Modern Metaphors for the Spiritual Life

I often think of the Bible and how to convey concepts in language that will make sense to modern readers.  This summer, we've been reading our way through Acts in my church.  The turmoil over the idea of being able to eat any food must be baffling to some of our congregation.  How to convey that concept to modern minds?

Maybe by way of gluten?  But that metaphor might only make sense to those who are gluten intolerant.  That metaphor might be as difficult to understand as keeping kosher.

I thought about that on Sunday, when I made the gluten free communion bread.  I made it in my grandmother's yellow mixing bowl.  Although she made rolls every day in that bowl, she would likely never have baked the communion bread.  Those were the days of tasteless wafers that stuck in a gummy way to the roof of one's mouth.

I wonder what my grandmother would make of gluten intolerance.  My grandmother did not always have sympathies for the maladies of modern life.  She might have talked about the Depression era when people didn't have food at all and couldn't afford to turn up their noses at perfectly good food.

Could I create a poem somehow?  Is there a larger metaphor?

I've also been thinking about drained batteries.  Yesterday I opened the car door and realized the morning was not going to be as I planned.  The light in the car was weaker than usual, and when I put the key in the ignition, the car told me to check my battery.  The car wouldn't start.

The problem with the drained battery metaphor is that it's too obvious.  Yes, we often feel that life leaves us as energized as a drained battery.  That metaphor doesn't engage us.

It's also troubling in other ways.  Yesterday I had to buy a new battery--but that doesn't seem to work as a metaphor for the spiritual life.  What would that represent?  Recharging the battery makes more sense, but these days, we more often just need to replace the battery.

Just these small thought experiments make me more appreciative of what Eugene Peterson was able to do with his project to put the Bible into language that his parishioners would understand, the project that resulted in The Message.