What do the hungry think of our church programs?

By Dr. Doyle Sager 

I was sitting in the church pew, luxuriating in the glorious Maundy Thursday music. This has become one of my favorite worship services each year. Our church’s sanctuary choir and orchestra were making this holy night come alive as the Joseph Martin score came off the page and into our hearts. The crescendo built ever higher…it was almost time for our communion service…Suddenly, I was brought back to earth. I heard a voice, “Excuse me, excuse me!” I also felt an insistent tapping on my shoulder. “Excuse me!”

Richard, the gentleman behind me, is one of our community friends. The homeless and nearly homeless of our small city have found a welcome here at First Baptist. Two Thursdays a month, we serve a free, hot community meal. Many of them have also discovered our church’s weekly Wednesday night church supper. Most people pay for their midweek meals, but we offer them free of charge to our community guests.

Once Richard had my attention, he continued in a half-whisper, “Will we have Wednesday supper next week? And when is the next Thursday meal?” As I did the calendar in my mind, I reassured him of the meal schedule and tried to return to the musical. It was still beautiful. It was still moving. But something had changed inside me. I looked up at our beautiful stained glass. I looked around at all the well-fed people (did I say that nicely?). I thought of the delicious snacks I planned to plow through when I returned home that evening.

Several days later, I also reflected on how much time and money our church spends on our sound system, utilities and salaries (including mine). I also thought of the hours and hours we have spent and will spend discussing worship styles and worship tastes. And I thought again of my hungry friend’s simple query: “When will we eat again?”

Don’t get me wrong. Music and worship are essential to the church’s mission. If we don’t praise God, the very stones will cry out. But the gospel needs feet as well as voice. Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement, insisted that the Center’s artwork depict the saints as working, not in repose. Saints work. They don’t just sing, preach and pass around tiny communion wafers and cups. The Epistle of James reads, “[Suppose] you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, ‘Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!’ and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup — where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?”

Since I am a pastor and am supposed to be spiritual, I won’t tell you that I became a little irritated when Richard interrupted my very meaningful Maundy Thursday meditation. “Could this not wait just another twenty minutes?” I thought. But I suspect that for the hungry and marginalized of our city, twenty minutes seems like a long, long time.

I wonder what would happen if some of us, ensconced in our steepled hideaways, worked up the courage to ask the poor, the homeless and the suffering in our community, “What do you think of First Church’s programs?” I for one hope that Richard and others like him will keep interrupting our blissful worship.

Dr. Doyle Sager serves as senior pastor of First Baptist Church in Jefferson City, Mo.

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