It’s for church!

My sister was making coffee cake with my niece tonight and I ran over to the stove to see what was going on. I said “What’s that for?” My sister replied “Back off, it’s for church.”
When you hear that and it is in regards to food you can feel disappointment immediately set in. This beautiful dessert is not for you but “for church.”
Then I thought back to when I was a kid and I would hear “You can’t have that, that’s for church” all the time with food. “Don’t eat that jello salad, that’s for church. Stay away from the casserole that’s for church.” You would get so frustrated because there was nothing else to eat in the house except this supposed holy food.
Now my brother was a food hog. He was the type to drink all the milk eat and all the cereal in one day. Mom could buy weeks worth of groceries and he’d eat all the good stuff after midnight. As a result, “it’s for church” turned into a phrase to deter my brother from eating us out of house and home. Soon everything became “for church”.
“Dont eat that chip dip — it’s for church” (and nevermind that you just saw me eat out of the container for the last 15 minutes.). “You can’t have those chicken patties, that’s for church.”
Because I was the youngest I was not privy to this food ruse and I soon became of a victim of “it’s for church” starvation.
Eventually my brother caught on and started to use the ploy against me and things like poptarts and Faygo pop got added to the church list.
Finally I figured things out about the food in the fridge when I realized that we didn’t go to church that often or even at all. So why are we making and giving all our food to a place I only went on Wednesday night and on holidays? Were we good kids because we feared the Lord enough not to touch His lemon bars or were we bad kids for using God’s house to protect our food from our pig of a brother?
Nowadays a lot of food in the kitchen is for church and it is so tempting not to sneak a sample. When I hear “it’s for church” however I am a little skeptical, after years of the phrase being a food security alarm I doubt the motives of the chef.
My sister finally admitted that the coffee cake was for consumption at home. She just wanted me to leave her alone while she baked.