Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time
It’s almost as if Isaiah had read Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel, for he tells us how to be a light for the world. Six simple and concrete things he tells us to do, and the first is “Share your bread with the hungry.”
And how do we do that? Do we empty out our wallets for every beggar we meet? That might make you seem heroic to the beggar, but, as you quickly discover, it has implications for your other financial obligations down the road. Not to mention the next three beggars you meet.
So what are we to do? Do we just send every poor man to an agency or give them the number for Saint Vincent DePaul? And what of the poor folks who are addicted or homeless or just running a scam? Do we become cynical or despair of every being able to help anyone? How do we “share our bread with the hungry?”
That question first hit me between the eyes almost 36 years ago when I was in graduate school at Catholic university, where I spent most days doing research and writing my dissertation. The one time I took off for myself was Saturday mornings, when I would take the Red Line to Union Station for breakfast, buy a Washington Post and think neither about Liturgy nor Theology nor Neophyte Vesture while I ate an obscenely large breakfast. It was great fun.
Except for the escalator. For, when you emerged from the Metro all the pan-handlers of Washington D.C. would gather at the top of the escalator and you had no choice but to pass through their midst. They were aggressive, too. Grabbing and poking so much I was afraid for the contents of my pockets.
But I was also afraid for my soul, ‘cause I’d heard what Isaiah said, and I didn’t want to be that priest rushing off to his big breakfast while the half-dead beggar was screaming his name.
So, at first, I would take out five one-dollar bills and fold them tightly (so they looked like tens) and I would distribute them like a prince passing among his serfs. But then I worried that five bucks wasn’t much, (it was a drop in the bucket) plus they might well well spend it on drugs or drink, as on food.
So I went to MacDonalds and got five five-dollar gift certificates, and I started to hand those out as I ran the gauntlet of the forgotten. But then I heard from Mitch Snyder (who ran the local shelter) that some of the guys were selling the five-dollar certificates for two dollars cash, which they’d use on drugs.
So I went to a wise old priest I knew, and told him I was so frustrated I was thinking of staying home on Saturdays and working on my dissertation. At which he asked simply, “You’re going to breakfast?” “Yes,” I said. “Well why don’t you invite one of them to breakfast?”
Amazing. I did. And I met some of the most interesting people I have ever known. Tom was a physicist who now lived underneath the bridge by the train tracks. In his late twenties he had started seeing things and now he would get physically ill when he slept inside a building too long. Then there was Gerry, who had been in Seminary and later fell into a bottle, which led him all kinds of bad places. And there were so many more whose names I have now forgotten…but not their faces and not the beauty of their souls. Their suffering souls. Stripped and beaten and left for half-dead by the exigencies of life.
And somehow we are called to feed them. Not just their stomachs, but their aching hearts and their confused minds and their emaciated bodies. And most of all we are called to love them an see Christ in them. It’s not easy, and anyone who tells you there are easy answers is lying to you.
But somehow, in some way, we must find a way to share our bread with the hungry.
