Tipping | Wayfarer

“You shall purchase food from them for money, so that you may eat; and you shall also buy water from them for money, so that you may drink. Surely the Lord your God has blessed you in all your undertakings; he knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you; you have lacked nothing.”
Deuteronomy 2:6-7 (NRSV)

Many years ago I did a short stint as youth pastor of a fairly good sized youth group. I would often find myself taking large groups of kids on various outings throughout the year. There were mission trips, ski trips, camping trips, trips to conferences, trips to concerts, trips to sporting events, and trips to the amusement park. It was common for me to lead a bus full of middle and high schoolers into a restaurant for a meal while we were on the road.

I made a point of talking to my kids about the integrity of not only paying for what you eat and drink, but also paying the human beings who served us in restaurants. I could see the look of agony behind the counter as my little nation of teens poured into Pizza Hut. My kids and I talked about putting ourselves in the shoes of our servers, the integrity of paying for both what we consume and the service we receive from others.

One evening I had a my usual throng of kids in the city for I can’t even remember what event. Knowing that their hunger was voracious as always, I herded them into an all-you-can-eat spaghetti joint and we loaded up on carbs Italian style. It just so happened that our server that night was a girl who was in my high school youth group when I had been part of the herd a few years earlier. After the meal, as I was rustling my kids out of the restaurant, my old friend from high school tapped me on the shoulder, and I turned to receive a warm hug.

With tears in her eyes, she admitted to me that she swore when she saw our group coming in. She knew from experience that a group of teens meant she was going to work her butt off for a bunch of rowdy adolescents and then get stiffed for the effort. She told me how kind the kids had been, how well they had conducted themselves, but most of all she couldn’t believe how well they had tipped her.

Along my life journey I’ve observed our culture increasingly given to cost shifting. As long as something is free to us, we ignore the fact that someone else has paid the price for it. I was struck this morning by the very simple command God gave to His herd of Hebrew children on their trip to the sea: “Pay a fair price for what you eat. Pay for the water you drink. Don’t take it. Don’t expect someone else to pay for it or incur the cost of it.”

This morning I am reminded of a waitress weeping over a couple of bucks that she both earned and deserved by her good service. I’m reminded of the simple integrity of paying for what you consume. More than ever, I find it a differentiating mark of character in this world.

featured photo: global panorama via Flickr

Expense Reports — Image by mynameisharsha via Flickr

30 Day blogging challenge Day 6: Your opinion on cheating on people.

There are a lot of ways I could go with this question, but one memorable experience popped into my head:

A few years ago my business partner and I had lunch with a client who was the Senior Vice President of a large company. During the course of the lunch we asked our client to tell us honestly if our group was serving him and his company well and if there was anything we needed to improve.

“Do you wanna know why I love you guys?” he asked. “You give me great data and do your jobs well, but what I really like are your expense reports. You don’t stay in extravagant hotels, you don’t try to bill me for expensive dinners, and you don’t ding me for extraneous expenses. I have consultants who try to bill me for first class air fares, $200 bottles of wine and expect me to pay for the magazines they read on the plane. I know when I get your expense reports that you’re dealing with me honestly and looking out for my budget instead of trying to get as much out of me as you can. That makes we want to keep doing business with you!”

There is a much broader definition to cheating on people than we realize. Jesus continually made it clear that sin is not only the major scandalous acts of the flesh, but also the seemingly invisible acts that reveal the intentions of our heart. Taking advantage of an employer, padding an expense report, or not leaving a tip for your server are ways we cheat others and prove ourselves unfaithful.