1 Corinthians – A Puzzle I’m Trying to Solve
“I sometimes listen to politicians talk about the poor people, welfare and food stamps and notice no one ever talks about the enormous fear that comes with poverty and with the constant state of high anxiety. You feel as though there is a giant boulder gradually sliding down a mountainside towards you. Any disruption, any time day or night it could hurtle down and crush you.” – Sheila Moore
The first time I met the Pastor of Woodstock’s Christ Lutheran Church, she used a phrase I had never heard before: feeding the “unworthy hungry” as she lobbied against the new pantry guidelines set down by the Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program. I was mystified. What did this term mean? Where did it originate? I heard it again, off and on, at pantry meetings and occasionally in the hallway.
Because this term came from a Lutheran Minister, I did some research. I went to my computer and googled “unworthy hungry”. Up came a list of websites, all of which referred to the text in 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians, a book in the New Testament of the Bible, was written by Paul of Tarsus to followers in Corinth according to BibleStudyTools.com: “All believers are indispensable to the church.” The “unworthy hungry” I heard the Pastor refer to didn’t seem to match what I read at yearinthebible.com which spoke a lot about love: “Be on your guard, stand firm in the faith, be courageous, be strong. Do everything in love.” Mark Mattison in auburn.edu, concluded “The next time your church celebrates communion, take a look around the room and consider the brothers and sisters with whom you are communing…Drink deeply of the cup of forgiveness and thank God that Christ is coming soon to usher us in to the banquet hall where we shall celebrate with the saints in the body.”
Everything here I read was confusing because I didn’t read “unworthy hungry” in any of the quotes. What was the connection?
If what I read in 1 Corinthians was correct, the people who came to the pantry are not the “unworthy hungry”. They are, instead, coming to receive communion in the most basic sense. Instead of a sip of wine and a bit of communion wafer, they receive the food they need to sustain themselves in the coming week.
1 Corinthians seems, to me, to be more about how to conduct the sacrament not how to feed the poor.
This confirms my theory that pantries are, indeed, religious services, churches if you will. The pantry service offers neither theology nor creed nor rituals. The pantry service works through love. Feeding the hungry is a sacrament.
The “unworthy hungry” term relates to the way people abused the Lord’s Supper. I never saw anybody in the line at the Good Neighbor Food Pantry abusing anything except maybe their feet as they stood for extended periods of time. These people were, for the most part, respectful, grateful, hopeful. They were trying to make their way through life with insufficient money, food, healthcare, transportation, education, spiritual support.
“Thurman, how can you serve food to her? Her son works and she has a car. She shouldn’t get food.”
“Thurman, that woman lives in Kingston. You gave food to a family from Shandaken last week. Our pantry should be for Woodstockers only.”
“Thurman, that person’s car is too nice. How can you give food to a person with a car like that?”
“Thurman, the cardboard boxes from the Food Bank create an eyesore when the church people are entering and leaving the building on pantry day. Please keep the cardboard out of sight.”
“Thurman, you are serving entirely too much food to these people. You can’t do this.”
“Thurman, why are you serving fresh fruits and vegetables in the pantry? You shouldn’t do this.”
“Thurman, you’ve begun to open the pantry in the afternoons. Our pantry should not be open in the afternoons.”
“Thurman, you’re serving entirely too many people.”
“Thurman, you’re serving all the wrong people here.”
“Thurman, you’re filling this building with vagrants and riffraff. You need to keep the riffraff out.”
“Thurman, you don’t serve this kind of food to these people. They’re going out of here with $70-80 worth of fresh produce. This is wrong. I’m going to tell Pastor Sonja, Ed Jabbs, and Pastor Bode about this. I’m very close to Pastor Sonja and she’s not going to be happy. You’re feeding the unworthy hungry.”
“Thurman, why is the pantry open two days each week?”
“Thurman, you shouldn’t feed this food to these people. If they’re hungry enough, they’ll eat anything.
The term “unworthy hungry” was a popular phrase used as the amount and quality of food was discussed. The HPNAP guideline that the pantry serve a three-day-supply of food to include fresh produce, whole grain breads, and 1% milk was extremely unpopular to some people.
The subtext of this dialogue was that if the pantry didn’t give them the right kind of food or enough food, they would leave town…go to Kingston.
In order to understand the situation, a person needs to look at the whole picture.
Pantries are our tax dollars at work.
A popular refrain was that no one who lived outside of Woodstock should receive food from the pantry. Kingston had many pantries, soup kitchens, shelters. Saugerties had four pantries. Woodstock had two pantries. Bearsville had a pantry, Phoenicia had a pantry. Olivebridge had a pantry. Then there was a long dry spell until Margaretville. There were many poor and hungry people living along the Route 28 corridor from Woodstock to Margaretville. Where were these people to go for food?
