Scripture lends us the imagery of hungering and thirsting for God. When I fast on occasion, I choose to feel hunger to awaken my yearning for God. But so many in our city, indeed in the the state, the nation, and the world, regularly hunger because they suffer food scarcity. With abundance all around us, it is difficult to reconcile why some enjoy so much food, while many do not have enough.
When Abundance Becomes Waste
When I was the Vicar of Church of the Common Ground, I appreciated all of the churches that offered regular support – food, monetary assistance, volunteer hours, etc. I was especially grateful for the kind souls who would bring socks for the ‘Common Soles’ foot clinic and sandwiches for lunch after Sunday services. I will confess that I was less appreciative of the holiday ‘dump’ of meals in such great quantities that Styrofoam containers full of meatloaf would litter downtown parks. Blankets, too bulky for our unhoused friends to carry or store, left wet in the bushes. We appreciate the sentiment – generosity. The reality can be grotesque – abundance in such excess that it manifests as trash.
Now I serve at St. Martin in the Fields where we host the Suthers Center Food Pantry. Every Saturday morning we’re serving anywhere from five to seven hundred people with groceries meant to supply food for a week. We’re grateful to share with our neighbors from the abundance that exists because of many volunteers’ hard work coordinating with a number of food rescue organizations – Second Helpings, Bagel Rescue, Publix’s bakery, etc. – combined with fundraising and partnership with the Atlanta Community Food Bank.
I am grateful for the good work happening through our church and through so many Episcopal churches in our diocese addressing hunger and need. But, if I am honest, every time I am on campus for our Food Pantry on a Saturday morning, or loading up food as we do on a Thursday morning, I experience a bit of an existential crisis around abundance and scarcity, food excess, food quality, health, and food waste. I’m usually well fed by the time I arrive to serve. Our neighbors arrive humbly to receive because they are not.
What is our role in a broken food system?
In a world in which so many hunger while so many toss food as if it is rubbish, it is clear our system is broken. I pray, ‘Lord, have mercy.’ And then I ask, ‘What is my part in changing the system?’ That’s a prayer we might all pray, and a question we might all ask. And then we must remain alert to God’s answers to our prayers and attentive to the Holy Spirit presenting opportunities in response to our questions.
A few years ago, I was at a local bakery with my children purchasing a holiday treat for them. Just one moment after we sat down to enjoy our sprinkled cookies, I watched the cashier, eager to close up at the end of the day, move a trash bin behind the counter. One by one, she took the trays of sweets in the glass display case, and dumped the treats upside down into the trash. I tried to play it cool. Maybe those treats are way past due, I tried to convince myself.
But when she lifted the tray of sprinkled cookies that I had just purchased my children’s treats from, I couldn’t help myself. “Stop,” I pleaded. “Why this waste?” Much to my children’s dismay, there ensued a lengthy discussion about cookies good enough to buy not five minutes prior, and how much joy they might bring to people unable to purchase them. We talked about food waste and food rescue and the Suthers Center. I regret that we never secured a relationship with this bakery before it closed during the pandemic, but it’s made me ever attentive to the repurposing of ‘leftovers’ at every establishment I frequent.
This is an invitation to all. Let’s pay attention to our relationship to food. To scarcity and abundance. To excess and waste. To a broken food system that needs transforming, and to the Holy Spirit who might inspire us.
