love is a cup of coffee

I had to buy a new coffee machine the other day… And I didn’t think I would have to so soon.

In college I worked for a minute as a barista, in one of those little drive-through coffee carts. It was a good job for a college student… and I hated it. I hated the early hours. I’m not a morning person anyway, but opening before the sun is up and the early morning customer rush really pushed against my preferences. I hated the act – the saccharine friendliness that I wore in order to squeeze a good tip from each thirsty customer.

Most of all, I hated the pointlessness of it. I mean, there is an art to making good coffee, but it’s a paint-by-numbers kind of art. You master it quickly, and it becomes mechanical. And I always felt like I was wasting my working hours doing something that ANYONE could do.

Sure… I got free coffee, I got homework done between customers, and I was able to work my tip jar effectively enough to afford the cheap dates that made up Heather and my courtship. But when I finally left that job, there was no sentimental glance over my shoulder… I was happy to be gone.

Fast forward [REDACTED] years.

Last year I had the whim to buy an espresso machine. I had never wanted to buy one… because I did not feel the need to relive my college work days. But we had gotten into the habit of putting ourselves on the customer side of a drive-through coffee cart more often than our budget was comfortable with. And in a classic cheapskate moment I said something like, “If we just bought a machine, I could save us SO much money.”

And after some insistence, Heather agreed to let me buy a cheap machine. I of course had my eye on a pricier one, but Heather has some crazy idea that I tend to get these ideas, and in a few months we have some unused contraption collecting dust in the garage. I’m sure I don’t know what she is talking about… but to appease her, I scrolled a bit further the website, read some reviews about steam wands and “real” bars of pressure, and put a economy model in my cart. Because she was right, I probably wasn’t going to use it.

But guess what? She was SO WRONG… Excuse me while I gloat, it is a rare occasion.

I used the living goodness out of that machine. I made coffee almost every morning for the first few weeks. And even when the excitement wore off, I still made coffee as often, if not more, than we were outsourcing previously. Not because we have a caffeine addiction, I mean like any good Oregonians we do. Not because of the money I was saving, though that’s a plus for sure. But because I ACTUALLY ENJOY MAKIGN COFFEE… especially for Heather and for Ewan, who turns out enjoys his coffee as much as his parents do.

See, what was once a pointless, valueless task, has taken on a new significance when I hand a  to someone I care about. That menial task has become an act of love toward my family. In just a few moments, I can bring some joy to the people I love.

Now, a mundane perishable thing like an iced oat milk caramel latte has become a tangible symbol of love.

And it makes me a little sad that I couldn’t see that when I was 19. I wish that I understood then what I do now. Loving others like Christ loved us sometimes means BIG things, things like sacrifice, heroism, and laying down out lives. But sometimes – actually, MOST OF THE TIME – it means small things, mundane things, things that are easy for us to take for granted, even things we look down on.

I hated being a barista because I was too ignorant and proud to see any value in what I was doing. It was a menial job that put money in my wallet, NOT a real act of service. But if 19-year-old Evin could have stopped and seen the image of God in his customers and humbly understood how much good he could do for them though a cup of coffee and a smile… Well, maybe I would have loved my job; maybe I would have enjoyed the early mornings; maybe my kindness would not have been an act, but an expression of Jesus’ love.

Baristas… you are a literal godsend. You and your carefully crafted cappuccino and dirty chai are the love of Christ to people every single day. You are Jesus breaking bread, washing feet, and making wine.

And whatever the rest of you find yourself doing today, I pray that you can see the true value in what you do; the ways that even the most basic of tasks can speak the love of Christ to your neighbor.

Because, very often, love is a cup of coffee.