The other day I watched this TV show where the chef and star of “Hell’s Kitchen,” Gordon Ramsay, rescues failing restaurants. The owners are often deep in debt and losing money and customers. In many cases the restaurant was a family business whose troubles were destroying relationships. What intrigued me was that although Ramsay is brutal and profane in his critique, at the end of the show many thank him for changing their lives and healing their families. Many of these failing owners and managers are like us: they had found something that didn’t work and done it with all their might, over and over.
I watched a second episode to discover how and why Ramsay had such a profound and positive impact even though every other word had to be bleeped. The answer was soon obvious. Because of his celebrity and expertise, these restaurant owners would let him speak the truth as brutally as needed. If they treated employees badly he said, “You treat your workers like #%&#.” If the food was horrible, he said, “This tastes like a pile of _____!” Well, you get the idea. Even when expressed crudely and rudely, the truth has the power to change lives. By the end of the show, the owners who have been much abused by Ramsay are hugging him and thanking him for telling them the truth and rescuing their business.
How often in the church do we watch people go spiritually bankrupt, but never say a word lest we offend? Yes, we are called to speak the truth in love—but too often we lack the courage to speak at all. And perhaps even more to the point is how many of us are letting the Holy Spirit speak to us about ourselves? He is the Spirit of truth, but are we listening as He evaluates our business, our fruit, and our practices? We have a truth speaker far better than Gordon Ramsay—are we listening?
It is easy at this point to say, “Yeah, we should all be listening more to the Holy Spirit” and then run off to do everything on our list. However, we must be more deliberate. Back in the 80’s I took a group of college students on a three day silent retreat at an Augustinian monastery in Kansas City, Ks. They had their Bibles and notebooks, but were not allowed to speak to anyone Friday through Sunday. I did, however, allow them to come and talk with me about their experience. What I found amazing is that after a day of jittery withdrawal from noise and busyness, a steady stream of students came to tell me how the Holy Spirit had spoken to them about their pride, jealousy, fear, or distrust. Many were broken, but many left changed. They had their Gordon Ramsay truth-speaking moment. No sermons, no altar calls, but many got the make-over they needed. All we did is get quiet, and get still. God was faithful to speak.
