As the pandemic approached, the people from many congregations came to Jesus and said, “This is crowded and chaotic, and it’s already getting dangerous. Send the hungry away, so they can go buy themselves some food.”

Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

“We don’t have enough masks or hand sanitizer,” they answered.

See the rest at the SNEUCC devotional page.

MANNA (Many Angels Needed Now and Always) is a leadership organization working with people who do not have homes. Read more about MANNA in my book  Five Loaves, Two Fish, Twelve Volunteers. I recently attended their Monday worship at The Cathedral Church of St. Paul in Boston.

The quiet of MANNA's Monday Lunch provided respite for many after a night of protests for Black Lives Matter in Boston. Jennifer McCracken, the priest for this congregation, checked in with me frequently during lunch, but didn't have a minute to spare as one person after another wanted to share their stories with her. She knew, she understood, she was there. She looked tired as worship began.

We sat in a large circle, each chair six feet from the next, a couple chairs in the center, also appropriately distanced, and in front of the altar, two more chairs. The hand painted altar cloth was a little lopsided, and all the animals from Noah's ark had been carefully placed, along with Terry Dactyl, the plastic dinosaur, sitting on one arm of the cross. This is a time of pandemic; the Eucharistic elements were missing.

As worship progressed our group of six grew to ten or twelve, some sitting in the far corners of the sanctuary. Each person had a backpack or bag at their feet, the hosts at the back entrance offered hot lunch to the latecomers, along with hand sanitizer and masks. Outside the Cathedral's glass doors two more volunteers continued to offer bag lunches to people who didn't want to come inside.

Inside was a hushed. People talked, quietly, to others or themselves. The slouched shoulders expressed a sense of rest. The meal had been quiet, but tense, now we began to let out that tension, to share our unrest with God, to let go. The service is familiar and yet specific to the day.

“I love this Psalm,” Jennifer hands out a paper. “It's a lament. Today we are going to cry out with all of the pain of the racism, the violence, the pain of last night, and of our lives." Together we read the words of Psalm 13.”

“How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart?”

We sit a moment in the pain. Jennifer invites a parishioner to create a Gospel Alleluia and he does, mournfully, quietly, it fills the room. His head drops as he finishes.

Members of the congregation read the gospel, first in Spanish, then in English. Jennifer calls up a parishioner to preach. He is tall, dark, and devastated. He speaks in spurts, as if God fills him up, he pours it out, and then the next message arrives and gushes onto us. Struggling to hold his body in the chair, clenching his hands in frustration, wiping tears from his face, he preaches confidence God wants something different. As his message dies down Jennifer mentions the scripture we have read and he starts again, more words of God piling on us. Some us look away, I look away, it is so much pain, so much trust, so much power.

There is silence. There is peace that passes all understanding. We shuffle in our seats. We wait for the words to flow through us. We wait some more.

At lunch one of the volunteers told me to stay for worship. "They do a blessing that is amazing." I had no idea.

Jennifer begins by turning to her right, to the preacher, sitting there, and blesses him for his words. She encourages him to bless the woman to his right, and her to bless the man behind her. One by one, the priest naming each person in turn, we each bless the next. Everyone has some little contribution. Everyone is blesses; everyone is blessed. Over the physical distance required by the virus, we pull together in blessing. Over the spiritual distance required by our nation's racial divide, we pull together in blessing. Over the social distance separating people with homes from those without we pull together in blessing.

This is church.

KIf you’ve read my book Five Loaves, Two Fish, Twelve Volunteers, you will remember MANNA (Many Angels Needed Now and Always) as the ministry with the leadership team and Pillars of Peace. I visited them in June to see their new way of doing Ministry in the age of coronavirus.   Note that "volunteer" in this context includes people who are food insecure and people who are food secure.

This is amazing, I think, as I slip into the sanctuary at the Cathedral Church of St. Paul (Episcopal) in Boston. It is so quiet. Seven round tables are 12 to 15 feet apart, each with two chairs. A cart with juice, coffee, and orange quarters sits at the doorway, occasionally the volunteers move around to refill people’s cups. The skylight, wisps of windows, and lighting together make a soft, calm space. One man cleans out his backpack, another sleeps, still another is writing vigorously. I whisper to the volunteers, afraid of disturbing the peace.

The last time I visited MANNA, one of the church-based meal programs in my book Five Loaves, Two Fish, Twelve Volunteers, there were 100 eaters crammed in an echoing basement social hall. One of the remarkable images was of a screaming fight, calmed by the volunteers who play the role of Pillars of Peace. This couldn’t be more different.

To deal with the risk of the coronavirus, the MANNA team has adjusted almost everything about their Monday lunch program. Eaters now sit, two to a table, in three different rooms, including the newly renovated, and pew-less sanctuary. Masks and hand-sanitizer are handed out at the door. The bathroom is sterilized twice while I visit. Lunch is scooped into take-out bins and delivered to each person from a cart by gloved, masked volunteers. Breakfast is in a bag at the front door in the morning, bagged sandwiches are offered in the afternoon.

While I’m chatting with a young writer at my table a tall bearded white man comes into the sanctuary. He is unmasked and waving his arms.
“Do I know any body here? Do I know anybody?”

One of the volunteers, standing in the doorway, calls the hollerer by name and asks if he likes his new housing. “Does it feel like home yet?”

The man ignores the attempt at redirection. “Does anybody come from Medford” he calls again into the room.

The volunteer tries again “Have you decorated your new space?”

The man looks him in the eye and then heads out the door. We all watch as he argues with the volunteers outside, and then takes a bag of breakfast with him.

It is quiet again.

Downstairs is a little less hushed. There is a game of cards with a third person added, but the masked players are still keeping distant from each other. The lead volunteers at each station (the front door, the entrance to each of the three rooms, and the kitchen) have walkie-talkies that creates an occasional electric sound. “We are so spread out,” Jennifer McCracken, the priest of the congregation, explains. “We were needing to run up and down the stairs to find out what was happening.”

The financial costs of the program revisions are high. What was once Monday lunch is now breakfast and lunch, and on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday. Breakfast is purchased from a nearby restaurant responding to their challenge of being closed. Many other meals in the city have shut-down, so these meals are important, especially to the people without housing.

As I visit, I start to see how the program is, in many ways, the same as it always was. An indoor suburban congregation brought the meal, MANNA volunteers, some food secure, some food insecure, serve it. Almost everyone who enters is called by name. There is a sense of plenty when the woman at my table asks apologetically for a third cup of coffee the answer is “of course”. The volunteer remembers that she uses two sugars and plenty of cream.

Clean-up is a community affair, everyone cleaning tables and chairs, although now they don’t need to fold them up and out of the way as the building is not used for other programs. People go out quietly again, one last story, one last prayer. A place of respite in a world of chaos.