A Different Way Of Being Church

In 1 Corinthians 12, the apostle Paul exhorts his readers to remember that we are all one body:

For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ…For the body does not consist of one member but of many…The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” On the contrary, the parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and on those parts of the body that we think less honorable we bestow the greater honor…that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.

In Acts 4, Luke describes how the early church handled needs among its members:

Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common. And with great power the apostles were giving their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

In Exodus 16, God provides for the people of Israel by giving them manna from heaven:

And when the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine, flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground. When the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, “What is it?” For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, “It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded: ‘Gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat. You shall each take an omer, according to the number of the persons that each of you has in his tent.’” And the people of Israel did so. They gathered, some more, some less. But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over, and whoever gathered little had no lack. Each of them gathered as much as he could eat.

In Mark 2, Jesus explains why he chooses to eat with sinners and social outcasts:

As Jesus reclined at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. And the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” And when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”

What would our church look like if we took those passages to heart? How might we use the Bible’s vision of a faith community as an invitation for our own religious gatherings? What would have to change at St. Paul’s to make that sort of vision a reality?

One of the most difficult—and frequently contested—aspects of our recent policy change regarding who is allowed to be in our buildings and on our property during the day is the decision not to offer free meals on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. We are a church that feeds hungry people. We are a church that seeks to share our table fellowship with anyone and everyone, regardless of their economic status or religious background. I bet most of the people at St. Paul’s would rather give up meals in the parish hall altogether than eat in a “members only” setting.

I, too, am frustrated by this policy change and all its implications. The new policy, which requires our guests who are not taking part in a service, program, or church-sanctioned meeting at St. Paul’s to leave the premises between 7:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m., is not designed to limit who can eat a meal at our church. It is designed to limit the number of people who are present in our buildings and on our grounds in a way that negatively impacts the programs we offer. And we have not figured out how to do that without suspending free meals on Sundays and Wednesdays.

Instead of asking the cashier to make a judgment call on which people look like they are here for a service, program, or meeting and which ones just want a free meal or a place to sit down, we have decided to ask everyone who wants a meal to pay for it. I suppose we could ask people whether they want to come to church or just want to eat and let their answer determine whether they are allowed to eat a meal, but I do not think it would be long before we were right back where we started—with too many people in the parish hall and in the welcome center and along our sidewalks for those of us who think of St. Paul’s as our church home to come and do the things they normally do in church—worship, pray, study, serve, interact, and eat.

Maybe that is the problem. Maybe the problem is not that we do not have enough resources—food, money, and space—but that we do not understand what church is supposed to look like. Maybe our mistake is expecting to show up and do church only with people who reinforce our sense of safety and community to the exclusion of those who make us feel uncomfortable and out of place. Maybe the problem is that we think we can draw a line between those who belong in church and those who don’t on the basis of their desire to participate in the programs we find valuable.

Let me describe the situation in another way. Every week, we do provide meals that are designed to feed hungry people, just not on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. Every Monday and Wednesday during lunchtime, we serve Community Meals to whoever wants to eat at St. Paul’s. We do not ask those guests to come to a church service or listen to a Bible study. We do not ask them to give back to the church or in any way participate in the life of the congregation. Anyone who wants to eat is welcome to eat. Any sense of congregational community that grows out of Community Meals is, in the words of Bob Ross, a happy accident. When it comes to its designed purpose, however, Community Meals is about providing nutrition, not about fostering community.

The meals we offer on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights, on the other hand, are not really about providing nutrition but about fostering community. We do not feed the congregation breakfast in between the services because we want you to have something good to eat. We want you to come to church and stay for the formation hour. Wednesday-night dinner is nutritious and delicious, but almost everyone who eats that meal would find something else to eat if the meal were not offered. We provide dinner as a way of encouraging you to come to the service and stay around for programs. If someone shows up and eats because they are hungry and otherwise would not get a good meal, that is a bonus—a good and valuable consequence of providing those meals that is not the real purpose behind them.

I want us to ask ourselves whether we have that wrong. What if Sunday-morning breakfast and Wednesday-night dinner are just as important as a way of feeding hungry people as Community Meals, and what if Community Meals is just as important as an opportunity for building up the body of Christ as the meals we offer the congregation? What if the congregation isn’t defined as the people who walk through our doors in order to worship, to sing in the choir, to participate in Bible study, and to help out in the kitchen but whoever walks through the doors for whatever reason? What if the community we are supposed to focus on cannot be separated on the basis of who will pay for a meal, who will sleep under a roof, who will take a shower, and who will go to work?

I think it is reasonable, logical, and rational for St. Paul’s to limit the number of people who occupy our buildings and grounds in order that the programs we have offered in the past can continue going forward. For example, when the parish hall is full of guests and their dogs, the children and parents who come to our Sunday-morning and Wednesday-night services in that space are not free to roam around. It is not safe. That casual and carefree approach to worship is a hallmark of our parish hall services, and to ask our guests to leave in order to maintain it makes sense. But is it right? Should we be willing to trade ten or twenty people who are experiencing homelessness for one or two families that are not?

That kind of calculus is real and reasonable, but I do not believe it is indicative of the reign of God. Instead, God’s reign is one in which all people dwell together, in which all people have enough, in which all people are honored, in which all people share their goods in common. Can we find a way to preserve what we know to be good about being and doing church and expand our understanding of who belongs and for whom the church exists?

For now, the policy remains in place. We want to continue to offer the overnight warming shelter, and adapting our other programs to accommodate the increase in the number of guests on the premises will take time. So, for now, we will continue to withhold free meals on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights—though we do share extra meals with whoever wants them by putting them in the Friendly Fridge—but I hope that, by the time we bring them back, we will have found a way to erase the distinction between who belongs at St. Paul’s and who is ministered to on behalf of St. Paul’s. Among the body of Christ, there can be no such distinction.

Yours faithfully,

Evan D. Garner