"Free Food!"

I discovered Costco. I have been there enough to appreciate the superstore’s take on the human desire for ‘free food!’  Is there in fact such a thing as a free lunch? It is enough of a lure to capture the mind of an old Dutch man (me).

Of course, you must be a member, or arrive with a member to get the ‘free food!’, but that’s nit-picking. The food really is free. The drink too. In fact, I am sure there are people who plan their meals around the fact that a day of shopping at Costco will mean one fewer meal to prepare because of all the ‘free food!’  Of course, the premise of the very nice mostly female vendors offering you everything from soup to nuts is that someone is going to actually buy the product. They count on suckers, I mean, people like me who suffer from an immediate and overwhelming sense of obligation to buy ‘free food!’ because we want to help the nice ladies just trying to make a buck.  Costco wins.

Which makes me wonder if this is why God has such a hard time giving away ‘free food!’ on Sunday mornings. Christian churches offer Bread and Wine (or juice) somewhere between daily and quarterly.  You would think that would be an attractive offer, one that would cause the crowds to be breaking down the doors.  And yet, people stay away in droves.  Why? They don’t want to make the time? They were taught it is an obligation, and they don’t like being told what to do? They assume there is some hidden cost they will be suckered into because they believe everybody, especially those priests and ministers, all they really want is money?

God issues an invitation to truly free food and drink which results in everlasting life and love.  Yet the majority of people reject the invitation.  Don’t they understand that  the offer has an expiration date? (Isaiah 55:1-3, 6) It’s one thing to walk past the vendors at Costco; it’s a whole other thing to reject God’s invitation to ‘free food!’ What are we doing wrong?

Perhaps God should stop relying on amateurs like me and hire the Costco marketing department.