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.