Hungry Doesn’t Look Like This

Chris came in and sat down at one of the tables I was serving. He was young. Late 20s is what I guessed. Maybe early 30s. His clothes were neat and clean. He was clean-cut. He carried a small backpack. His demeanor was very polite and reserved. He could have easily been someone from my neighborhood.

He kept to himself for the most part. When he finished his meal, he got up and walked over to where I was standing. He asked a question about the availability of food to take with him. This was my first time there so I was not entirely sure what the process was for taking extra food so I pointed him in the direction of the kitchen. Seeing my name tag, he said “Thank you, Denise.” I reached out to touch his arm and asked his name. “Chris,” he said. I looked him in the eye and replied, “Chris, it has been a pleasure to meet you today.” Then Chris walked away.

This is not what hungry is supposed to look like.

In my comfortable and insulated suburban life, helped along by what I see on TV and on the interstate exit ramps, I admit I have developed a stereotype of what hungry and homeless looks like. People sleeping on the street. Unkempt. Smelly. Carrying everything they own with them. Honestly, most of the people who came to the soup kitchen for lunch that day fit that vision.

But not Chris.

Chris was everything opposite of what my preconceptions said he should be. I could not help but wonder how he ended up there at the soup kitchen in need of a hot meal.

As I watched him walk away, Jesus’ words bounced around in my heart.

“Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison…?” (Matthew 25:44)

When indeed.

Jesus does not tell us what hungry or thirsty looks like. He does not define a stranger. He does not put any limits on who might need clothes, what sick means, or what prison is.

I did that. I defined hungry. I thought I knew what it looked like. We define what hungry, thirsty, sick, stranger, naked, and prison looks so that we can somehow grasp who it is we are called to love and serve. We set up clothing drives, laundry ministries, mobile food ministries, visitation ministries, soup kitchens, fundraising for clean water, and weekend ministries to the incarcerated. We sign up and volunteer, or give a donation, and check off that box.

None of these efforts is wrong – or even misguided. Not at all. They definitely meet needs and serve others, accomplishing programs on a large scale. But Jesus doesn’t say to build big programs to address the obvious and call it done. This is an individual charge to have eyes open to see what God sees and act with compassion, one-to-one, just as much or more than it is to address large scale social concerns.

Hungry is not confined to soup kitchens. It might be happening down the street. Strangers are not just foreign refugees, they are among us in our church communities, lonely and left out in a sea of people. Naked might be the families in the mobile home park who lost everything in a storm. Sick might be the person dying with cancer or going through drug rehab.

So I wonder, if we pre-determine what “it” looks like, who are we not seeing that needs to be fed, or clothed? Who are we encountering today that doesn’t look like hungry, but is? Doesn’t look sick, but is. Doesn’t look imprisoned, but is?

Meeting Chris challenged me to abandon my preconceived ideas of hungry and to ask God to enlighten the eyes of my heart so that I might see with eyes like His. This can be a prayer we all make. Open our eyes, Lord, to see who you see, what you see, and how you see it. Please help me act on it out of my love for you.

To those who live with opened eyes, Jesus replies, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” (Matthew 25:40) These are words I long to hear.

Are they words you long to hear?