THE SANDWICH GENERATION

Author Unknown

 

A sandwich is quick, easy to make, with little or no cleanup.  It’s convenient and fast.  It’s for the hurry-up crowd, the 30 minute lunch bunch.  It’s the way we are—in a hurry.  The sandwich culture wants everything immediately, if not sooner.  I saw two men leave a restaurant because they had to wait two minutes on a sandwich!

This attitude comes into the church as well.  We want our services, quickly made, at the last minute.  We don’t care about making preparations beforehand. We want the preacher’s part to be just right, not too long, not too dry.  We want him to be juicy and humorous, full of depth and, oh, so understandable.  For sure, he better finish before the other churches do, so the good members can be first in line for a more important meal, at the local restaurant.

Extra words at the Lord’s table?  No! “Just the facts man” (to borrow and modify a phrase).  Wordy prayers?  Well, you know, “For a prayer to be heavenly, it doesn’t have to be eternal,” we always say.  Our services come neatly boxed, concisely made, just like a sandwich.  What’s more, we “sandwich” in the church’s activities when it’s convenient, to fit our schedule.  A weekend away from the home church, for some, is a weekend away from church attendance.  It’s just not convenient!  If it doesn’t fit in, then we just forget about

it.  Relatives, meal preparation (ironically), TV, schedules, and rest cycles, replace “inconvenient” worship services.

The service I hear described in the Bible is much more than a quick hurry-up sort of affair.  It’s more than just a sandwich, easily made and easily consumed (Read Matthew 7:13-14; Mark 8:34; Romans 12:1).

Convenient?  Easy?  Not the Christian life I read about in the Bible.  Many of the “sandwich generation” will be sorely mistaken and eternally distressed that their religion of convenience has given them a false hope of heaven.  There will not be a fast food entrance there—there will be no curbside check-in.  Time will no longer be of essence, for time will have been suspended.  Take time for the Lord today, and you won’t be disappointed.  Do a hurry-up job, have a convenient for me attitude, abbreviate the essentials, and you will have an inferior product, unacceptable to the Lord.