People can swallow all kinds of stuff if it’s buried well enough.

This can work for good or evil, depending on what we’re burying.

For example, liver provides a lot of nutrition to our bodies, but with a less-than-pleasant flavor, most people refuse to take it by itself. It has to be combined with something else to disguise the flavor. As one of three cooks for a summer training camp, I discovered this principle at work. Some Mondays the camp would have us cook and serve liver. As expected, few people ate it. Did we give up and throw it away? No. We knew what was good for the campers even if they didn’t realize it yet. Plus, we didn’t want to waste food. So, in tiny, unrecognizable chunks, it became part of Friday’s pizza day.

“Pizza!”, those campers would shout gleefully, and chow in, and get the nutrition they’d passed up on Monday! I don’t think they ever found out what they got.

Thankfully, we cooks had good intentions. So did my Finnish “mom” where I spent the year with their family as an exchange student in high school. Early on, she served this delicious casserole, which I voraciously partook of, complimented her, and asked what it was. “Maksa laatiko,” she replied. I looked it up in my bilingual dictionary—“liver box”—in other words, liver casserole. Call it whatever you’d like, I’d just eaten a heap of liver, and I’d never been a liver-lover. Rather than be upset or angry at any perceived deception, I felt so glad to have found a way to like it! Inadvertently, granted, but she knew it would be good for all of us and buried it in a way we could swallow and even enjoy it.

Sadly, the whole world doesn’t have the same good intentions as my Finnish mom, or we camp cooks. Some thought-leaders and some in high positions have an agenda to make the undiscerning swallow whatever they want us to believe and follow, which is often detrimental to our individual and communal wellbeing.

As those “seated at the table” for news, views, proposals, and announcements, let’s carefully examine what we are about to receive. Be like my younger son who, growing up, never allowed even the tiniest tidbit of onion to pass his lip-gates, because he was sure by the smell that it would destroy him. He’d surgically remove them from even the finest, thickest, spaghetti sauce. He’s since realized that onions are ok and even good, even if he doesn’t like the taste, and that his parents only had his best in mind. But his gift of discernment has definitely protected him in other areas, among those not so well-intentioned.

“Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” I Jn. 4:1

“But test everything; hold fast what is good.” 1 Thes. 5:21

As those with influence and leadership, whether through media, ideas, or position, let’s carefully examine our motives for serving up whatever we’re about to dish out. What’s our goal? To glorify God or ourselves? To get or to give? To build and pour into others or to exploit them? To serve others or to boss them around? To encourage and teach for their sake or to manipulate them for our own sake? To produce life or destroy it?

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others” Phil. 2:3-4

One way we can examine our motives is by going to Scripture itself:

“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Heb. 4:12

If we know it’s for others’ good, but too difficult to take as is, bury it in the midst of more palatable flavors. Deliver the hard news in a positive context, so people can see the ultimate benefit and accept it. Give the hard-to-hear feedback in the midst of affirmation and encouragement, so the recipient sees we appreciate and believe in them. Affirm their ability to improve.

“And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ,” Phil. 1:9-10

This takes care of both motives and discernment, being on the giving and/or receiving end of information and influence.

If you’re serving liver (or even vegetables), hide it in the pizza. If you’re being served poison, beware!