As some of you will already know the pandemic of hunger has gripped me and is one in which I find myself getting more and more involved in. The statistics are mind-boggling, and yet the reality that now, more than ever, we are in a position to eliminate hunger and its root causes. Yet we remain unmoved. We continue to ignore the cries that we hear, overlook the eyes that we see, and deny the culpability that we have.
I do this too – probably each and every day. Last night for instance, after a friend and I had dinner at a nice Thai restaurant in Old Town Alexandria we stopped in a Starbucks to use their restroom and grab a cup of coffee. While waiting for my friend to finish in the restroom I was looking at a picture on the wall that showed the 2003 flood of Old Town after a hurricane. I was caught by the picture that showed our great prosperity being temporarily disrupted by a natural disaster, and two people in a canoe seeming to enjoy the opportunity to leisurely paddle down King Street. It was then that he called out to me, the 50 or 60 year old man who was sitting in the chair just off to my left. He called out and began to tell me about the picture and then he began to tell me about his life, bit-by-bit with no seeming connection. In this conversation I learned that we had several things in common – he grew up close to where I went to college, he had worked in the airline industry, as did my mother, and he was a faithful Christian and proud of his connection with the church. In the 10 minutes or so we were talking I wondered to myself why he was sitting here in a very dirty coat, with a full backpack on the floor, and the tiredness in his eyes. He must have sensed this because he told me he was homeless as a result of losing his job, he had tenitis and thus couldn’t hear anything I said nor could he read lips, and he was resting in the Starbucks for a while in order to be as warm as he could be before he headed out in to the cold and wet night.
Then it happened. He asked me if I could spare a few dollars. I said that I didn’t have any cash, but that I would buy him something here and now. He shook his head and said no. I then offered him our “to-go” cartons of our remaining Thai food from dinner and he said, “I am really looking for something for breakfast tomorrow. He reached out and grabbed my hand and thanked me for spending time with him and said he wished us well. I said the same to him and we wandered out of the store, while he remained in his chair probably until he was kicked out by the employees.
As I reflect on this experience I am convicted of my own complicity in this situation. I, after indulging in some fine food, and then overpaying for some coffee had left that man alone and hungry. And more than that, I hadn’t even learned his name. He remains a nameless, homeless man to me and to many of us. This man, this child of God was unknown to me, and in fact I probably didn’t ask him his name directly because it would have committed me to a relationship with him, to a responsibility for him. Craig L. Nessan writes, “Every day I am tempted to construct such a life in which the poor become absent. I am also tempted to construct a theology that makes me comfortable in a world where the poor are invisible.” (in Give Us This Day: A Lutheran Proposal for Ending World Hunger, 2003.)
This man’s hunger was real. Yet I remained largely unmoved. Think about the number of hungry or homeless people who reach out for change we simply walk by each day as we hustle to make it to our next meeting on time, or how quickly we turn off the television (or flip to the latest and greatest “reality TV” show) when stories of the poor or hungry appear? We as people of this world, as children of God are bound together and called to live in response to each other. We, as God’s people who are so richly and abundantly blessed are called to use our resources (which include money and voice) to ensure that all of God’s people are fed, that no one goes hungry, that God’s good gifts are shared as needed.
Hunger is a pandemic in our world today and it shouldn’t be. In fact hunger should not exist at all! We have the ability to advocate and participate in the change of institutional and government structures, economic barriers, and educational opportunities in order to eliminate that which needn’t exist – hunger. We as children of God are called to see, hear and touch the very real people who are affected and impacted by hunger. In fact we are called to more than that, we are called to see and know, be in relationship with those who are hungry. This is our call. This is my call. May we respond and act together in order to end this brokenness known as hunger now!
Me…
