I love the images of Jesus eating, eating with tax collectors, eating with Pharisees, eating at weddings and eating with crowds. Jesus eats throughout his journey, on the night before he dies, and again beside the Emmaus road. In an incredible image of plenty—plenty of fish, plenty of bread, plenty of sharing food, drink, and God’s love, Jesus offers us a glimpse of the Kingdom of God. After the creation of good food in the Garden of Eden God provides daily bread in the wilderness, Isaiah challenges us to eat rich food without cost, and Jesus turns water into wine at Cana. The Kingdom, God promises again and again, is full of good food, great drink, and more than enough to share. Despite starting his ministry by creating the finest wine, the bread Jesus offers in the feeding of the 5000 is barley bread—not flavorful oats, not the treat of cinnamon raison, not even fine ground wheat bread, or a good sourdough, rather the cheapest of the breads, the most basic of foods. With this lowly staple, however, he offers the crowd fish, an extravagance, food usually reserved for the Sabbath meal. For the Kingdom of God is not only about having enough to fill our stomachs, the Kingdom is enough food, the Kingdom is rich food, and the Kingdom is more food than we could need. For there were leftovers that day, twelve baskets leftover, leftovers so significant they had to be gathered and measured. And that is the miracle that fills me with hope when my soul is dry, when my soul is starving, when my soul cannot survive another day. Those twelve baskets tell me again that Jesus will sit and eat with me, despite my selfishness, despite my lack of faith, despite my sinful and disobedient ways. Those twelve baskets of plenty insist that in God’s Kingdom there is more than enough for you, for neighbors, for strangers, for friends, for enemies, and yes even for unfaithful, doubting, and distrusting me. There is a ridiculously vast supply of leftovers. In God’s world view there is food to spare, drink to share, and yes, above all else, there is love enough to hand out freely, twelve baskets, in fact, left over. And THAT is Good news!
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Silvia volunteers on Wednesdays and Sundays at the church on the corner. She isn’t always on time for set-up but they hold a place for her in the serving line—she likes to help with the salad. Impeccably dressed, her long curls are pulled into a loose bun, her bright red nails skillfully break the seal on a new bottle of salad dressing.
“Here hon,” she says, “let me hold your plate and you can put on as much dressing as you want.” Some of the eaters ask about her kids, others just grunt and move on to the drink table to choose lemonade or coffee. They are all from nearby—the shelter up the street, or from one of the rooming houses, or a tent over by the railroad tracks. A few are from the senior housing around the corner. Silvia lives in the garage behind one of the walk-ups on Oak Street. “No tomatoes, right?” to one person, and “Oh, you’ve got to have salad, sweet heart. Mama always said to eat your vegetables.” Staff has warned her that she can’t make people take salad, but nothing stops her from trying. “Just take a little” or “come on, it’s lettuce, it doesn’t even taste like anything.” Salad is nearly impossible to chew if you don’t have teeth, but Silvia persists. When I ask for volunteers to be interviewed Silvia is eager to take part, but does not show up for her scheduled Thursday appointment. I see her again on Sunday and try again. “Can you spend a few minutes before we start serving?” She can, and she shares freely about how the meal program works—she was there at the start, when the pastor and a few others were brainstorming on the front steps of the church. She effuses about the pastor, and about Marina, the cook. “They really listen to you. Like they know when you need to talk and then they don’t judge you.” “What kinds of things do you share?” I ask cautiously. “Oh, you know, when things are hard,” Silvia’s eyes avoid mine, darting around the room. “I think its time to start serving.” She hurries away as I call “thank you” to her back. I approach the serving table and Camilla places me behind the green beans, next to Silvia, and hands me a one-cup measure as a serving spoon. Right away I run into trouble—the scoop holds water with the beans which I pour onto someone’s plate. The water pours off onto the table. Silvia pops up to grab paper towels and cleans up the water, and then calms the man whose meal I’d messed up. Once he was settled she showed me how to hold the cup against the side of the serving bowl and drain off the water. “I thought you were an expert in meals?” she said accusingly. The pastor had in fact introduced me that way. I shrug with an embarrassed smile. “I don’t know much about the food part. I know about volunteers and churches.” “What good is that?” Indeed. Indeed. Sometimes at Worcester Fellowship our lunch line is just like Church. I hate it for its rigidness, its rules, its “lets keep you in your” place mentality. I love its for its hopefulness, its building of community while we wait, its promise of abundance at the end of the line.
