Lord of the Sandwich

Check out that sandwich! Seriously  - it's a heart attack one a plate.

A week or so ago I went to a restaurant in Hamilton with my dad. He lives near London so we decided to meet half way and grab lunch. We picked a place that I had heard through the grapevine makes some good BBQ. Wow, were the rumours right!

We walked in and I noted that there were only men in the room. (Later, a woman did come in. The owner  walked over to her and in a really gruff voice asked this diminutive Asian woman, "Whaddya want?" - thereby causing her to scurry out of the place without saying a word!)

After we sat down I looked over the menu and was delighted to see that really, there was only meat on the menu. Sure - there were sides with baked beans, etc., - but BBQ protein was clearly the star of the show. Being new to the place I ordered a pulled meat sandwich. I figured I was playing it safe. I should have wondered when the owner/ server chuckled a bit at my order and said, "Are you sure?"

Anyway, after waiting a few minutes the aforementioned sandwich pictured above was placed in front of me. And, in case you were wondering, it is being served on a full sized lunch tray. No plate. That's a TRAY under it.

I will spare you the tales of meat sweats and all the other bodily functions that accompanying far too much meat consumption, (however, rest assured, the 1/4 of the sandwich I did eat at lunch was fantastic!) to make a simple point.

My dad and I got there a bit late for lunch, so, about 20 minutes after we got there we were the only ones in the place. That being the case, we chatted with the owner asking him the obvious question: what's with the obscenely large portions? He explained that when he opened (10 months ago) he shopped around for advertising only to discover that it was going to be about $3000/ month. So, he figured that rather than give that money to a newspaper, he would spend $1500 more a month of meat, give HUGE portions, and let people do the talking for him. In short, he said that he wanted to be known for his generosity as opposed to his advertising.

Some of the interesting parts of this are obvious. Steering clear of the whole topic of the moral implications of overeating, over-portioning animal bi-products, etc. (those are both whole other topics - worthy of their own conversation) - I was struck with two things.

Faced with a choice of looking slick (ie advertising) or being a certain way (in this case "generous"), this man's choice was to actually be known for being a certain way. This struck a bit of a nerve for me as a belched my way back to Oakville. Fact is, most of the time I would rather that people have a certain impression of me  - more so than I really want to be that thing. So, for example, if I am honest I think I would have to admit would like to "advertise" in some way that I am generous and hope people come by and find me in some generous moment more so than I really want to actually BE generous. I like the reputation more than I do the virtue.

So, clearly there is a means to an end for a BBQ restaurant - they want to be known for great BBQ so they give huge portions hoping people will come, they make more $, etc. But, what about for me? Well, I think what I learned is that I actually might need to desire the virtue and goodness of Christ as much - if not more - as I want others to see those in me. Does that make any sense?

As another simple observation I would just add

I wonder:  If a whole bunch of people decided to long for, ask for, pray for and discipline themselves towards looking and sounding a lot more like Jesus Christ  - would we need web pages, advertisements at Easter and Christmas, etc., entice people to come and hear about Jesus? Or, could it be that if we plowed all our efforts simply into being like our Rabbi Jesus, that people would simply want to check him out for themselves - and we wouldn't have to get in the way?

Those are just some random thoughts. But, having fully recovered from my first visit I am trying to figure out how I can back for a "bit" more BBQ . . .