Gospel: John 6:25-35
Several years ago Sara Miles, well-known writer, descendant of several generations of Christian missionaries, and atheist, walked into San Francisco’s St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church and at the age of 46 took communion for the very first time. She had absolutely no reason to do this; as she said, “I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian.”[1] Yet there she was – and what on the surface seemed to be a simple, albeit unexpected, act became nothing short of a life-changing moment. As she wrote, “[S]omething outrageous and terrifying happened. Jesus happened to me.”[2]
But that moment of receiving the body and blood of Christ did more than change Sara. It awakened a call within her, a call to find a way to expand the reach of God’s Table beyond the Eucharist to “the most ordinary of actions … embracing outsiders as family, emptying yourself to feed and live for others.”[3] The bread she received from the priest was now the bread she wanted to gather and share with others who needed it, not those hungering spiritually but those who were simply hungry. Sara felt called to create a food pantry, and after running the gauntlet of committee meetings and gaining clergy and congregational support and gathering volunteers and contributions, she did just that.
Today, more than a decade later, her call has grown into one of the most significant gifts St. Gregory provides for their San Francisco community. Every Saturday from 11:00 – 1:00, a team of volunteers hands out hundreds of pounds of free food to more than 500 people. What I find most remarkable – and indeed, beautiful – is that their food pantry isn’t set up in other facilities on the campus; it’s in the sanctuary, around the altar. Gods’s Table isn’t just at the center of the pantry; it’s incorporated into it. The altar is no longer just a table for the spiritually hungry on Sunday but has become a table for the physically hungry throughout the week.
All of this grew out of a single word: bread. Today’s passage from John holds at its center bread – the physical bread given by God to those during the Exodus, and the spiritual bread of new and unending life given through Jesus. In recent weeks and months, we’ve continued in our dual relationship with bread, even expanding more than in previous years with the addition of our own Blessing Box panty. We receive the bread at the altar to remember the promise of Jesus, and we give bread to those in the community to show we remember the promise in them.
Every food pantry wrestles with concerns at startup, regardless of location or size. Availability of resources is always at the top of mind of pantry coordinators, but another common question relates to those utilizing the pantries: How do we know the people taking the food are the people who really need it? My short answer is this: We don’t. We trust, and we feed. It’s like being approached by someone on the street who asks for a few dollars for food; how do we know they aren’t in fact about to go buy alcohol? We don’t. We trust, and we give.
We trust and we give, we trust and we feed, because that’s what Jesus asks us to do. Jesus didn’t just eat with the poor or the marginalized who had little; he ate in the homes of the wealthy who had plenty. Jesus’ call to us to feed others didn’t have parameters attached to it. He didn’t tell Peter, “Feed my sheep, but only those in pastures two and three.” He said, “Feed my sheep.” All of them. When he divided the loaves and fish among the crowd of 5,000, he didn’t do so after having had the disciples move through the crowd analyzing who was in attendance and who seemed to need the food more. He fed all of them.
“Without exception all people are one body: God’s.”[4] All people are God’s body. When part of the body comes to us out of hunger, we are called to feed them by the one who fed all – and we should do so recognizing that the hunger they bring may not be what we expect. It wouldn’t be surprising to us that many who take food from our pantry are physically hungry, simply trying to keep themselves and their families going for one more day. What we may not expect is that those taking food from our pantry may not need it and may not be physically hungry; they may instead by hungering for a glimpse of hope in a hopeless world, or a sense of connection in a time of disconnect – even if the hope and connection are found anonymously through a three-shelf box at the edge of the parking lot.
Again, who they are doesn’t matter. We trust, and we feed. In the words of Saint Isaac of Nineveh, a seventh century Christian bishop, “Did not our Lord share his table with tax collectors and harlots? So do not distinguish between worthy and unworthy. All must be equal for you to love and serve.”[5] The table of Christ always has room for one more. It’s a table where all who are hungry will be fed. All of them. And it’s a table where it’s not our job to question anyone about their presence but rather our joy to remind them of their promise.
Amen.
[1] Sara Miles. take this bread, p. 57.
[2] Miles, p. 58.
[3] Miles, p. 93.
[4] Miles, p. xvi.
[5] Miles, p. 95.