Hear the story read by the author.
In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. Like most churches, this one has an all-church annual meeting to elect committee members and hear reports from committee chairs. And like most churches it is difficult to get many people from the congregation to attend. Who could blame them? Annual meetings are universally tedious.
But this year Senior Pastor Henry O’Donnell had an idea to lure a bigger crowd. They would make it a luncheon. Free food always increased participation in church events, no matter how tedious.
When O’Donnell brought up the idea to Florence Barker, head of the pastor-parish committee, she took to it immediately. At seventy-eight Florence was one of the senior members of the church, but age hadn’t slowed her down in the slightest. She even offered to coordinate the food for the luncheon. O’Donnell had envisioned something simple like pasta or a six-foot submarine sandwich, but Florence thought they needed a theme. “How about a Biblical Times luncheon?” she suggested. The pastor agreed it was an excellent idea.
O’Donnell scheduled the luncheon for noon on a Sunday so that he could boost attendance by applying guilt as people left worship. He also enlisted Sunday school teacher Karen Winslow to supervise a kids’ table for the younger children hoping that would be added incentive for the parents to stick around. The result was the best attended annual meeting to date.
O’Donnell had spent the previous week coming up with his own way to embrace Florence’s theme. So when it came time to welcome everyone, he stepped out of the church office dressed in an authentic period shepherd’s outfit consisting of a robe, sandals, rope belt and staff.
The costume got the amused attention O’Donnell had hoped for. He opened the meeting with a brief lecture about the culture of Jesus’ time. “Brief” by pastors’ standards, that is. But the attendees listened politely for the entire ten minutes. Finally O’Donnell delivered a blessing and then invited everyone to help themselves to the buffet.
Florence and her volunteer assistants had prepared pita bread and hummus, tabouli salad, stuffed grape leaves, olives, dates, rice, and lamb kebabs. Though in Jesus’ time meals were typically accompanied by wine, it was agreed that grape juice would make a better substitute. There was also ambrosia salad. It wasn’t true to the theme, but somehow no church meal was ever complete without ambrosia salad.
Over at the designated kids’ table, Karen did her best to keep the ravenous little beasts at bay while the adults filled their plates first. Once everyone over the age of twelve had a shot at the buffet, the youngsters were turned loose. Typical for children their age, they avoided the more unfamiliar foods, focusing on the pita bread and ambrosia salad. But Karen made sure they each took a little of everything and didn’t overdose on ambrosia.
Unlike the designated kids’ table, there was no designated senior citizens’ table. But one emerged anyway. Seventy-year-old Henrietta Miggins, seventy-three-year-old Celia Simmons and seventy-five-year-old Betsy Davis, collectively known around the church as the “Little Old Ladies,” chose a table near the microphone and were joined by eighty-six-year-old Donald East.
Florence, though from the same generation, was not part of the Little Old Ladies. She considered them fuddy-duddies and they found her a bit too free spirited for their tastes. But Florence joined their table anyway once her chores in the kitchen were finished.
“Look at those kids,” Florence said, gesturing to the buffet as she sat down. “They’re having so much fun.”
“I suppose they are,” Henrietta replied. “And here I was thinking the annual meeting was supposed to be a serious affair.”
Two of the people O’Donnell had shanghaied after church were Kevin and Jill Boyer. Free food and guilt would not have enticed Kevin to stay when there was football on TV at home, but Jill was won over by the children’s’ table. She appreciated any break she could get from her daughters Mary and Susie.
Kevin and Jill sat with Carrie and Carlos Winslow and their baby boy, Scott. Carrie was Karen Winslow’s daughter. Carrie’s father, Del was sitting at the next table over, his back to them. Across from Del was Ralph Billings. Del was complaining to Ralph about how his wife never got to enjoy these events because she was always saddled watching “that unruly gang of kids.” Del had a deep voice that easily carried to Kevin and Jill, whose kids were among those Del was referring to, but they pretended not to hear. After all, he wasn’t wrong.
