The Christian Urge to Bob-and-Weave when it comes to Feeding the Hungry

It had been four weeks since The Window partially closed when I spotted T from a distance. She was straddling her bike outside the back doors of the facility, eating something. I’ve known T for a long time, but I wouldn’t have considered her a friend until this past year. A kind woman who bears the scars of a harrowing life, she takes her time with trust. I’d missed her.

I walked over to say hi. As I got closer, I saw she was quietly sobbing while devouring a day-old doughnut. She was hungry. She needed pads. She felt completely defeated and utterly alone.

“Do you still live up by me?” I asked.

“Not anymore,” she said.

“You know where I live. Come over anytime.”

//

I came home one afternoon to a large watermelon sitting on my front porch. Somewhere along the way, my family become a lucky beneficiary on Kelley’s neighborhood produce circuit. Her unpredictable gifts are usually smaller. A burlap bag of ground cherries. A perfect pink Brandywine tomato. A fig sampler.

The watermelon waited on the table for several days, tormenting our cat until I finally split it open in a homegrown shock of red.

“It’s the best I’ve ever had!” I texted her.

“I have more” she replied.

Two hours later, she placed half a foil-capped melon in my hands.

//

The front door of our home happens to be windowless, leaving no clear view of anyone waiting on the other side. Our attempt at drilling a peephole ended up more like an act of vandalism. For a time, our family tech-hound talked us into a doorbell camera which eventually felt wrong for a host of reasons and was usually on the fritz, anyway.

When the doorbell rang early on a recent weekday, I pulled my cardigan tighter around my pajamas and apprehensively opened the door. “Hey, Shannan! Is Cory here?” We hadn’t seen V in months. He was hungry and in need of a shower and some clothes.

That evening, after a trip to Walmart with Cory, he joined us for what felt like a pretty unimpressive dinner.

• Spaghetti and meatballs, with sauce from a jar.

• “Garlic bread” fashioned from a sliced loaf and garlic powder.

• Kelley’s watermelon.

//

All my life, I’ve heard this refrain: It’s not the government’s job to take care of the poor. It’s the church’s job. I’ve seen these sentences lobbed like hand grenades at every attempt to bridge the wealth gap. Nutrition (SNAP) benefits? Not the government’s job. Health benefits for the uninsured? Not the government’s job. Free school lunch for kids living below the poverty line? Not the government’s job.

When Governor Tim Walz came onto the national scene as Kamala Harris’s running mate, Conservatives called him a Marxist for providing free school lunches to public school students in Minnesota. When he provided free menstrual products, they drummed up the nickname “Tampon Tim,” as if accessible hygiene for girls is no more than a sick joke.

Zohran Mamdani was elected Mayor of NYC and the attacks intensified. His affordability-focused platform aimed at improving quality of life for the compressed working class inspired the same crowd to dig deep into their bag of tricks, calling him a Communist on repeat, reigniting the “Red Scare.”

It’s the church’s job.

It’s the church’s job.

It’s the church’s job.

//

Less than one week after our dinner with V, there was another knock at my door. This time, it was T, and I was once again in my pajamas, with my hair still in a weird topknot from the night before. I’d let the afternoon get away from me, tackling a few household jobs. Oh a whim, I’d sorted through my overstuffed sock bin, setting a heap of them aside to be donated.

I apologized for the state I was in and the state of the house, our floors torn back to particle board, our table jumbled with everything we’d peeled off the walls we were finally repainting. T didn’t care. “I always wondered what it looked like in here,” she said. “You have a country kitchen. I like it.”

I wasn’t sure why she’d shown up. I also understood completely. She said she’s been craving fresh produce since The Window stopped serving lunch. “We mostly live on carbs…” Instant mashed potato cups are her comfort food when she can get her hands on them. I sliced a nectarine for her to snack on while I chopped lettuce and a tomato from the garden and listened.

We talked about how she’s getting by, where she’s finding food, and why clothing is her biggest as the nights grow cooler. She sleeps, but only when there’s someone else staying with her. She usually has access to water. Her plan when it rains - and it has been a rainy couple of weeks - is precarious, and she knows it.

