A Gospel to Save
Luke 4:14-30
Illustration
by Leonard Sweet

Many years ago a new Juicy Fruit ad appeared. The old jingle and song had been drummed into boomers minds for 20 years. We still can't get that jungle out of our mind. In this new ad, a bunch of snow skiers are sitting around the fire at a ski lodge singing the song. In walk two snow boarders. They look at each other, shrug their shoulders, then one of the newcomers grabs the guitar from one of the singing skiers and smashes it in the fire.

Here Juicy Fruit is making fun of its own jingle, its own marketing strategies, its paradigm, in a self-effacing way that symbolically admits the need to go in a new direction to reach a new culture. Juicy Fruit's ability to laugh at itself and its past fixations, without ever introducing a new product, is in stark contrast to a defensive, insensitive church that isn't offering gum to chew but a gospel to save.

ChristianGlobe Networks, Inc., ChristianGlobe Illustrations, by Leonard Sweet