September 25, 2024
Commentary: Pineapple
He was sharing his life story when I asked him, “So how did someone raised an atheist become an Anglican rector?” His answer was a simple one-word reply, “pineapple.” The conversation that followed was one of the highlights of my journey.
This meeting took place on a Sunday morning in London in the fall of 2019. Taking the subway, I had planned to arrive early at Saint Paul’s Cathedral to attend a service before exploring several historical sites in the area. The subway had taken longer, and the services were well underway by the time I arrived. Waiting for the next scheduled service would put me behind schedule, but I wanted to attend worship, somewhere.
As I emerged from the subway and was pondering the situation, the air was filled with the incredible sound of powerful pealing bells. So, I decided to follow the bells. They led to a small church a few blocks away. Entering through a door on a narrow side street I passed through a garden courtyard. It was like being transported into another world compared to the bustling city outside. The sanctuary inside the unassuming walls on the outside was incredibly beautiful, designed by the famous architect Christopher Wren, who had also designed nearby Saint Paul’s. Both churches had been built after the great fire of London of 1666.
As I took a seat the bells continued ringing for several more minutes. After, the last note was struck and the final tone slipped away, the solitude was broken by the troop of bell ringers paraded through the middle of the sanctuary headed for the door, and I assumed, their next bell ringing gig.
It was a small congregation which had gathered, and it was still a few minutes before the service where communion was prepared. Leaving the pew, I made a point to speak to the rector explaining I was from a denomination which practiced “closed communion” and not to take offense that I would not be participating.
Back on the pew I exchanged greetings with an elderly lady sitting nearby. She lived in South Africa, but this had been her mother’s church, and said she attended wherever she was visiting London. The pews were arranged “collegiate style,” meaning they did not face the altar, but rather the center aisle. After the service began, with a clear view of the entire sanctuary to my right and left, I took a head count. There were 15 of us including the vicar and the organist.
After the service I accepted the expected invitation to coffee and cookies downstairs in the church hall. I met a middle-aged man who was an immigrant from the Caribbean. I don’t know what was on his heart, but he sat directly across from me during the service and wept for its entirety. There was a former MP, or Member of Parliament. There was an interesting, obviously well-educated, and articulate man who had arrived on a bicycle with a backpack, both of which he had parked in the courtyard. Including the vicar, the lady from South Africa, and the “Yank” from Georgia, it was quite a diverse group of 15 who had gathered for morning worship.
Over coffee the rector said, “So you are a minister, was your father a minister?” I said, “Yes, but I’m in ministry because God called me . . . anyone who was raised in a parsonage would have to be a fool to go into ministry had God not called them! What about you?”
He said, “I was raised an atheist.” He then began unfolding his spiritual journey which he traced to his grandfather who was from Ireland. His grandfather had served in the British army during WWI. After surviving the horrors that were the trenches of France and Belgium he returned to Ireland. Only to discover that the Irish Republican Army, in the name of religion, had undertaken a campaign to assassinate Irish men who had fought for the British.
His grandfather fled to Wales, abandoned his faith, became an atheist and married his grandmother who was Welsh. In turn, his father had been raised an atheist as he was by his father.
I asked him, “Then how did someone raised an atheist become an Anglican vicar?” He replied, “pineapple.”
During college, he explained that he had worked at Pizza Hut. It was during the era of apartheid in South Africa, protests were taking place around the world. He said, “All the pineapple being served on the pizzas in the U.K. came from South Africa.” He continued, “in protest of apartheid, I refused to serve any pizza with pineapple on it!”
A waitress working with him said, “You need to meet the minister at my church. He’s against apartheid too!” Following his convictions against apartheid opened the door to a friendship with that rector that changed the spiritual course of his life. That’s how a former atheist, Paul Kennedy, the son and grandson of atheists, became the rector of the Saint Vedast Alias-Foster Anglican Church in London . . . pineapple.
My mind has drifted back to that morning many times; the bells, the beautiful Wren-designed sanctuary, the worship, warm fellowship, and the conversation. It was an unexpected and unplanned moment that put a face on the power of the gospel to a life-changing faith.
It was a reminder that many have responded to the call of Jesus to “follow Me.” A call first given to fishermen mending their nets, then a tax collector, and in the years since many others including one raised in a parsonage, and one raised an atheist. Pineapple, a simple, one word reminder, that Jesus is still calling people to follow him today.
Those who heed the call to follow Jesus may not know where the journey will take them. Sometimes it may be like following the sound of the bells, and at other times, like pineapple, following convictions. It is a reminder that following the call of Jesus is a journey well worth taking that will never lead one astray.
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Charles Jones is a Southern Baptist historian and a retired pastor.