Talking with T was like chatting with any of my friends. Kids, books, our favorite things to cook and to eat. She teared up over a mutual friend. “He broke the cycle his parents started. I’m so proud of him.” Back in February, a serious bike accident left her with chronic injuries and the haunting sense that she escaped death for a reason. She tapped her titanium ankle and ran her fingertips across one side of her face. “I still can’t feel a thing.”

Before she left, I scrambled around the house, looking for anything that might make her load even 5% lighter. “Here’s half a jar of peanut butter. Here’s a Ziploc full of sugar. Here’s a hoodie. Anything else?”

“What I really need is socks.” She gestured to her bare feet slipped into threadbare shoes. “I haven’t had socks in months.”

“You’re not going to believe this…” I trailed off, grabbing the bag of socks I’d set aside thirty minutes before she knocked.

//

“Such a shame,” said the woman with diamond earrings the size of Michigan cherries, giving her unsolicited opinion on ‘food stamps.’ “It’s not the government’s job to feed people. It’s the church’s job!”

“Such a shame,” said the same woman with $300 highlights a few weeks later, when a faith-based community non-profit dedicated to feeding people closed its doors. “We’re not comfortable giving money. They enable people. If you give people food for free, they’ll never want to work for it.”

//

In the Gospels of Matthew and Mark1, we read two clear examples of Jesus’s response to hunger. His disciples are flustered by the need surrounding them. It makes them uncomfortable. “Send the crowds away,” they advise Jesus. They make their case: They don’t have enough money to buy the food. Jesus should tell the crowd to leave and “buy food for themselves.”

When Jesus says, “I feel sorry for them…they have nothing left to eat,” his fretful friends sputter, “How are we supposed to find enough food to feed them out here in the wilderness?”

They appeal to reason. They appeal to economics. They appeal to geography. It hurts to be so close to a need that feels so large. It costs them what they aren’t willing to pay. This is not our problem. Send them away.

Finally, Jesus delivers this clincher, sealing our fates for all of time, “How much bread do you have?”

Jesus, God on the ground, could have solved the crowd’s hunger through innumerable cosmic feats - sardines marching in formation straight out of the Galilean sea, perhaps a classic “manna from Heaven” redux. Instead, he invites his neighbors to toss their bits and bobs onto a shared table, filing down the edges of their attempts at self-preservation, smoothing down their scarcity mentalities, dismissing their preconceived judgments because he had bigger fish to fry.

From where I sit in the third quarter of 2026, the fact that the disciples listened strikes me as the biggest miracle within a miraculous story.

They must have actually trusted him.

//

V ate his spaghetti and meatballs with gusto, accepting seconds of bread.

But when I offered leftovers to take with him, the only thing he requested was more watermelon.

//

Tracking Jesus’ brief bodily sojourn, he asks questions like, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mt. 20:32, Mark 10:51,) “What’s your name?” (Luke 8:30,) “Who touched my robe?” (Mark 5:30) and, relatably, “Do you have anything here to eat?” (Luke 24:41).

He drew close to people and recognized their humanity.

He met their need. Freely. It seemed to delight him.

Not once did he grill someone about their resume or require them to prove their worthiness. We don’t catch a whiff of conditions, a trace of false sympathy, or an ounce of superiority complex.

Feeding the poor is not a partisan talking point. It is one of the clearest Biblical mandates we are given. How much bread do you have?

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At a moment when growing numbers of people are going hungry, I wholeheartedly support my overflow being used to help meet the needs of my neighbors. The government is set up for the scope of this project.

You are free to disagree, but the mandate is still yours.

One thing is certain - we cannot oppose the government’s involvement and excuse our way out of being the church.

“The Window isn’t just where I ate,” T said, her eyes glazed with tears. “It was like my home. My family was there.”

Abundance is created when neighbors throw their portion onto a shared table. It is up to each of us to find ways to do this. Put yourself in the path of those who hunger and open your hands. Support local non-profit and/or faith-based organizations built to do the work.

Write a check.

Open the door.

Grow a watermelon and share the last half.

Enough is made when we throw our scraps on a shared table. We create plenty by believing everyone is worthy and embodying that conviction. It’s complex, but it’s not complicated. - from Counterweights