Over the
last twenty years or so, it has become the custom of the various congregations
on our island to offer free hot meals to all comers during the winter
months. Currently, all seven days of the
week are covered. The meals vary from a
fixed menu of lasagna and salad for lunch on Sundays to a chef catered dinner
on Saturday evenings to a grand potluck on Wednesdays. Our little congregation provides home made
soup and casseroles and dessert on Tuesdays.
The suppers
draw from a varied population. Some folks
are homeless. Others are young families struggling
to make ends meet. Still others are
alone and in need of the social contacts.
Many are seniors who don’t enjoy cooking for one person. The one thing all the community suppers hold
in common is that they are open, welcoming places for members of the community
to gather throughout the gray winter months regardless of what draws them.
Last Tuesday
we served spaghetti with meat sauce and a salad augmented by a corn chowder and a rice and bean casserole
contributed by two of the guests.
Following the meal, the clean up has also become a community thing. Guests bring their dishes to the
kitchen. Some volunteer to scrape. Others to load the dishwasher. Still others put the folding chairs away and
store the tables until the next time.
Often a sense of joy and “family”
floods the atmosphere.
After
dinner one of the guests joined me in the kitchen, eager to scrape dishes for
me to rinse prior to loading them in the
dishwasher. A three day stubble,
multiple layers of clothing, and a sweet uncertainty about whether he had a
place at the table hinted at his possible life circumstances. He remarked about his gratitude for a hot
meal. I told him I was happy that he had
enjoyed it and that I was glad he had come.
He said he
had traveled around a lot and eaten in a lot of places, but he had never
felt welcomed until he decided to try out the community suppers. He innocently marveled at how kind people
were, and how they made him feel at home. He said he didn’t always know that churches
were places where he would be welcome, but he thought that there was something
in the Bible about being kind to strangers.
I had to turn my attention to the dishwasher so he wouldn’t see tears
welling up.

Out of
curiosity, I consulted Webster for the meaning of the word “estrange.” It means to remove
from customary environment or associations; to arouse enmity or indifference
where there had formerly been love, affection or friendliness.
So much of
our global public discourse these days has to do with the question of “what to
do with the stranger?” Even on a small
island with a relatively intact sense of community we cannot escape the
challenges that come with stress-filled movements of so many human beings who have literally been estranged - removed from their customary
environments by war, persecution, hunger, threats of slavery , poverty, or
homelessness - and now by increased rigor in enforcing immigration laws, and by
the threat of deportation. The less
than compassionate response to the stranger is fear, indifference, and increasingly, enmity. We have become strangers who estrange
others.
The ancient
text of Genesis tells us that the patriarch, Abraham, was sitting at the
entrance of his tent during the heat of the day when three strangers approached
him. He offered them water, saw to it
that their feet were washed and ordered that a feast be prepared for them. There is a tradition that Abraham’s tent was
open on all four sides so that a stranger would not have to search for the
entrance in order to find hospitality.
The stranger was not to be feared and rejected, but welcomed and made to
feel at home.
I had to
reflect awhile on the meaning of the tears I felt welling up when I heard my
new dish-washing partner wonder at how welcome he felt in our little
church. I wondered why he was surprised;
wondered why he couldn’t just take it for granted that he would be welcomed in
a church. I don’t know where his travels
have taken him or what he encountered along the way, but it was clear to me that he had not always
encountered hospitality from some of those most responsible for offering it
freely.
I went to
bed with a little prayer of gratitude.
Maybe it was only spaghetti with meat sauce, a bit of laughter and
fellowship around the table, a little shared labor in the kitchen after dinner
- - but at least we were doing something right.
Vicky Hanjian
Vicky Hanjian