Easy-Off … then Celebrate!
by Dr Billy Strother
I would have to say that I am providentially blessed. We cannot choose our family, but the Lord put me into an extended family known for celebration.
We all grew up together dirt poor. Yes, there were trials, struggles, and disappointment, but there was joy and laughter above all else. In our home, no matter what, the kitchen table was our gathering place. Meals were meager and modest, yet festive.
The kitchen stove was always a workhorse in our home growing up. Mom, Dad, Great-Grandma Hatti, five little kids, all in a little one bathroom, two-bedroom house. As the biggest room, the kitchen was the place most used. And our kitchen oven was the most used appliance—used not only to cook food, but sometimes open and on for a little extra heat into our little drafty house, and even occasionally employed to dry some clothes—shirts, pants, or socks. The only self-cleaning ovens back then were the ones ... well, you cleaned yourself!
One time when the inside of the oven had grown particularly crusty, Mom bought this new product, called “Easy-Off.” You sprayed it on the interior walls of the oven, waited a few seconds, and then wiped off the grime. But our grime ran deep. Mom blasted two whole cans of Easy-Off into the oven, and slammed it shut. Then, reasoning that if the new product would work in a cold oven, then a hot oven would make it work much better. So, after spraying in the two cans, Mom turned it up to 450 degrees and shut the oven door . . . in just a few moments, black toxic fumes came rolling out of every crack and burner in the oven! Mom hollered up a quick prayer of desperation, “Lord, help us!” then gathered up two of my siblings, calling for a retreat to the street. Great-grandma Hatti lived with us then and she grabbed two more of my young siblings. Mom had 5 kids – but nobody grabbed me! Out the door they went low, I followed. Black toxic smoke rolling over our heads: mom, grandma, five kids, a dog, two cats, and a couple of chickens all stumbled, choking and coughing, out of the back door of that little two-bedroom house.
The key? You are not supposed to burn Easy-Off, well, off; you are to spray it on cold, wait a few minutes, and just wipe the crud away ... that is why it is called “Easy Off!”
Eventually the house vented. Dad dragged the oven out into the back yard and sprayed it out with a pressure washer, then plugged it back in. The oven was clean! And it worked for years. But ... all the food baked in that oven tasted like Easy-Off for the next six months.
I was about 5 years old when that happened. Thirty-five years later, I returned to my home county to serve a church as the lead pastor. Mom and Dad and other family members joined the church and became my parishioners. I asked Mom years later after a post-Sunday worship meal, “In the Easy-Off fiasco, why didn’t anybody pick me up to rescue me?” She matter-of-factly answered, “Me and Great-grandma Hatti only had two arms each … so we picked our favorites and ran!” Everybody around that table laughed and celebrated Mom’s answer at my expense.
In 1978, Richard Foster, a Christian theologian, authored the book Celebration of Discipline. The book has profoundly impacted the practices of Christian discipleship for closing in on five decades. Of the 12 classic disciplines he outlines, Foster covers “celebration” last, but used “celebration” in the title. We are called to “celebration” as a default and normative Christian practice and expression (inwardly and outwardly). As Foster states in his book, “That is why I have placed celebration at the end of this study--joy is the end result of the Spiritual Disciplines’ functioning in our lives.”
As Christians, especially as leaders called to model Christlikeness, what are we called to celebrate?
We are called to celebrate what Jesus has done for us. We celebrate what Jesus did on the cross. We celebrate all of what Jesus has done for us throughout our lives.
We are called to celebrate what Jesus is doing for us. We celebrate the many helps and encouragements Jesus gives us here and now. We celebrate the strength Jesus gives us and God’ daily providence. We celebrate God’s daily provision. As Nehemiah encourages, “Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength (Nehemiah 8:10, NIV).”
We are called to celebrate what Jesus will do for us. No matter how dark or dire our circumstances, we are people of hope, who know that God is working to our future benefit. “Weeping may last through the night, but joy comes with the morning (Psalm 30:5, NLT).”
We are called to celebrate past, present, and future in Christ. How normal should celebration be? How often should our joy both sustain us and make its presence obvious to others? While an inmate in a Roman prison, the Apostle Paul implies a normal frequency for celebration in a leader’s life: “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! (Philippians 4:4; NASB).” From prison he wrote that!
What’s our spiritual challenge? To turn our joy, a fruit of the Spirit, loose in our lives, for celebration is to be a Christian norm.
Do this spiritual exercise. Ask five people you live or work with this question: “Do I seem joyful to you?”
If Paul can be joyful as a Roman prisoner, perhaps we can each be more joyful, in spite of our lesser life inconveniences. Could it be that we too easily turn off our spiritual discipline of celebration?
