About eight months ago, I was very pregnant and very hungry. Fully beholden to my cravings, I wanted pizza, and only one type would do: a handcrafted masterpiece I’d had once at a restaurant thirty miles away. One Sunday, after church, my husband and I set off to procure the much-desired pizza. I had been longing for this pie all week, and more excited than I had any right to be. Even better, we had a gift card to the restaurant. Perhaps it’s because I’m the daughter of a financially-savvy CPA, but food always tastes better when it’s free.
We made our way into the restaurant, penguin waddling across the icy parking lot. When we stepped inside, we were greeted by no mere waiter but the owner and chef himself. Smiling, he invited us to “sit anywhere.”
That should have been our first clue that something was off. We could literally sit anywhere because we were the only customers there. The dining room was cozy and clean, beautifully decorated with quiet jazz playing. But we were the only ones there other than the owner-chef, a very bored server, and a rather despondent musician in the corner.
But in our hunger, we overlooked these odd details. We chose a booth and eagerly reached for the menus, chatting with the owner-chef as we settled in.
“You wouldn’t be wanting pizza, would you?” he asked after a few moments. There was a bit of anxiety in his voice, as though he was praying we would not want pizza. “Because we don’t serve pizza for lunch, but we have some nice sandwiches and salads.”
Did he know that he’d just crushed the hopes and dreams of a woman nearing the end of her third trimester? Probably not, but I politely perused the pizza-less menu and tried not to cry. My husband, fortunately, is more assertive than I. He handed the menus back, gently informed the owner-chef that we came to his pizza restaurant for pizza, thanked him for his hospitality, and led me back out into the frigid air.
In the car, I unleashed my righteous ire. In my hanger, I held nothing back.
“It’s a pizza restaurant! People go there for pizza and only pizza! Salads are a bonus, not the main course! It’s advertised as a pizza restaurant! Why would they not serve pizza? And on a Sunday afternoon, when everyone goes out to lunch!”
The empty tables suddenly made sense. Other would-be customers, wiser than we, had stopped expecting pizza from the professed pizza place. At first the emptiness had struck me as sad. I like to see small businesses thrive. But now I see that it was more sad that the staff could not accept the obvious: a pizza restaurant that rarely serves pizza is not likely to succeed.
This mundane experience strikes me as a profound parable about Bible-less churches.
Sit anywhere! The pews are mostly empty!
Be greeted by a grinning minister! He (or she) is happy to see somebody, anybody, turn up.
Sample a menu of appealing ideas! They’re tasty, even if they aren’t what was promised.
Enjoy a cozy atmosphere, maybe even some nice music and ambiance.
But when all is said and done, leave hungry and unsatisfied.
“You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes his name in vain.” – Exodus 20:7
Ryanne Molinari 