They hitch hiked in. They rode the bus. They piled in cars. They came to the pantry in any and all kinds of weather.
They were hungry.
The struggle to get food to where it’s needed is never ending. The needs of the hungry were great. All we did, as a pantry, was open the door and let the hundreds of hungry people walk in…in groups of five.
But, that was only part of the story. At the lowest rung of the poverty ladder, it’s not what pantry the household is nearest. It’s where they can get to. If a person lives in Saugerties, for example, and the nearest pantry is open on Monday, it will be of no use to the person who can’t get to the pantry on Monday. However, if the pantry in Woodstock is open on Wednesday and the person can get a ride on Wednesday to the pantry, then that’s the pantry which will be used.
Pantry deniers concerned with feeding the “unworthy hungry” need to consider the source of both the food and the money. The Good Neighbor Food Pantry, a tax exempt 501(c)3 corporation, received funding from many sources outside Woodstock. The majority of the food came from Food Banks located in Latham and Cornwall.
Sponsors are very important to a pantry. Good Neighbor Food Pantry sponsors came from many locations. The Boy Scout Food Drive originated in Kingston at the Boy Scout Headquarters. The food itself came each year from a troop in Glenford. The annual United States Postal Service Food Drive included food from all over Ulster County. Shoprite in Kingston donated money annually. Wakefern Corporation donated funds annually to our pantry from their office in New Jersey. Walmart and Sam’s Club stores in Kingston and Catskill donated money. Hannaford’s in Kingston donated food boxes in December. One Saugerties family donated over $3000 annually. Markertek in Saugerties donated funds to the pantry. The ancient Order of Hibernians in Kingston donated money.
The list of individual donors located outside Woodstock is pages long. People throughout the country feel a connection to Woodstock and want to share.
Ethically, in order for the Good Neighbor Food Pantry to refuse to serve households outside of Woodstock, the pantry would also have to refuse donations from businesses, foundations, and individuals outside Woodstock. The pantry would have to stop getting food from the Food Banks.
Funding the pantry received from out-of-the-area donors far outweighed the shoppers who lived beyond the 12498 zip code.
I felt compelled to refer to Jesus. When Jesus fed people, he never asked who they were, where they lived, why they needed food. He simply fed the people. He made no mention of requiring people to show proper ID or live in a particular zip code. Additionally, He never preoccupied Himself with their character. He cared not whether they were ill, wealthy, thieves, criminals, etc. If they were hungry, they were fed.
In any event, both the argument I heard about feeding the “unworthy hungry” and my rebuttal never really amounted to more than so much hot air and anger being spread around the room.
The State of New York, through the management policies and guidelines of the Hunger Prevention Nutrition Assistance Program (HPNAP) determines who gets fed and who doesn’t get fed in a pantry. They are crystal clear. In 2012, a directive entitled “Open to the Public” was handed down to agencies. The “Open to the Public” feeding program policy includes all populations without regard to gender, race, color, ethnicity, age, nationality, citizenship, marital status, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, income, disability, or health status. We do not exclude any population group from receiving services upon first request or repeat visits to our pantry.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – Sue, Mary, and the Seniors Apartment Complex
Sue was a slender, older woman with long gray hair which she wore in an attractive up-do. Sue was a Wednesday afternoon regular. She lived in the Shady area about two miles off 212 on a side road.
So, every Wednesday she walked the two miles to 212 and then hitch hiked the remainder of the way into Woodstock. She left her home in the morning on Wednesdays to get to the pantry on time.
Her shopping selections were always careful because she could only carry so much going home. This translated to small, light weight items: protein bars, one or 2 canned items, packaged dates, Ramen soup, dried milk, pasta.
Then, as dark approached in the winter, she would take her few packages and head back home – hoping, praying for a ride.
There was a seniors’ apartment complex in the forest off Route 28 which we visited weekly. It was a beautiful facility but, boy…what a location. These people, all nineteen households of them, were really isolated from a community. There was no sidewalk to anywhere. And, not everyone had a car (or could even drive anymore, for that matter.) There was a post office about a mile down the road on Route 213. There was also a small Methodist Church near the post office. Boiceville, the nearest town sported an IGA and a pharmacy. These two stores were several miles from the apartments, clear on the other side of the reservoir.
We drove out to the apartments every Thursday afternoon after the pantry closed with fresh produce, canned goods, and some kind of something that we could label “special treat” (although, many times that label was a real stretch.)
