What My State Fair Taught Me About the Kingdom of God

As I write this, we’re in the middle of State Fair season here in Minnesota. I’ve written about my nonsensical adoration of the fair before. Here’s a refresher:

“Nothing makes sense about my deep love of our Minnesota State Fair. I hate crowds (and between 150,000-250,000 people attend each day. Over 1.9 million people total last year!). I hate hot weather (and it takes place over the twelve days before Labor Day – usually our hottest days of the year). I do not prefer operating on whims and without a plan (and we twist and turn our way through hundreds of acres of fairgrounds, being led fully by whims). My stomach hurts if I look at a new food (and we sample ev.ery.thing at the fair, from mini-donuts to milkshakes, corndogs to walleye bites).

Yet despite going against the grain of my natural disposition, our annual State Fair day brings Christmas-morning-level excitement and joy to my heart. Each year, it’s just us and a couple hundred thousand others gathered at the Great Minnesota Get-Together, testing out tractors and each other’s patience as we spend 13 hours walking over 18,000 steps and 7+ miles. . . together.”

This year, we spent the day at the fair with my in-laws — first-timers who were completely overwhelmed by the whole experience. There’s just no way to prepare for such a deluge of people, food, activities, animals (in barns), exhibits, booths, sights, sounds, smells, steps, and fun. We don’t call it the Great Minnesota Get-Together for nothing!

Walking through the streets of the fair, I blinked back tears as I realized the crowds around me reflected the beauty and diversity of the Kingdom. People of all shapes, colors, beliefs, relationships, politics, and more, all walking around and waiting in line and sitting at the parade. Languages and voices and laughter all mingled together in one big extravagant display of gathering.

It takes all kinds to make the fair what it is — a celebration and cornucopia of difference, of unique talents and giftings, of the patchwork that makes up our great state.

The exhibit halls at the fair are full of this beauty on display. Thousands of people submit their creative activities for judging, including educational projects for students in age-segmented, very specific categories. (For instance, my daughter won a second-place red ribbon for her submission this year in the “grade 1-3 weaving and textiles” category.) And there are entire buildings dedicated to different animals, plus creative, educational, and agri-and-horticultural pursuits. Every year, there are dozens of categories and hundreds of displayed pieces — everything from quilts and woodworking to handstitched clothing and felted purses.

You’ll also find cakes and pies, loaves of bread and cookies of all varieties, canned goods and maple syrup of all grades. Sheep and pigs, cows and showhorses, chickens and goats. Zucchini and pumpkins, potatoes and apples. Not to mention crop art — painstakingly crafted portraits and pictures created entirely out of seeds and stems — plus Christmas trees and honey!

All lovingly crafted and curated and created, tended to with care, and perfected. Submitted for competition with confidence, hope, and pride.

All talents. All gifts. All entirely unique and specific. All seen and celebrated… when they could’ve been overlooked.

Because how often do we celebrate woodcarving? Sheep-rearing? 3rd-grade yarn weaving? How often does an elderly quilter receive an award for their handiwork? How often do we look at a cookie or a loaf of bread with wonder and awe, praising the baker and placing a ribbon on their apron?

How often do we look deeply into someone’s interests and quirky giftings long enough to support them in pursuing that passion?

How often do we ignore or criticize what could be seen and celebrated, especially when it doesn’t suit us, when it isn’t convenient, when it doesn’t fit into the box we believe is best? I think of personality gifts such as energy, earnestness, drive, and sharp wit. I know as a mom of four, my kids have traits that are definitely inconvenient to me (it’s exhausting to raise spirited children) and gifts that I maybe wouldn’t have chosen (loving and caring for bugs and frogs is one that comes to mind). Even so, they are the passions and gifts that my kids have been given, and I adore the whole of who they are.

And so does the One who dreamed them up.

1 Corinthians 12:12-27 reminds us:

“Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

. . .God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” (NIV)

It takes all talents, all giftings, all weird and wonderful personalities, all coming together in one place to make my State Fair the extravaganza that I love so much. . . and so it is with the whole of humanity God loves so much. It takes us all — and all of who we are — to make up the One Body God has in mind that Paul is speaking to in his letter to the Corinthians. The kingdom of God needs all of us, and all of us bringing our whole selves into it to make it great, and different, and beautiful.

This is the way of the Kingdom. This is the way we move as One, even as we are wildly different.

How can you bring the fullness of your gifts into where you are today?