Hold the lettuce …

You’re at home, sprawled on the couch watching television, and you’re hungry when “that” commercial comes on.

You know, the commercial of the guy biting into the latest, biggest, tastiest hamburger at your favorite fast food joint. You can see barbeque sauce fly and cheese drip when the actor bites into the burger that obviously takes two hands to handle.

That’s it, you grab your car keys, wallet, and cell phone and out the front door you go. You just gotta have that burger!

Minutes later you walk into the fast food restaurant and there it is, the big picture of the new hamburger in all its culinary glory. The picture highlights the two thick, all-beef patties, the fresh onion piled high, covered with two large slices of fresh tomato and slices of pickle, all drowning in cheese and barbeque sauce. You find it hard to place your order from the drool induced as you continue to stare at what will soon be the delight of your stomach.

Thirty seconds later you’re handed a bag. Wow, that was fast, you think as you slide into a booth while reaching in for the burger. You unwrap it faster than a present on Christmas morning, and you’re immediately disappointed.

Another “lettuce sandwich.”

Instead of a delicious new burger piled high with condiments, you get a huge chunk of iceburg lettuce with a couple meat patties that have been microwave-shrunk to slightly larger than the size of a couple silver dollars, with a single pickle, a dry tomato, and the stain of barbeque sauce on one of the buns.

It’s mostly a lettuce sandwich. Iceburg lettuce, to be specific, which has almost no nutritional value.

You’ve been fooled again.

In the past, the new burger was a lettuce sandwich. The new chicken sandwich was a lettuce sandwich. The new taco, burrito, and healthy “wrap” were all lettuce sandwiches. What you actually got was never like the commercials or photos of food offerings, the product you got for the money you spent was very different: a lot of useless lettuce with little other product.

Skimping on the more expensive items like meat and fresh vegetables helps restaurant owners reduce their costs, which increases their profits. The problem is, it enrages the customers who are drawn into the restaurants by advertisements of delicious foods, only to be served up a whole lot of cheap lettuce on a bun.

That’s the same feeling many people have walking into a worship service on Sunday morning. They’ve received the direct mail from the church claiming this place is different. The preacher has tweeted and posted on Facebook all week long about how amazing the service will be. The website for the church says you won’t be disappointed visiting here.

As you enter, the person assigned to stand at the door is the only person who says hello to you. You go through an ordinary service with ordinary musical talent, and hear an ordinary sermon that doesn’t teach you anything more than what you could have gotten from reading the scripture text for the sermon on your own at home. No one says anything to you on your way out of the church, except for the same guy who’s now holding the door open for you as you make your exit.

Your Sunday experience at church? Another lettuce sandwich.

There are a lot of hungry people out there who are longing for a real, significant experience with God and His family. There are many who are drooling for real “meat” of God’s Word, loaded with fellowship, love, encouragement, care, and friendship. People who want what we say the church is all about, rather than the cheap replica they have too often received instead.

What are you serving up to the community? Are you delighting them with the Word and love of God? Or are you serving up lettuce sandwiches?

Scotty