I received a call one December 26th from a resident. Judith, one of the residents realized late on the 24th that Mary, her neighbor who no longer drives, was completely out of food. So, Mary went around to her neighbors and also dug in her cabinets for food. She put together a food package for Mary composed entirely of canned and boxed goods which had been brought to the complex and distributed in the weeks before Christmas.
“Thurman, I’m calling to thank you and your team for coming every week to bring food to us out here. It was such a relief to be able to get food together on Christmas Eve to give to Mary. Imagine being out of food at Christmas! Your trips out here mean so much to us. Our nutrition has improved so much in this last year..”
This story on the surface, has a profound meaning. But, the spiritual aspect goes even deeper when we realize that the lady calling me is wheel chair bound. Getting that food for Mary was a real challenge for her, I feel.
And, actually, Mary’s story is not unusual. As people age, they sometimes have difficulty carrying on daily life tasks that younger people take for granted. And, the older person is afraid to reveal the problems to others because s/he is afraid that a move to a nursing home is eminent.
So, the person suffers in silence.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
Food Pantry Blog – Peggy’s Take Outs – Guy, Rich, Jamie, Prasida, Father Nicholas, the Anderson Crew
Peggy organized delivery teams. Guy Oddo delivered food to four clients. Rich and Jamie Allen had a delivery. Prasida Kay had three deliveries. Laura Rose had two deliveries. Father Nicholas had three deliveries. The Anderson Crew had six deliveries.
Andrea from the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley came out one day and spent over two hours conferring with Peggy and answering all her questions.
Peggy had special food sources for her take out clients. Anyone who donated food to the pantry was donating to Peggy’s Take Outs. (So many people were using the pantry that only case lots were used in the pantry room itself.)
Peggy had absolutely no problem calling up a church and asking for food.
“Hello, this is Peggy Johnson. Can I talk with your pantry representative?”
“Hello, this is Peggy Johnson. We’re really short of toilet paper for our shoppers this month. Can your congregation get some toilet paper for our take outs?”
“Hello, this is Peggy Johnson. It’s your congregation’s month at the food pantry. Can you organize an Items of Dignity drive for the pantry? We really need toilet paper, tooth paste, and razors.”
Nothing stopped Peggy.
Not rain
Not sleet
Not snow
Not 100 degree afternoons
Not power outages.
On a couple of occasions when there wasn’t light in the storeroom, Peggy used a spelunker’s flashlight hooked to her head.
Every Tuesday morning, promptly at 9:01 a.m., Peggy walked into the Woodstock Reformed Church hallway and set up long tables along the wall on which would be placed donated food from the Hurley Ridge Market.
By 9:15 a.m., Barry Greco brought the food from Hurley Ridge Market over. There were usually six to ten boxes in his Jeep: fresh vegetables, fruit, bread, and baked goods.
Peggy, Jamie, Prasida, Laura, Amy, Marvalene, and Leticia went to work immediately, working as fast and furiously as possible. By 11:00, every bit of this food would be sorted in bags for delivery to homebound households. The bags had to all be packed and loaded in cars by 11:30 for delivery because the fresh produce had to be removed from the building by noon.
Hallway tables were total chaos on Tuesday mornings. The Take Out team was stationed in front of the tables packing bags with produce, bread, while the Anderson Crew, along with other volunteers, were moving up and down the halls with carts filled with cases of canned beans, cooking oil, mayonnaise, canned fruits, canned vegetables, crackers, cereal, pasta, etc. Leticia worked quickly to get as much food into the pantry room as possible before the Anderson Team arrived but there was always food which still needed to be brought out by the team.
“Look out behind you Prasida!”
“Hey Jamie, here comes a cart!”
“Where are the oranges? My client loves oranges. I know I saw some earlier!”
Empty cardboard boxes piled up. It took several volunteers working together to break them down. Tony Cannistra, Marcos and Jonah from Anderson, Richard Allen, Guy Oddo, Dr. Tom Dallow, and everyone else we could get to do it, broke down boxes and then, finally loaded them into Vanessa.
The fact that there was never an accident with all the commotion in the hallway on Tuesday mornings proves there are guardian angels and they don’t sleep on the job.
By 1:00, we all changed hats. The pantry shelf stockers in the morning became the afternoon take out crew and packed next Tuesday’s bags with cans and boxes.
Peggy supervised every item that went into these bags. It was no easy task.
It didn’t matter to this crew.
This was a very cohesive, dedicated team of people who realized that if the food didn’t go out the recipients wouldn’t eat.
The food went out.
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Peace and food for all.
Thurman Greco
