Let's Talk About The Concept of Free Coffee

Let’s talk about the concept of free coffee. 

Recently, a classmate of mine in Advanced Fiction wrote a story that went a little something like this. It started out with a woman waiting in line at a Starbucks, witnessing the small miracle of the “free coffee tag” phenomenon, where someone pays for the coffee of the person behind them in line and, in turn, that person pays for the next person’s coffee and so on and so forth. The protagonist of this story seems happy, if somewhat indifferent, to be part of this and is waiting for her turn to do the same. The amount paid for was started with 274 pennies brought in by an unnamed little girl. Eventually, just a few spaces in front of the protag a woman takes the free coffee and does not pay for the person behind her. Suddenly, the magic is gone, and it seems the entire coffee shop is silently judging this woman for not continuing the good will of the little girl who started the trend. The protag is not excluded among these people, she describes her as “a failure of humanity”. And upon getting a closer look realizes that this woman is actually a bully from her high school who had a taste for harassing freshmen. The protag gets so upset that when it’s her turn in line she not only starts the trend again but orders two more cups, one for herself and one for the specific purpose of spilling it on the woman who had accepted the free coffee (ordering it iced just so that it would stain extra well). Upon doing so it’s revealed that this woman actually has a bruise on her right eye and it’s heavily implied that she’s in a severely abusive relationship. The story ends with the protag paying for a new outfit and learning that all mighty lesson of not judging people until you’ve walked in their shoes.

Let’s take it a couple steps back though. 

There are so many things that I can talk about with this particular story but what I want to do is follow the chain of free coffee. It starts with this. A little girl walks into a Starbucks and pays for somebody’s drink, then is never to be heard of again. Why would a little girl do this? To be sweet? At the suggestion of a parent? To impress? I suppose the motivation doesn’t matter all that much but let’s say that she did it knowing that someone would need that one free coffee. She almost counts on the fact that the coffee will be continually paid for until it reaches the hands of said person. So she pays and she leaves, leaving it up to fate to deliver that coffee to the one who needs it most. The person behind her is pleasantly surprised.  Someone has given them a gift with absolutely no prompting on their part. It’s unconditional love with a bit of cream and sugar and it feels so nice to know that spontaneous kindness still exists. He decides that, knowing that he doesn’t need this coffee for free, he’ll pass it down and continue the kindness, already having received his gift in the very act of generosity and in turn wanting to pass it on to someone else. The woman behind him feels the same and continues the trend. Before you know it many people have paid for someone else’s coffee, whether from good will or unsaid pressure. But all of them were content to take half of the gift, the feeling of being loved from someone they don’t know. None of them needed both. 

Then comes in the woman, who’s snuck away from her oppressor for a few short moments and she’s told that her coffee is free. She feels more than just a tickle in her heart, she feels a rush of relief. She feels taken care of, held, from someone far, far away from her situation, some who can’t possibly know how worthless she feels she actually is. This cup is so much more than just a nice thing given to someone else. So she takes it without paying because it’s a gift. It doesn’t require anything in return. And she wants to treasure it because it’s the first gift she’s received in such a long time. 

And in doing so she is ostracized by the entirety of the coffee shop, the people who supposedly gave her this gift. 

My point is this. In the act of giving these people forgot what giving actually was about. They were so caught up in the act that they forgot that the point was that someone would accept it. Notice how everyone in line still got their coffee and paid for it, just in a more roundabout way. Except for the little girl. She didn’t get anything. She didn’t walk into that Starbucks expecting the person behind them to still pay, she didn’t want to start a movement. She just wanted to give someone a gift. And she did, and everyone got angry at the person that accepted the gift when that was the idea to begin with. And in the end, it didn’t really matter who received that gift, just that someone did. After all, what is a gift if it’s not free. The real moral of the story, I feel, is if you give expect nothing in return. Partly because a gift that has a price tag in the end isn’t a gift, but also because you never know how necessary that gift may be to someone. 

And, in the end, haven’t we all been there? Bringing it back to Christ he did the same exact thing. He paid a price to give us a gift expecting nothing in return. Not only that but he gave us this gift knowing there was no way we could pay him back. What on earth could we give him? How could we have repaid him for a life and death in service to us? There is no work on earth that can pay our way into Heaven, Heaven is a gift. Christ is a gift. A relationship with God is a gift. In fact, you can get all of these things regardless of what you do after words. You could accept that cup and go on to destroy the world and that wouldn’t change the fact that you still had that cup. 

And so, love Christ, pay for someone else’s coffee, and stay tuned for the next white girl analogy of God’s Love. 

‘Til next time nerds.