don’t we have socially excluded kids in our youth groups? Why don’t we enter and live in the neighbourhoods where people could use healthy examples of family? Why don’t we foster and adopt unwanted kids? Why aren’t there more church funded positions to minister in communities instead of churches?
Speaking of monkeys and tricycles, I’m not a fan of the sex industry. In truth it’s a group of devious exploiters who take advantage of the worst of human nature, and the results are devastating to women around the globe. If I could I’d lock them all up immediately. But one weekend in Melbourne, Australia changed me. The largest sex-show (sexpo) in Australasia was in town at the same conference centre as The Salvation Army ordination celebrations (we call it ‘commissioning’). What were we to do? We didn’t know and actually most of us didn’t even want to know. The manager of the facility told us that all would be fine because he assigned separate entrances to each of us so we never would have to meet! Wow. That’s probably the best way to handle it. Unless you follow Jesus.
When the Church refuses to engage with the world it is useless. It is simply a small group of like-minded people who will eventually die. To make a long story short I simply called up the general manager of the sexpo and asked if The Salvation Army could have a booth at his show. He was shocked and then honoured and invited us to all of his shows with a free booth anywhere we’d like. He even extended free entry to the sexpo for any Salvation Army person!
It was terrible and wonderful at the same time. I hated this man. He was part of a machine that chewed up and spat out women that I loved. He was driving the sex industry that fuels the largest slave making reality in the history of the earth. He was a monster.
We are so afraid - afraid to try something new, to meet new people, to establish new strategies, to change our mind, to challenge our systems
But he was there to meet us and greet us and helped us set up our booth. Then he was genuinely interested in all of our literature – including a Bible and a book denouncing the sex industry. He was a seeker for truth and looking for God in his everyday life. What?! It was an outrage. It really was. Internally I had a huge debate, externally my friends in the larger Church were publicly questioning the strategy, and my friends in the justice community were denouncing me as a sellout. It was an external nightmare and an internal challenge. How was I to live? What was I to do?
Jesus invites us to let go of prejudice, exclusion, fear of infection, rejection and future realities and to go with him to the places we are least ready for and most surprised about - the places that might kill our reputations but leave us alive to the reality of God in the world, presenting the gospel with authenticity. What are the barriers to living this way? Well, fear for one thing. And a natural aversion to change – which in reality is just another form of fear. Which might lead to the key ingredient in letting go. The tasty treat in the coconut might just turn out to be fear. All of us grab hold of it and then it grabs hold of us and we become stuck. Afraid to let go lest we lose out, afraid to try something new, to meet new people, to establish new strategies, to change our mind, to challenge our systems…we have a hold of fear and we become captive like little monkeys in trees.
The answer is to let go. To open our hands and free ourselves from the things which enslave us. Corrie Ten Boom said that her Christian experience was simply God prying her fingers one by one until her hands were fully open. What are you hanging on to? What are you grasping that you can’t trust God with? What are you enslaved to that keeps you stuck, waiting for the inevitable reality of normal life? Isn’t there a wild world full of adventure waiting for you? Didn’t Jesus suggest that to follow him was going to mean letting go of other things (like what your family thinks? And your church leader wants? And your denomination expects? And your future economic security?). Isn’t that what it means to live out the gospel? To go where we have never gone before. To leave our exclusive, prejudicial concern for our well-being and reputations and create a new future reality. To take up an invitation to a radical life. To let go.
Danielle Strickland is an author, international speaker and Salvation Army officer.
