Parable of the Stinky Bagel

I’m always looking for a new parable, metaphor, or illustration that parallels some truth about real life. There are many valuable parables in the Bible, but one concerning the bagels donated for our outreaches by Einstein Brothers Bagels is too good to pass up. If you were a bagel, what flavor would you be? Now think about your least favorite bagel flavor. You can almost smell it, can’t you?

When Einstein donates their leftover bagels to us, they have a habit of dumping all the differently flavored bagels- plain, asiago cheese, chocolate chip-all in the same big bag. This cinnamon raisin bagel I am holding- my personal favorite- was created pure, embracing its true, yummy nature of cinnamon and raisins. 2 Corinthians 5:17 actually says that anyone who embraces their true Christ nature is a new creature, that old things have passed away, all things new, and all things are of God. We began life as a batter made up of raisins, cinnamon, and some other stuff, and the end product is this new creature, a delicious, sweet, bagel. If I was a Hindu and came back in the next life as a bagel, this is the one I would want to be.

But unfortunately, this particular cinnamon raisin bagel, although created perfectly, was thrown carelessly into the same bag with a bunch of heathen-from-hell onion bagels. It was also rubbing raisins with the “I am stubborn and rebellious” garlic bagels. So although my sweet cinnamon raisin bagel began its life as a sweet new creature, it sure didn’t smell like one by the time I pulled it out of the bag. In fact, it smelled less like the bagel it was born to be and more like the other bagels it had been hanging around with.

When I discovered that certain people were once again doing the same things that they had been delivered from, I had to wonder, Why did these bad things return in their lives? Why? The answer is not unlike what happens to sweet bagels when they hang out with stinky bagels. Just by hanging out out with the people they used to who didn’t get delivered themselves, they picked those things back up simply by being in the same bag.

There comes a time when we each have to recognize that we are just not smart enough to figure out our own lives. This is the time to seek an expert or an applicable scripture where we can say by faith, “I may not get it yet, but I can still act on it.” What something says in the scriptures about you is FOR you, not against you. It is also for helping others, like when you see your friends go backward in life, and you’re thinking, How can they be still doing those same things? Well, yours is not to judge them or call them sinners. How’s that worked for you so far? Rather, we should be available to help deliver them from whatever it is they cannot break free from on their own. I found out that it is usually because they are still hanging out in the mixed bag. When that stinky person from their past calls, they give them a ride. What they ought to do instead is say, “I’m sorry, I can’t give you a ride because I cannot have you stink up my car like you did before.” Or you could just get them a bus pass and avoid all the drama.

God showed me this morning that sin actually has a smell. In fact sin, evil, and death each have their own smells. Why do you think there are so many different fragrances at the department store? Some might argue, “Well, it is because fragrances smell different on every person.” True, but why is that? I am beginning to believe it is because every person has a different “something” inside them that makes them smell different. I’ve used myself as a guinea pig for this for many years. In fact, God revealed this to me. I’d ask, “God, what was that smell that I used to have? Go ahead, you can be honest with me. I can take it.” Don’t think, dear reader, that this is an invitation for you to give me a piece of your mind. I am only mature enough to take correction from God.

Think about someone who could be classified as demon possessed, or just plain stupid, repeatedly. I call them “filled with the unholy spirit,” while Jesus said they were filled with an “unclean spirit,” or seven. To digress even more, I have noticed that smells have mass, like the smells that emanate from my 9.7-ounce can of Fabreeze. When you spray air freshener into a room, you can’t see it, but as the smell increases, the volume of fluid in the container decreases. Whatever created that smell has some weight to it, which means it must be “something.” Smells represent something real, whether clean or unclean, holy or unholy, coming from a can or from a person.

I was reminded of this yesterday. I walked by the door of a real estate company and smelled “that smell”. Now these people weren’t dirty, but something that was going on there was. The writers of the Bible were very aware of smells. They must have been pregnant and migraine sufferers. Scripture tell us sacrifices that produce “a sweet smelling savor” please God. Old Testament animal sacrifices must please God in the same way the smells coming from my barbecue delight me. “And lo, God was satisfied with the barbecue, for the smell was pleasing to his nostrils.” I wonder if lI could get less people to show up for my barbecues if I renamed them animal sacrifices…

I realized something about smell in general, and about the smells I used to have. After getting inner conflicts straightened out in my own life, I no longer needed to douse myself in foo-foo fragrances to smell nice. I realized that the smell I had been trying to cover up didn’t have anything to do with what I ate or how much I sweated from working out. Rather, there was something else there, and it turned out to be something else I shouldn’t have been doing.

