Woe Unto Them That Smite Their Server

I love it when people who flaunt their affiliation with the Almighty and their savior Jesus Christ provide glaring examples of why I disassociated myself with the Church years ago.  It was an embarrassment to be connected to a faith whose representatives seemed at times more often to be self-serving than they were mankind-serving as scripture ordains that we do for the least amongst us.  But clearly not everyone sees it this way, even a man of the cloth who you would think would be most likely to show a kindness to someone who just waited on him.

A pastor’s note on a restaurant bill has unleashed an unholy outcry on Reddit. A snapshot shared by an apparently stiffed server shows the gratuity scratched out and a big “0” written in its place. “I give God 10% Why do you get 18” the diner scrawled on the $34.93 receipt, adding the word “Pastor” above his signature.   SOURCE

Now this waiter may hardly be starving or struggling to make ends meet but anyone who has worked in a restaurant or knows someone who has knows that waiters don’t even make minimum wage.  They depend primarily on tips from customers to make an income that will pay for their rent, food and clothing.  It would have been one thing to forego a tip if the service had been lousy but clearly this wasn’t the reason this “man of God” gave.   No, he had to invoke the most High and compare his waiter to someone who supposedly paves his roads with gold

Somehow this pastor feels that the Creator of heaven and earth, who gives “his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and … sends rain on the just and the unjust alike”, needs 10% of the pastor’s earnings.

What stumps me most about this entire episode I think is the fact that someone so vulnerable to criticism for withholding a waiter’s tip would make it known to that person – and now, as a result, to the entire universe – that his station in life is one that most people would least expect such miserly behavior from.

The individual who posted the receipt with a snarky remark from the pastor to his Reddit account said “the man’s party of 20 ran up a big tab but asked for separate checks, ‘thinking it would get them out’ of the automatic 18 percent gratuity for large groups, ‘even though the same man paid for everything.’”   It’s not clear then if someone other than the pastor paid for everyone’s meal or each had to pay for their own.

What is clear is that the good reverend justified giving nothing at all based on the assumption that he pays the King of the Heavenly Host 10% of his wages.  Wages, mind you, that essentially come from the tithing and generous giving of church members.  For someone whose income depends almost exclusively on the giving of others you would think he would reciprocate such generosity.

Way to lead by example padre.