Church Tipping

When my wife and I began dating some years ago, I quickly learned that one of her pet peeves, in a major way, was bad tipping in a restaurant. I would leave what I thought was a decent tip (i.e., 15% of the total bill), and she would invariably ask me to put down another couple of dollars. See, she'd worked as a waitress and a hostess while in high school and college, and nothing burned her more than bad tipping. Of course, I did not think 15% was bad. She thought it needed to be more in the 35-40% range. I quickly started suggesting take-out...

A friend of mine recently sent me an article about church tipping in particular and Sunday diners in general. Here are a few nuggets from that article:

I recently encountered a post by a Christian psychologist Richard Beck. He writes, provocatively, “The single most damaging phenomenon to the witness of Christianity in America today is the collective behavior of the Sunday morning lunch crowd. Never has a more well-dressed, entitled, dismissive, haughty or cheap collection of Christians been seen on the face of the earth.” He admits that he exaggerates, but I agree with him that he has a point.

Though I’ve never been a restaurant server, I’ve seen this complaint before: the after-church crowd are rude, demanding and stingy. Ever since I heard about this, I’ve become more conscious of the way I treat service workers. My sense of Sabbath makes me feel a little guilty about eating out on Sundays at all, but I’ll admit I do it anyway, sometimes in large groups. These large group, split the check situations are notorious for tipping problems, it’s complicated math, you think maybe somebody else will make up for you if you short the bill a little.

This brings me to this question: how would Jesus tip? My first thought is that Jesus might be the server, but of course service in the Bible was different from how it is today. We can think about some general principles Jesus exhibited though. Jesus thought it was important that people be treated kindly, he frequently treated outcasts with respect and kindness. If we follow this example, we should certainly be kind to service workers. Jesus also cared about people getting enough: he made sure there was enough wine at a wedding, he miraculously fed thousands. I wish our restaurants paid their employees enough that they could survive on their wages alone, but they depend on tips, so we should be aware of that.

When I think about this attitude, it makes it a lot easier for my natural tightwad to put an extra dollar in that jar or on that table. What better use for a few dollars than to repeat God’s generosity toward others? Perhaps our best witness is when we are most aware of the gifts God has given us and sharing those with others. Maybe next, I can work on showing this same grace when I’m driving my car…