Queen of the Pumpkin Pie
It’s Thanksgiving Week. And as is the case most every year, I am remembering a story my late colleague Mike McGarvey told twenty five years ago in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.
Back then, I was serving North Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Columbus, Indiana. The Disciples ministers of our district met on the third Tuesdays of the month at Noon at a Cracker Barrel in an Outlet Mall north of town. At one of our November meetings, Cracker Barrel was advertising their Thanksgiving dinner promotion by way of a little placard on our table.
I pointed to the placard and made some sort of snide remark like, “Hey look! Anybody planning on coming to Cracker Barrel on Thursday?”
Whereupon Mike said, “We did a few years ago.”
Open mouth and insert foot, David. Wanna get away?
Mike just smiled and continued.
“That year,” he said, “My wife announced she wasn’t going to cook Thanksgiving Dinner. Her sister, a single mother, said the same. So the whole crew of us – Sallie, her sister, her kids and ours – went to Cracker Barrel.”
“There was an elderly lady at a table kitty-cornered from our boisterous bunch sitting by herself. I got up, went over, and asked her if she’d like to join us. She did. Her name was Rose. I remember it to this day.”
“She said she had two sons out in California and grandchildren whose pictures got passed around the table. She showed us her late husband’s picture, too. And she told us how, with his being gone and her sons and their families so far away, she dreads the holidays.”
She said, “I can’t tell you how much it’s meant to me to have shared this Thanksgiving with you.”
Mike said that after the waitress bussed their dinner plates they sat around the table and played a tournament of that game where you jump the golf tees over each other to see who ends up with the least.
“Rose won,” Mike said, “and we dubbed her ‘The Queen of the Pumpkin Pie.’ One of my nieces made a crown out of a napkin and we concocted a coronation ceremony. I played a make-believe trumpet fanfare as one of my girls walked behind Rose and placed the napkin crown on her head.
I intoned, “We crown thee Her Majesty Rose. Queen of the Pumpkin Pie.” Whereupon not just our table, but the folks within ear and eyeshot of our table applauded.
Rose just sat there grinning, shaking her head back and forth, saying, “Oh, you all.”
Mike said, “I’ll never forget that Thanksgiving.”
About 3,000 years ago, there was another Thanksgiving to remember. During the harvest festival, two widowed women, one named Naomi and her daughter-in-law named Ruth, arrived in a little town called Bethlehem. Naomi was from there. Ruth wasn’t. She was an immigrant from Moab. They had vowed to look out for each other: “No matter what, I will not leave you, so help me God” (Ruth 1:16-17)
A man named Boaz, obedient to God’s commands to leave something in your fields for the poor as well as to welcome the immigrant, set aside some Thanksgiving grain to be gleaned by the young widow woman from south of the border in Moab. At mealtime, he offered her a seat at his table and offered her, get this: “Bread and wine” (Ruth 2:14). Echoes of communion?
In time, Boaz of Bethlehem married Ruth. They had a child who in turn had children. In time, they had a great-grandson whose name was David whose lineage over time extended to include Jesus who was born in Bethlehem.
My buddy Mike’s gone now. So is Rose, the Queen of the Pumpkin Pie. So are Naomi, Ruth, and Boaz, Jesse and David.
But Jesus is still with us. And he says, “When you give a dinner, invite someone who may otherwise spend the day alone. Save a place for the poor, the alien. The stranger in your midst. Although they cannot repay you, you’ll be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous" (Luke 14:12-14).
Like Mike did for Rose.
Like Boaz did for Ruth, for whom he set a table and offered bread and wine.
Like Jesus still does for one and all.
A blessing upon your Thanksgiving table and whoever sits around it. Save a seat for Jesus… and a folded napkin for The Queen of the Pumpkin Pie.