As we wait in the park each Sunday I am impressed that the lunch line works at all. There are people moving into and out of the line, people looking for someone else to take their place in line, people arriving very early, people who arriving very late, the late ones worrying whether there is enough, and asking if they can cut ahead, and begging the line authorities to provide absolution for their lateness, or drunkenness, or disorderliness, and to provide a place further ahead in the line. But as there are no shortcuts to heaven there is no cutting the line. Those who are late must wait behind a hundred or so hungry bodies to see what is the little snippet of the Kingdom today. Is it ham or bologna or tuna or will there be only peanut butter and jelly left when I get to the front? Is today’s message one of hope and abundance or one of despair and less sandwiches than people lined up? “I’m hoping for tuna” Sam who is always a little late, always a little anxious, always in need of lunch for himself and his girlfriend, over there, on the pew-like bench by the fountain, Sam tells me, pointing. He asks as politely as he knows how: “Will there be any f’in, excuse me, any tuna when I get to the front of the line?” Like all those in indoor church who need reassurances before worship starts, these questions drain me of the good news. I’m not a detail person. I don’t know if the Sunday School teachers are ready or the coffee is hot in indoor church, and I don’t know if the tuna will run out in outdoor church. We are here to proclaim release to the captives and I’m stuck in the sheer tediousness of getting started. But before I can check on the tuna there is a fight brewing in front of Sam in the lunch line. Someone is trying to cut the line. An older white man I don’t know says quietly but firmly “hey, don’t cut” and I head toward the problem knowing that while many folk will sulk to the back of the line, others will simply leave if challenged on their place at this altar. And so I was thinking about the order of people at God's altar as I was moving closer, looking up at a very angry young Hispanic man, noticing his hands clenched in his pockets, he was gritting his teeth, pacing a bit, but staying there, close to the front of the line, waiting for me, the authority, with my stole flapping around me. I said, as he expected, “you cannot cut the line.” And he said his confession, "I haven't eaten in days." And I refused him absolution, sticking to the agreed upon Levitical Commandment: "You have to go to the end of the line." "Well then I won't eat." He sulked away in despair. Harvey, a regular, and a good line following Christian could not contain his anger at this blatant disregard for the rules. "Why the f** do you always cut the line?" and "Why can't you go to the end of the line?" And so the man came back screaming "I'll go anywhere I d*&$ well please" and "why don't you mind your own business". And so now I am standing between two tall men, holding forth like Moses holding the waters, and saying in my most grown up, deep, calm, and forceful voice: "Stop fighting and do not cut the line." Repeat eight times. And the line continues forward, like a prescribed liturgy, without the cutting man, without all those who cannot follow the prescriptions of order and predictability and neatness and beauty. And then an elderly white man behind this whole scene, also very tall, the one who said "hey, you can't cut", the man just ahead of us, with the white shirt and blue stripes, he reaches the food table and takes one of everything without a word, a sandwich, an orange, a bag of chips, a box of juice, and heads back to the end of the line, stopping for just barely a second to hand the entire lunch to the angry Hispanic young man, the one who had tried to cut. And then the elderly man waits in the line again to get lunch for himself, probably not tuna this time, probably peanut butter and jelly. And I am reminded once again that this is, indeed, just like Church. From Feb 18, 2016 More on Worcester Fellowship see www.worcesterfellowship.org. |
My ThoughtsFor my organized thoughts, see my book Five Loaves, Two Fish, Twelve Volunteers: Developing Relational Food Ministries. In this spot are thoughts that appear for a moment--about food programs, mission, church, building community, writing, and whatever else pops into my head. History
January 2024
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