How Embarrassing
He was talking about a minor adjustment to the order of
worship with some people at coffee hour.
He had been told that his suggestion had been tried on the
immediate previous Sunday when he was out-of-town
and it didn’t go over very well, in fact, they said it was a
disaster. He wasn’t there so he had no way of judging.
He was griping about the fact that they only tried it
once when the incredibly talented pianist heard him
griping at coffee hour and slammed him down hard
in front of every body and then took off for the sanctuary
for a while. The pianist re-emerged and went for the safety
of the kitchen, where everybody knows you are safe just like
mamma’s kitchen, but the guy who had the issue
followed him to the kitchen and signaled and
whispered that the pianist should come aside to work it out.
The pianist waved him off which bugged the guy who
only wanted to express an opinion and he said, “The
peace of the Lord be with you,” and the pianist
looked him in the eye and asked, “Any other zingers?”
The pianist refused to talk and they took it outside.
After an innocuous repartee, the pianist disappeared
and when he reappeared the guy who had been talking
about the minor adjustment to the order of worship met
him on the street and offered a sincere apology for
unintentionally offending someone who had such
an important part of the worship service. The pianist
accepted the apology while the one giving it wondered
why he had to offer it and then that same guy who offered
the suggestion in the first place had to ride home with
his wife who gave him the silent treatment all the way
and then admitted upon questioning that she felt like
she had to put her hands over her head to get out of the
coffee hour after being so embarrassed by her husband’s
behavior only reaffirming the truism that no good deed goes
unpunished.