The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
July 5, 2009
Vol. 12 no. 26

Everything But...
No matter what else we are in the Christian faith, we are a people dominated by the Word and plenty of words at that. Words surround us and define us - especially in the Church - although we attempt to make words say more and less than they mean. Words have their season, so I would like to draw attention to a particularly summertime word - “rhubarb.”

Rhubarb, of course, is that red stalk that grows lots of places, perhaps even where you don’t want it to. Wise people in the neighbourhood always lock the doors of their cars at night so that no bags of rhubarb may be planted on the front seat in the morning. Yet, you can leave as much as you want with me. Rhubarb pie, rhubarb jam, and let it not be adulterated with strawberries, etc. There is no such thing as rhubarb too tart in my book.

Rhubarb, of course, is a peculiar kind of verbal debate that seems to take place only in baseball games between umpires and managers. At least that’s when the game announcers identify it as a rhubarb. Everyone knows that a rhubarb goes nowhere, the manager never wins and sometimes if he has made his points in a particularly ‘tart’ way, he may be ejected from the game. Oh, the injustice of it all. Instant replay would ruin the rhubarb.

Just to be clear, there is nothing religious about rhubarb, vegetable or its argumentative homonym. But in our church talk, we often use words that have a different meaning elsewhere - a paradox. Paul declares that he will not boast, except to boast of his weaknesses. That makes no sense at first listen, but that’s the way the Christian life works with words - to make sense of the deeper truths for which there are no simple words.