Cheesecake Grace
September 24, 2008
The “lottery ticket” I drew at church last weekend instructed me to tip my server 30% or more. I wasn’t sure at first how this was going to work because I had just started taking the Financial Peace University class and had created a strict budget for myself which did not allow for eating out.
While trying to think of another outreach activity I could do instead, I received a call from my best friend in Columbus inviting me to go out to eat with her and her friends for her birthday. Well, I couldn’t pass down a birthday dinner for my best friend! So I agreed.
When I arrived at the restaurant, I excitedly explained to my best friend and all of her 16 guests about how our church is going through the Outward Focused Life series, showed them my “lottery ticket” and explained how I was going to use it tonight and tip the server 30% or more.
No sooner did I share this news than the fun began. To begin, the restaurant had trouble accomodating our large group and we ended up waiting over 2 hours for a table! By the time we were sat, it was past 9pm (we had carefully planned the dinner for 7pm) and we were all starving and a bit cranky. Then enters the waitress.
For lack of a better explanation, our waitress was one of those “blunt-on-the-edge-of-being-rude” types who made sarcastic jokes that no one at the table seemed to get. She proceeded to take all of our orders, then about 15 minutes later, when we were hungrily expecting our food, came back to the table and explained that her bad day had just gotten worse because someone had accidently thrown away her ticket with all of our orders. She seemed more preoccupied with telling us in colorful terms how much she hated the person that threw away the order than apologizing to us for the (again) delay. We then went down the loooong table again, telling her our orders for the second time. After this ordeal, we made a point to let the waitress know that it was our friend’s birthday (we knew that she would get a free cheesecake — and would probably need it after waiting so long!). I explained to the waitress that my friend’s name was “Milena”, pronounced “Meelena”. The waitress stared at me blankly, then slowly looked at my friend and said, “Is that seriously your name?” We laughed nervously as my friend explained that her parents were from Eastern Europe. The waitress just shook her head and walked away. Finally our food came, and shortly after (as the restaurant was getting close to closing), our waitress brought out a group of less than enthused waiters & waitresses to sing to my friend. The waitress then stumbed over her words as she tried to remember my friend’s name. “Today is..Mmm..Ma..Maku’s birthday,” she announced to the other waitors. “Milena,” my friend corrected. “Yeah, whatever,” the waitress replied, with a wry smile. They half-heartedly sang happy birthday to my friend and then the waitress asked if anyone would like to order cheesecake. We looked at each other, a little confused — didn’t the birthday girl get free cheesecake? Apparently not tonight! After the waitress walked away, the people at our table murmured about how rude the waitress was.
My friend leaned over and said jokingly, “You still gonna tip her that 30%?” In that moment, I realized the purpose behind our “outward focused assignments.” If our waitress had done an excellent job, she would have thought not much of the extraordinary tip, thinking she must have done an extraordinary job. But because of the number of mistakes and rude jokes she had made that night, she would HAVE to realize the tip was an act of grace. As I shared this reasoning with my friend, I was reminded of Jesus’ story in the Bible about the debtors that were forgiven — and how the one with the bigger debt was far more thankful for God’s amazing act of grace than the one whose small debt was also forgiven. Looking back, I saw God’s hand over my “lottery ticket” of an outreach that night, and how He had carefully orchestrated the situation so that His grace could best be known.
