111*-2008-06-03

Little Round Sandwiches
with Gherkins in the Middle
By W. Owen Thornton

I am surprised to note that the most read article on my website has been the one where I tied Christian Faith to Human Kindness: I am surprised and delighted.  And so, I will launch into the weirdest article I have ever written.  I have felt the pull of the spirit and for what it is worth, I’ll take the risk to explain to you why little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle lie at the heart of both human kindness and evangelism.

I think human kindness is self explanatory, but to give you an idea of what I mean by it, I will offer you less of a definition, and more of an intuitive feeling for it.  Human kindness by my “intuitive feeling” is any act where you cease being focused on yourself, even but for a moment and where you actively do something, small or large for someone else.  It could be as simple as helping someone pick up dropped papers rather than walking past them.  On a higher scale you could tell a friend that you met someone who could help give them a job.  Then you actively hook the two of people together.  You work at doing this, rather than ignoring the possibilities and doing nothing.

Evangelism is defined by me as an act which helps a person who does not currently have a relationship with God to, in some manner, have a relationship with God or to help someone who has a sketchy relationship with God have a more rich relationship with God.  This means that while God was working on said individual’s heart and spirit, that you, the evangelist, saw an opportunity to witness Christ which inspired the individual to take the great personal risk of seeking to explore more about God.

So how do little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle relate to human kindness and evangelism?  I think for me that answer requires a personal history.  I grew up in the home of a raging alcoholic.  Home was a place of terror.  (For me, today, this is a sad fact, but I have little emotion left about that.  I tell you this not for empathy or sympathy, for I have been cured, but to demonstrate the extreme contrast between that world and the next one I’m about to talk about.) 

Mom took me to church every Sunday.  And she would take me to church gatherings.  In those gatherings I was surrounded by salt-of-the-earth men and women.  These were ordinary folk, whom, with their loving nature and simple Christian caring (and with a spirit of genuine Christian hospitality) made me feel at home away from home.  Perhaps I should say, at home when I didn’t really have a home: at least in the emotional sense.  The things I loved most about those gatherings were the little round sandwiches with the gherkins in the middle.  I don’t even know what they roll up in those sandwiches other than the gherkins.  I just love the taste, the look, the texture … I just love everything about them. 

Think about what those sandwiches say about us today.  First the bread is cut in an especially unique way, lengthwise, rather than across.  I have never even seen bread cut that way, so to have someone go shopping, find it, buy it and then convert it into perfect little sandwiches, makes them really special!  (Sometimes the bread is even died pink or green and in these cases, instead of gherkins, there are cherries in the middle – little, perfect sweet treats!)  So the bread is cut differently.  It is a bigger deal to make these sandwiches.  The contents are spread out, the gherkins included, the sandwiches, rolled, refrigerated (I don’t know what they do to keep them rolled up!), and then sliced into little perfect pinwheels of delightful yumminess.

To my reckoning, these little love-sandwiches were only ever made for special church gatherings.  I cannot remember them appearing anywhere else.  So I always tied them to the loving caring women of a small congregation who always treated me like an adopted son.  These little sandwiches said a lot to me.  They said:

• You are loved.
• You are appreciated.
• You are cared about.
• I take special care in making them for you (and for others).
• I take pride in my food, and my sanctuary and my God and I want to share that with you.

And I have to tell you that today I have some specific rules about them.  You couldn’t just make them for me and give them to me.  They wouldn’t mean as much.  They have to be made for a special church event.  They are sacred gifts to God and His people.  Part of the joy of them is sneaking them onto the corner of your cup and saucer without anyone really knowing that you’ve had 20 or 30 of them … but that if they catch you, they are delighted that you’ve had so many because, after all, they are meant to be eaten and enjoyed.  Second, I would NEVER make them for myself.  A part of the wonder of little round sandwiches with gherkins I the middle is about having them made for you and it is about the discovery of finding them on the serving platters.

The discovery of finding something is a sacred wonder to me.  Sometimes I go to a store, especially a bookstore where I may or may not have a specific purchase in mind.  Part of the joy is playing the game that they’ll have the book you’re seeking or the perfect book that you didn’t know you were seeking on their bookstore shelves.  If they don’t have it, I find no disappointment in that event but if they do have it, what a joy to discover that perfect book!  So the joy of discovery is vital to little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle.  Therefore, you could never make them for yourself because there would be no joy in discovery.  And, if making them is not the kind of thing you can do with love (and love for God) because you just don’t like doing that kind of thing, then you should not make them.  Therefore they become rare and must be made for you by others!  All things we do for God should be done for the love of God and for the love of doing them, hence, for me, others will always have to make little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle.

So, little round sandwiches are all about human kindness and evangelism.  I have some idea of how much extra work these kinds of sandwiches take to make, rather than ordinary ones.  By ordinary, you realize I am talking about sandwiches cut on the diagonal with the crusts cut off!  And because they take extra work to make, little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle make you, the eater, feel extra special.  Therefore little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle have human kindness built right into them.  They say for themselves, by the nature of the extra work that goes into them, that you are special.  Making them means we step outside of ourselves and we do something actively kind for someone else.  And they lie at the heart of evangelism because any event where little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle are found are A: always church events, and B: state that the gift of Christian hospitality is different and special from ordinary, secular hospitality.  Hospitality is one of the things Christ was all about.  It might not have been fancy (it might not have been little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle), but hospitality was vital to Jesus: two miracles of his feeding the multitudes prove that!  And I’m betting on the grounds of how hungry those people were that a few multiplying loaves and fishes were pretty darned special and that the fact that they weren’t served little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle was okay on those occasions!

Hey.  I know that little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle is a silly article to write.  But I’ve been thinking a lot about those church ladies who served them to me when I was a kid.  They are all deceased now, including my mom.  Therein may be the single greatest gift that little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle have given me.  They offer me a way of recalling those lovely women who gave a frightened boy a home away from home … a home related to God’s home.  A home filled with their love and extra special caring … their human kindness.  Little round sandwiches with gherkins in the middle have played a role in my faith, in my Love for God and my relationship with Him and my love for my fellow human beings.  They are really important.

To take little round sandwiches with gherkins lightly, whatever they might be for you … is a serious mistake.  For I’m betting, you have a little round sandwich with a gherkin in the middle story that lies at the heart of you.  The central focus might look different from mine, but I bet it feels the same!

God Bless

Owen

Here's a printable copy of the article.  Should you use the material anywhere I would apprecate contact from you and name credit, please!

HKP Newsletter article 2