One of the great stories of the internet a few weeks ago involved a preacher, a waitress and a meal receipt.

A St. Louis minister dined at an Applebee's restaurant with 19 parishioners and when presented with his check refused to to honor the mandatory 18 percent tip. He wrote that he gives God ten percent so why should he give her 18? Then, instead of giving ten percent, he gave her nothing. She posted a copy of the slip to the Internet, the post got thousands of hits and she was fired for her efforts. Finally, the pastor apologized.

There is a lesson here on Christian charity. Not just because Jesus admonished his followers to “Give to every man that asketh of thee.” (Luke 6:30) There seems to be a fundamental lack of understanding of generosity and service.

When I was in college and working at the Morningstar Coffeehouse in San Marcos, my fellow worshippers and I would often go out in large groups and at the end of the meal they would tip the waitress with Bible tracts. Their rationale? The waitress needed Jesus more than she needed money. It never dawned on them that Jesus may have sent us to meet the waitress' financial needs.

Nor should we forget that Jesus holds those who serve in higher esteem than those who are served.

There are other realities that we overlook should we refused to tip our severs. When we tip, we don't just tip the server. She has to share with the host, bartender and bus staff. The server isn't provided by the restaurant as a courtesy. We are his employers. When we place an order we are contracting with the service staff. They are not serving us for free because they have nothing else to do. This is how they earn their keep, and to fail to tip is to steal from them. We are now entering into the territory of Old Testament, ten commandment transgressions.

To refuse to tip is to be more than simply ungrateful. It is to be a thief. We are robbing them of time and money they could have earned serving someone that would have tipped them.

The ten percent rationale is also faulty math. Wait staff used to get ten percent too. But tips have been adjusted for the cost of inflation. First to 15 percent and now to 20 percent. And servers do more than serve the food we pay for. They lay down plates and utensils, clean up our messes and even continually offer free bread, condiments, water and drink refills. So it is far from unreasonable to give a waitress 18 percent when God only demands a tithe.

We should count ourselves fortunate. If God adjusted our tithes for the cost of inflation over the three thousand years since the Torah was passed down, we would be giving 600 percent or more of what we earned. Compared to that, 18 percent is a pittance.

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