The Plight of the Spaghetti Sauce

Yesterday a friend of mine went to the grocery store.  She had her eye on a jar of imported spaghetti sauce.  Yum!  Actually, she had seen the jar sitting on the shelf for several weeks and had tried several times to buy it.  But when she got to the check out line, the jar was not registered in the computer and therefore could not be purchased.  As the expiry date on the jar approached, my friend continued to try to buy it.  Into the shopping cart the jar would go.  Up to the cash register it would ride.  Across the scanner it would skim.  No beep.  The cashier would key in the number on the bar code.  No beep.  The cashier would tell my friend she couldn't buy it.  The jar would be returned to the shelf.

So yesterday my friend had a new idea.  After the usual trip to the cashier where the jar of spaghetti sauce did not register, she smiled sweetly and said to the cashier, "I would really like to buy this jar of spaghetti sauce.  How might I purchase it?"

"It's not in the computer, so you can't," replied the cashier.

"Yes, but it is on the shelf.  Surely there is some way I can buy it?"

"We don't have permission from the home office to sell it yet, so we don't have the price."

Anger and frustration doesn't work well here, you understand.  It only scratches your own itch and accomplishes nothing.  Everything should be addressed with a smile and politeness.

"Do you have a manager on duty today?"  asked my friend, in her sweetest voice and with a pleasant smile.

"Yes," replied the cashier, confused.

"May I speak with him?"

Baffled as to why this lady would want to speak to the manager, the cashier agreed and called for him.  My friend explained to the manager the plight of the jar of spaghetti sauce.  "I am a foreigner living here in your city.  You have this nice brand of imported spaghetti sauce that I would like to buy."

"Oh, you cannot buy that sauce because we don't have permission from the home office to sell it."

"Can you call the home office to find out the price?  Because I am willing to buy all the jars you have on the shelf."

"Oh no, we can't do that."

"But then you will never sell the ones you have and then the home office will never send more sauce because it did not sell well..." nothing... "So how could I purchase this sauce?"

"You can't."

"But it's on your shelf."

"But we don't have permission to sell it."

"So this means that, even though your store carries this nice brand of imported spaghetti sauce and I can see it on the shelf, in order to purchase it, I would need to fly to the capital city and buy it there..." smile... "So why do you even have it on your shelves if I can't buy it?"

Within minutes the manager had a a group of employees go to the pasta aisle and remove the yummy jars of imported spaghetti sauce!  There!  Problem fixed!

So, today I began to think about a spiritual lesson to take from this funny situation (or frustrating?).  Are there things in my life that I put on display, but never access?  Like faith.  Do I have faith?  Well of course I do.  But are there situations in my life that require faith, and even though I say, "Well of course I have faith!"  have I been in touch with the Lord so closely that I am ready to use it when the situation calls for it?  Or do I carry a bunch of great attributes to show off on the shelf, but don't know how to use them when the rubber meets the road (or should I say when the bar code hits the scanner?).   But if you discover this is true in your own life, don't pull it off the shelf for pete's sake!  Learn how to use it!

Have I stretched the analogy too far?  Maybe.  But I'll tell you, next time I walk down that aisle of the grocery store and see that empty spot where the imported jars used to be, not only will I giggle to myself, I'll also re-evaluate myself and make sure I am in touch with the "Home Office"!