What's A Matta, U?

What should the New Testament church be like? The best example I have read about in quite a while is Valenti's, an Italian restaurant in South Miami, Florida.

When Hurricane Andrew hit a number of years ago, Valenti's survived. The storm skirted the building, and a wiring fluke kept electricity flowing to the restaurant when the rest of the area went dark. As the owner, Charlie Valenti, Jr. crouched on the floor watching entire palm trees blow by, his only thought was how soon he could open his restaurant back up and how he could help the people caught in this crisis. He found several ways.

He could feed them, and he did, even though it meant spending hours on the phone to scrounge up tomatoes and cheese. Diabetic and Dialysis patients needed to chill their medication, so Valenti's provided ice. Babies needed fresh milk, and Valenti's gave it for free to all comers. A paraplegic needed power for her electric wheelchair, and Valenti's offered her a wall socket to plug into. Perhaps most importantly, shocked, storm-tossed people needed a quiet, clean place to sit and eat. Valenti's fed them all.

Not without sacrifices, of course! The first thing to go was the profits. Charlie Valenti never raised his prices, even though he had to pay five times the normal rate for Pepsi and boil his pasta in $3.25 bottles of Evian water. Convenience was another casualty: only four waiters could get to the restaurant and the boss himself helped them to serve the swollen crowd. The dress code suffered also, as people tramped in shoeless, with mud clinging to their clothing. The sick, the storm-shocked, and the soiled: Valenti's took them all.

How is that like the church? Hurricane Adam (Rom. 5:12) has made a mess of mankind (Rom. 3:23; Rom. 6:23), but the church is hooked up to the Eternal Power Supply (Psalm 62:11) and our one thought must ever be of spiritual service to those in need. It takes lots of money; we have to work very hard; and most of those we reach out to don't dress or act as we would like. But our calling is to serve, no matter the cost, and to provide a place of peace and refuge in the midst of disaster.

So church, let's get to work! God has not spared us by our own merit or for our own amusement (I Cor. 6:19,20). We are warm and well-fed in a cold, wet sinful world that is in constant turmoil: at all costs we must spiritually help those who stand outside.

"What's A Matta U?"
Pastor David Blevins