One more thing: if you’re a guy, and you’ve never been to a nail salon before, you might just pass out when you walk in. Interestingly though, is that the owner and the other people working there don’t even smell anything any more. They have built up a tolerance for stinkiness due to repeated contact with the stinkiness. That’s how those people in the mixed bagel bag are. They don’t even know how much the smell of onion and garlic has permeated them.

Hanging out with stinky bagels got me wondering about those people in real life who, while being genuinely sweet people, cannot catch a break in life because they continue hanging out with stinkers. They spend so much of their time working on becoming the best parents, employees, and citizens they can be, but life continues to treat them as lower life forms for no other reason but the stink they pick up from hanging with the wrong crowds. The newspapers are full of stories of exceptional people- of note recently are those in professional sports like Michael Vick- who work hard to become new creatures, but then do not protect themselves from hanging out with stinkers.

Mr. Vick did not need Whoopi Goldberg to make excuses for him, saying it was not his fault he returned to the activities of his “people” because that was how he was raised. What? He was raised to kill dogs? I might agree that he learned how to be a dog by hanging with his “dawgs.” Typically, parents and teachers do not teach their children this curriculum. Kids learn “dog” by choosing to listen to “dog” music and other “dogs” instead of their parents and teachers. Interestingly, Jesus did say that dogs do return to their own vomit and sadly, even the self-professed Christian Michael Vick returned to his. If we do not want to be dogs, but rather, new creatures, then the most responsible way in which we can act like new creatures is by never letting ourselves be arbitrarily thrown in with the same pack of dogs- or in the same old bag with a bunch of stinky-old bagels.

Do you want more out of life than you are consistently getting? Remember that new creatures are supposed to live by faith, not by the law of the pack. Your best life demands a relationship between you and your God, not between you and your dogs, if you get the twist.

By nurturing our relationship with God, we can develop the faith that brings to us all those things that others seek. Living by faith is a choice, and not one we always choose when we have the money to just pay for what we want. A few years ago, I was ready for a new vehicle but instead of buying one, I thought I would see if I could get one by faith. After exchanging my TV-time for time meditating on Bible scriptures, I actually heard a voice say, “Call it in!” I listen to voices, in my head and outside of my head. So when an unseen voice like the one at the Amityville house says something like, “Get out,” I just do what it says. A picture of a new Ford Explorer had been stuck to my fridge for about a year, but that day my faith was ready to be released on it. So, I just did what the voice said and called it in. “I believe I receive my new Ford Explorer, now!” The next day, I was driving a brand new, paid-for, Ford Explorer. During that year, I had foolishly told people that I was going to develop my faith to the level of a new vehicle. Many would chide, “Where are you gonna get a new Ford Explorer, just the way you want it, paid-for, including the insurance? You think God is just gonna cough one up for you? Who do you think you are?” Good thing I wasn’t hanging out in the same bag with those stinkers! Who needs friends who constantly deflate your hopes and dreams or who make you feel less worthy than you are? I would simply reply, “God will just have to cough one up, then!” Sure enough, God did, and it was the exact model and color I had envisioned. That’s how I knew it was mine. Seek first God, the scripture said, and all the things you need will be added unto you. And stay away from those stinky bagels!

How can you have a better marriage, a great relationship with your children, or a fulfilling work life? While these are not “things” like cars, houses, and PS3s, the spiritual principle is the same for attaining them. God will still have to cough them up but make sure you are spending at least as much time in his word as you are watching TV or hanging out with others. He may cough up a scripture you didn’t see before, or reveal an area of your life that you need to address. Changing the way we have habitually treated people is a small price to pay to have this kind of contact with God. Did we really think we were going to have the things we wanted in life by not doing what God says? The first step is getting ourselves out of that bag of stinkers so we can find our true divine selves again.

While stink is powerful, I believe that the force of faith is even more powerful. I remember helping one of our volunteers who used to make the bagel pick-ups unload other donated items from her car. Even a week after taking the bag of bagels out, her car still smelled like those onion, garlic, and combination bagels. I felt awful for even asking her to run this errand. When Einstein’s mixes all those bagels together, what becomes the predominant smell? We smell the ones that have the strongest “force”.

People all over want to be free from addictions and abusive environments- and from repeating history. When they cannot get free from these things, it is usually because they are still hanging around people with the stronger “force”. People of faith, on the other hand, exude an even more powerful force than the stinkers do. Start hanging out with those powerful people who go around doing good. Let their power begin to rub off on you and your life will begin smelling sweeter in no time.