Dr. Kenneth E. Jones, Editor

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November 2004 Editorial

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Do We Still Care about Feeding the Hungry?

My doctor mentioned to me the other day that we all should really start cutting back on red meat, particularly given the prevalence of high blood pressure and high cholesterol in the black community. When he mentioned this to me, I thought about all of the red meat Frances and I had stored up in a deep freezer we purchased this summer. I wondered, after cutting back on red meat, what would we do with all of the food we had stored up and didn’t eat? I think my mind was subconsciously reflecting on my childhood days when mother cautioned us against leaving food on our plates after a meal.

“Eat all the food on your plate,” she would say” Children are starving in Africa.” And of course, we would go ahead and stuff the last piece of chicken, potato salad, ham or whatever into our mouths in deference to the starvation of children in some distant land. No doubt that “starvation in Africa” edit is one of the main reason so many African Americans today are suffering from heart disease, obesity, and stroke at alarming rates. We are eating like African children are not the only ones being starved.

But, the fact is there probably aren’t very many of our members in mainstream CME churches who are really truly starving. Don’t get me wrong. I ate many peanut butter sandwiches when I was in college. And I even remember when things got tough as a child there were a number of creative meals. Most of us who grew up in rural South never thought of ourselves as poor. God always seemed to have something on the table.

While our fathers and mothers derived creative means to feed us, their children, they were never selfish about sharing. When the apple and peach orchards were full, the whole community would bring baskets and sacks to pick fruit from the ground to can or freeze for the winter. If word came that a family was really in need, everybody would rally around them for support. It was a pride thing. Everyone recognized that the community was one. And when one family hurt, everyone else hurt along with them. We still have families, churches, and even communities like that today.

As I write this column, Thanksgiving is right upon us. The members of my church and I delivered food this week to families whose members were sick and lost their jobs. Those acts of kindness and concern are being duplicated all over the church-taking food to the hungry during the holidays. Many of our churches have strong feeding programs, ministries designed to meet very practical needs. But I raise the question, do we still care about feeding the hungry? My question is one that has implications more on the connectional level, with obvious implications for how feeding is manifested in communities around the world. I know that over the years, feeding indeed as been a very important aspect of the overall mission of the Church. The Women’s Missionary Society “Meals for Millions program and other signature efforts demonstrate that feeding is part of what our denomination does to mediate the suffering of others. Again, we don’t have to look far to see some major feeding efforts that bear the CME emblem. But as I consider efforts such as Bread for the World and similar organization whose agendas are about no other issue except t stamp out hunger in the world, I ask, can we as a denomination do more? And it isn’t always a matter of filling boxes of food for the needy. It is getting involved politically, such as supporting debt reduction to poor nations and helping stem the incidence of AIDS in countries already suffering from drought and poverty. It is in places where there are no supermarkets or schools. We need to talk more about the specific and practical ministries of the Church when we come together to discus the business of the Church when we come together to discuss the business of the church. There is more we can do to show our concern for others.

Are there children staving in Africa? The answer is yes. Are there children starving in America? Still in the affirmative. With government Food Stamps and WIC seemingly everywhere, do we have a false sense of security that there is no need to fee? Are we blinded by our own access to food? Jesus fed the five thousand with only a small bit of fish and bread? How much more can we do with our abundance?

Rev. Kenneth Elvis Jones, D. Min., PhD