Spoons

The steam from the industrial dishwasher plumed into the air in the back part of the kitchen. My shift had ended an hour ago, but the rules were straightforward: every member of the wait staff had to roll fifty silverware bundles before leaving. Rolling silverware was mindless work, a nice reprieve after several hectic hours racing back and forth between the restaurant’s boiling kitchen and the perpetually hungry (and impatient) customers in the dining room. I didn’t hate rolling silverware like I hated waiting tables. I was eighteen, terrified of confrontation, and a conscientious rule-follower. If the silverware had to be rolled before calling it a night, the silverware would be rolled.

The problem was that the restaurant had a spoon shortage.

I don’t know if the managers knew about the spoon shortage, but for every seven forks, there was one spoon. What happened to all the spoons? Tossed with the dregs of an iced tea glass when a table was bussed and drinks were poured out? Pilfered by diners? Knocked beneath tables and swept into dark corners of the dining room? Was there a pile of spoons hidden in a floorboard under table 2? I can’t explain the shortage, but it caused problems among the wait staff. As the poorly paid bus boys would push those plastic cylinders of cutlery through the dishwashers, servers would make regular stops at the conveyor belt, grabbing the cylinders of steaming, sanitized spoons and hiding them around the kitchen for their mandatory silverware rolls. Something about hoarding the spoons didn’t sit well with me. I couldn’t do it.

So that day, that long day of serving was one of many when I just didn’t have enough spoons for the mandatory fifty rolls. I found a stool in the kitchen, propped it next to the dishwasher’s conveyor belt, and waited. This was long before smart phones; the internet barely existed back then. So I literally sat on the stool and watched the sanitized dishes make their way down the belt. I kept a keen eye out for cutlery. After an hour, one of my managers walked into the kitchen and noticed me sitting there by the dishwasher. I had three managers, and I was scared of them all. I’d recently been raked over the coals by one of them for cleaning up a spilled drink instead of taking orders at a nearby table. Another had assigned me an extra shift without telling me and I missed it. The third scowled and said little. So, my sitting next to the dishwasher was as motivated by fear as it was by duty.

“What are you still doing here?” he asked when he saw me. It was an accusation, not a question. I was sitting, apron untied, waiting. I gestured to the dishwasher. “Spoons,” I said timidly. “I need spoons.”

“Spoons?” he demanded.

“I can’t do the silverware rolls without spoons. There aren’t enough spoons,” I answered, heart pounding. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, but maybe he was mad that I’d not clocked out. That extra $2.17 for an hour of sitting. What a tragedy.

“I’m waiting for spoons,” I whispered, my face red from steam and embarrassment. I tried so hard to fly under the radar to avoid confrontation, and here I was face-to-face with the world’s scariest manager. And I was rambling on about spoons.

He stood for a moment and just looked at me. No moment in my life to that point had ever stretched out so long. It was hours, days, weeks long.

He looked at the dishwasher, looked at me.

“Go home,” he sighed.

“Are you—? I mean, um…” I closed my mouth, swallowed my words, mumbled thanks, and grabbed my purse from the break room, a room I’d never once visited for a break. I nearly ran to my car in the parking lot.

I told this story to my kids recently. They love to hear about my life before my husband and I got married. My husband’s life, too. Our lives before them have a mysterious quality, I guess. The stuff of legends, apparently. They struggle to picture us as individual persons without marriage or children or mortgages. First jobs, first loves, first car accidents, big life events, college memories, embarrassing moments—my kids live for these stories. “Tell me about a time when you were younger,” my son often asks at dinner or at bedtime. So I told them the spoon story.

“I’d have walked out,” my teenager said. He’s so principled, just like his dad. And his dad chimed in right on cue: “You should have told the manager you couldn’t do your job unless he did his. All he had to do was order more spoons! No spoons, no silverware rolls. End of discussion.”

I mean, he’s not wrong. And now, at forty-two, I would demand the purchase of spoons on my first day. But at eighteen, I was afraid to ask for the thing I needed. My job waiting tables wasn’t complicated, but I wasn’t able to do what my bosses demanded without the means necessary. There should have been more spoons.

________

I was reading Hebrews 8 the other day about Jesus being our High Priest. His sacrifice at the cross was better than all the ones that had been made in the tabernacle and temple. He didn’t just supply the means for the offering. He was the offering. The standard was impossibly high for us—be holy as He is holy—and yet, Jesus made it possible. With His own body. His own blood.

Bible in my lap, I thought about the missing spoons again. I pictured my co-workers back then, how none us could do what was required because we just kept coming up short. Every day, we were short of spoons. We couldn’t order the spoons, invent more spoons, substitute something else for spoons. Unless someone supplied new spoons, we would continue to clock in every day, guaranteed to come up short. We were unable to do anything about our situation unless someone stepped in. I know it’s a silly metaphor, but the thing is, I haven’t thought about that night sitting by the steaming, industrial dishwasher in twenty-five years and I picture that eighteen year-old girl trying her best to follow the rules that were impossible for her to keep because she would come up short every single day. She didn’t have what she needed.

And while it’s my job as a writer to make this a story that works for the gospel, it works without my even trying because God gives what He demands. We’ll never have to sit and hope that we can come up with a way to make things right between us and Him. He’s already done that for us. What He demands, He provides. Because He is good. And kind. We needed someone to bridge the gap between sinful man and holy God, and He bridged it for us. He mended it. He fixed our sin problem by sending His beloved Son to pray for it. In Christ we have everything that we need to stand before Him justified, to obey, and to follow Him faithfully. There’s never a shortage of mercy, nor of grace.

________

Last year, my church moved locations and sold most of our possessions along with our property. We were moving into a smaller facility in an underserved neighborhood, and in the process of downsizing, the members were advised to take what we needed before the estate sale. I walked through the church kitchen, trying to decide if I needed anything. I opened a silverware drawer. I took two fistfuls of spoons.

In Christ we have everything that we need to stand before Him justified, to obey, and to follow Him faithfully. There’s never a shortage of mercy, nor of grace. Share on X

Photo by Anna Kumpan on Unsplash