Take Two 1-23-13

Anderson, South Carolina

If one takes inventory of Jesus’ miracles, most of them have to do with the preparation and serving of food to large gatherings. His first recorded miracle involved making one hundred thirty eight gallons of wine of such high quality as to cause bewilderment in the mind of a wealthy man’s wine steward. He could not understand why Jesus would waste a fine vintage on a wedding-party crowd already too inebriated to notice or care. Several accounts describe His taking mere specks of food and feeding thousands with it. In one case three small biscuits and two little fish in a boy’s lunch bag proved enough to feed more than five thousand. In those days nothing was wasted; in the same account it’s reported twelve baskets of leftovers were gathered up after everyone had eaten their fill.

The writer of the New Testament historical account of the life of Jesus and the early church describes daily sharing of meals as foundational to intimate fellowship and community living. The Book of Acts suggests this daily sharing was a requisite part of enabling these people to sustain their sense of connection and communion with each other.

For decades I’ve been haunted by the increasing lack of shared meals in churches and Christian bodies. A number of churches have Wednesday night suppers part of the year, usually attended by a tiny fraction of their congregations. Out of the thousand or more meals those church members will eat in a year it’s not likely more than ten of them will be shared with fellow congregants in a significant gathering. It’s long been my observation people tend to hurry away from church to go eat in a restaurant or at home, even if the church has offered a substantial repast on site at no cost. Many churches have shuttered their kitchens. Many churches have shuttered their windows. I wonder if there might not be some causality going on here.

In my doings about town I routinely pass dozens of fast food places; often entranced by the amazing numbers of cars lined up in the drive-through lanes. I’ve seen as many as thirty cars lined up at the one closest to my house. It would be faster to get out, go in and get a meal on a tray and eat it at a table with fresh-cut flowers in a pleasing environment; even having snippets of conversation with those nearby. Alas, most will wait alone more than fifteen minutes, instead getting a crinkly paper bag and eating in their cars while frantically hurrying to the next place in order to get done there and move on to yet another destination in a life lived at 9,000 RPMs.

A long-standing hallmark of American culture has been individualism. With the clarity of a prophet one hundred and seventy years ahead of his time, the French nobleman Alexis de Tocqueville in his classic Democracy in America defined our individualism as “a mature and calm feeling, which disposes each member of the community to sever himself from the mass of his fellows, and to draw apart with his family and friends; so that, after he has thus formed a little circle of his own, he willingly leaves society at large to itself.” Nearly two centuries later we struggle with a tsunami of disconnected alienated people, many feeling a loneliness and angst perhaps unprecedented in its magnitude in the human experience. Millions of us feel left to ourselves, detritus of an increasingly self-absorbed culture.

Brian Habig in his contemporary The Enduring Community suggests thinking individualistically is to think of one’s self as independent of others, “calling the shots concerning with whom you will spend time or be committed, and with whom you will not. It is not without foundation that one of the great American icons is the cowboy, alone with his thoughts, and master of all he surveys.”

In a culture where depression and anxiety are pandemic and the twenty pharmacies within walking distance of my house make a fortune selling anxiolytics and anti-depressants, I can’t but wonder if the deep isolation in which so many take their meals and live their lives is not directly causal of so much emotional angst.

It’s long been my practice to feed people. There’s something profoundly satisfying and joyful about meeting the deepest needs of people. For years one of my happiest times during the week has been to put on an apron, glove up, and pack meals for our local Meals on Wheels. Seeing that six hundred and fifty of our citizens imprisoned by age, infirmity, and poverty have something to eat every day creates a rewarding sense of purpose.

As a result of my work with Meals on Wheels it’s been possible for me to gain access to a substantial amount of surplus food from school feeding programs and from suppliers sending things not easily used in a production-oriented institutional kitchen. An even deeper level of satisfaction comes from providing food daily to as many as a one hundred alcoholics and addicts, long marginalized and discarded by our ever harsher society. These people have zero chance of ever getting admitted onto a Meals-on-Wheels route. To get on a route one must live in some kind of structure and have the barest life infrastructure. I’m not aware of our volunteers delivering to any of those people living under bridges, underneath abandoned houses, or sleeping in hospital lobbies and waiting rooms at night.

Today I had opportunity to share some of this largesse with an addicted woman, homeless for four years who slept last night in one of the surgical waiting rooms, and a fellow I’m guessing stayed under the nearby bridge. On a cold winter morning at first light watching them eat my pumpkin bread and drink chocolate milk from Meals on Wheels felt exactly like offering a gilded chalice to a communicant at the altar rail - perhaps better. I recall this tentative man reaching cautiously for a small piece of pumpkin bread. I suggested he take two. I immediately recalled Jesus giving the five thousand their fill. I should be able to take two refugees from a progressively harsher more isolated culture and feed them their fill if Jesus could do so for thousands.

These two homeless diners came back at midday and had a hot lunch with four dozen of their colleagues, enjoying the abundance of treasure I obtained from Meals on Wheels earlier in the day. Suddenly, it’s abundantly clear to me why Jesus made a big deal of feeding people. People can’t hear His message of love for them if the growl in their stomachs is too loud. If I feed them a simple meal then perhaps they can then learn of spiritual food which will satisfy them for all eternity. Jesus understood filling soup bowls should come before filling heads with new ideas, especially ones of hope and faith. Perhaps it’s easier to trust God with our future if we find Him trustworthy in our present.

“Then the King will say to the people on his right, ‘Come, my Father has given you his blessing. Receive the kingdom God has prepared for you since the world was made. I was hungry, and you gave me food. I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink. I was alone and away from home, and you invited me into your house. I was without clothes, and you gave me something to wear. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then the good people will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and give you food, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you alone and away from home and invite you into our house? When did we see you without clothes and give you something to wear? When did we see you sick or in prison and care for you?’

“Then the King will answer, ‘I tell you the truth, anything you did for even the least of my people here, you also did for me.’

Especially for those living under bridges.

Blessings,

Craig C. Johnson