Aware that once the eating was done people would find excuses to leave, Pastor O’Donnell opened the business part of the meeting as soon as Karen had the kids seated again. First on the agenda, each committee chair came up in turn to report on their committee’s activities. The reports were universally upbeat, self-congratulatory, and overly long.
While Henrietta was giving the Trustees report, over at the kids’ table four-year-old Mary Boyer picked up a date and quietly asked, “what’s this” to nobody in particular.
Six-year-old Tyler Park answered, “it’s a boiled caterpillar cocoon.”
“Is not,” Mary shot back.
“Sure is,” Tyler said. “They collect them in the desert around Bethlehem. It’s what the three wise men ate when they were going to see Jesus.”
“Eeeewwww,” Mary said.
“That’s not true,” Becky interjected. At twelve she was really too old for the kids’ table but she found sitting there just barely preferable to sitting with her parents. In her mind she was helping Karen supervise the children. “It’s a date,” Becky continued. “It’s a kind of fruit.”
Tyler responded by throwing his date at Becky.
Becky turned to Karen and said, rather loudly, “Tyler threw a date at me!”
Up at the front of the room Henrietta stopped mid-sentence to glare at the interruption.
“Tyler, don’t throw food,” Karen commanded. She gave Henrietta an apologetic look. Henrietta sniffed and continued her report.
As soon as Karen’s attention was otherwise occupied, Tyler bounced an olive off of Becky’s nose. “Tattle Tale,” he hissed.
Becky picked up the olive and hurled it back at him. It went down his shirt. Mary thought all this looked like great fun. She grabbed a handful of tabouli and threw it at Tyler. Tyler winged a stuffed grape leaf at Mary in response. He missed, and the biblical delicacy landed in the middle of the old people’s table.
“Enough!” Karen shouted. “You kids quit goofing around and eat your lunch. We have important church business to do here today. The next one who throws anything is going to be sorry. Am I clear?”
The children slumped silently in their chairs.
And then an olive hit Karen in the ear.
Everyone was too startled to react at first. The olive came from the direction of the old people’s table. Karen looked over and saw Florence Barker grinning from ear to ear.
The kids’ table erupted in flying food.
Del Winslow shook his head at the sight and said, “This wouldn’t happen if parents today knew how to discipline their kids.”
Behind him, Carrie noticed that Jill Boyer’s face reddened. “I’ll go get Mary,” Jill mumbled to her husband.
Carrie thought back to all the trouble she had caused as a kid and decided her father’s judgmental tone was uncalled for. So she hurled a piece of pita bread at the back of his head. Del spun around, sputtering indignantly. Carrie tossed another piece of bread. Del ducked. The bread hit Ralph Billings.
In short order half of the adults had joined the kids in the food fight.
Up at the front of the room Henrietta looked like she was about to explode. Pastor O’Donnell stepped forward and raised his staff. “Stop this!” he commanded, looking a little like Moses reprimanding the fractious Israelites. He was rewarded by a glob of hummus that smacked him square in the chest. This was followed by a shower of olives, dates, rice, tabouli and ambrosia salad. O’Donnell was forced to retreat to the church office. The Israelites were models of obedience compared to the congregation of the little church.
About ten minutes later the more sober adults had finally managed to bring the food fight to a halt. It was decided that perhaps the children should play outside during the remainder of the meeting.
With a more dignified atmosphere restored, voting commenced to elect new committee members where needed and reelect those who wished to continue in their roles. The voting went quickly since there was only one candidate for each position. It was hard enough finding one person to take on each job without recruiting opposing candidates as well.
After O’Donnell declared the meeting over and delivered a final prayer, Florence leaned back and said, “best annual meeting ever if I do say so myself.”
Henrietta stood up and patted her on the shoulder. “I’m glad you enjoyed it. Have fun with the clean-up.”
