Bread for the Journey: Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD
Bread for the Journey
Not long ago, a friend told me, “Well, hunger isn’t really a problem in our churches.” I wish that were true. Yet I have stood at the back door of a parish hall and watched a mother quietly slip an extra sandwich into her child’s coat pocket. I have seen an older man, proud and weathered, come to a church pantry long after the crowd was gone so no one would see him. Do not believe it isn’t happening. It is — in our pews, in our neighborhoods, and yes, within the Church itself.
Across the country, families are discovering that their SNAP benefits — the government program that helps people put food on the table — have been cut or delayed. For some, that means empty cupboards by the third week of the month. It means a choice between groceries and medication, between milk and rent. This is not an abstraction. It is happening now, and the Church cannot stand aside.
Christian faith begins and ends around a table — bread broken, wine poured, grace made visible. The Gospels remind us again and again that Jesus fed people before He preached to them. He understood that the spirit listens best when the stomach is full. Our calling, then, is not merely to talk about compassion but to practice it with our hands.
Start where you are. If your congregation has a food pantry, stock it. If it doesn’t, start one. Partner with local grocers and food banks. Collect grocery store gift cards and give them with no strings attached. Offer what you can, but do it with dignity. When someone comes for help, they should not be made to feel small. Feeding the hungry is not charity; it is community.
In some parishes, the answer might be a shared meal once a week — a table where the well-fed and the hungry sit together. In others, it might be a “little free pantry” outside the church door. The form matters less than the spirit. What matters is that the doors remain open and the bread is shared.
Scripture tells us that the first believers “had all things in common.” When one suffered, all suffered; when one rejoiced, all rejoiced. That is what it means to be the Body of Christ. When benefits are cut, the Church must be the needle and thread that mends the fabric of our common life.
We are also called to speak. Feeding the hungry addresses the symptom; advocacy addresses the cause. Write your representatives. Support organizations that defend food security. Remind our leaders that the measure of a society is how it treats the least of its members. Advocacy is not partisan; it is prophetic. Isaiah’s question should still ring in our ears: “Is not this the fast that I choose… to share your bread with the hungry?”
The Eucharist teaches us that there is always enough when it is shared. The bread of the altar is not a private possession but a public invitation. If we believe what we pray, then every table — from the kitchen counter to the church hall — becomes an altar of grace.
So let us live as if we believe it. Let us be a people who notice, who listen, who act. The Church has always found its strength not in wealth or numbers but in faith expressed through love. In an age of shrinking safety nets and growing indifference, perhaps the most radical act of faith is to keep setting the table — again and again — until all are fed.
That is what it means to be bread for the journey.
Duane W.H. Arnold, PhD
Well said, my friend.
As one of those affected by this, I also know many other elderly folks and single moms who will struggle this month.
Duane, I appreciate all your writing. They’re a continuous source of strength and challenge to me. And they always point to God, our all- sufficient One.
In my little town, the churches give a free meal once a.month. Now going forward it will be weekly. I. knos this isn’t a long term solution.
But we can each do what we can…
Michael
42 million or one in eight Americans receive SNAP benefits. They are not hidden from sight, they are all around us…
“But we can each do what we can…”
Yes…
bob 1
That’s kind of you to say — thank you.
What you describe in your town is precisely where hope begins: not in grand strategies or even government reforms (though needed), but in a community choosing, week by week, to feed its neighbors. You’re right, it may not be a long-term solution, but it is a profoundly Christian one. It says, “We see you. You matter. You are not forgotten.”
My wife, and a good friend of hers, have birthdays near to the same day. They have a long-standing tradition of going out for lunch together. This year they’re going to do something different. The money that they would’ve spent on lunch and gifts for each other is going to be used to buy food for a local food bank… we’re now talking about doing the same for Thanksgiving…
So many of those who will not eat because of the suspension of SNAP are children. They make up about 40% of the total beneficiaries. Children.
The SCOTUS has just issued a temporary administrative stay on a lower court’s order that Trump should use emergency funds to fully pay SNAP benefits. For decades I’ve heard conservative Christians say that the government shouldn’t be the source of help for those in need, that feeding the hungry and housing the poor is not the business of overreaching government, and is a form of socialism/communism. The same people have said that the work of providing for those in need should be done voluntarily by private charity, not by legislated government redistribution of resources, and that this is especially the work of the church. Well, church, here is yet another chance to prove that you are up to doing the job hitherto done by secular government, or that you even have the will to do it: feed those children that will go hungry as the result of extended suspension of SNAP benefits. Prove that millions of hungry children can depend on the voluntarily offered brotherly love of the church rather than the power of the state to rescue them from malnutrition and starvation. Raise the resources and organize the distribution necessary to the task, and prove once and for all that the state is not necessary for feeding hungry children whose parents cannot feed them, and who cannot feed themselves.
Robert F
You’ve spoken the hard truth. For generations, many in the Church have insisted that caring for the poor should be our work, not the government’s. Well, now the moment has arrived — and it will reveal whether that conviction was faith or rhetoric. If we truly believe that Christ calls us to feed the hungry, then this is the hour to act. The need is immediate, and the watching world will see whether our love is stronger than our politics.
@ Robert F,
I wouldn’t wanna’ be in their shoes (MAGA) on judgement day for all the coffee in Kona.
Only evil men would keep food from the mouths of hungry children.
Muff
“Only evil men would keep food from the mouths of hungry children.”
… Or arrest their teachers in front of them, or separate them from their parents, or leave them homeless…
Duane at 11:33 am,
Did you ever think that this would happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave?
I would not count on the vast majority of churches (especially Evangelical ones) to help poor and needy people as this link points out:
https://julieroys.com/tiktok-experiment-most-churches-give-milk-starving-baby-probably-not/
You would have better luck with a Buddhist temple or a Mosque.
Granted the experiment is not scientific and the sample size is small, but it does illustrate the point.
That’s a fair point — the video experiment does highlight something painful and important. Too many churches, especially in the U.S., seem to have lost their instinct for immediate compassion. When someone says, “My baby is hungry,” the right response isn’t a policy or a phone menu, it’s, “Come here, we’ll help.” The fact that several Buddhist temples and mosques responded more quickly ought to make us stop and think.
Still, I’d be careful about drawing too broad a conclusion. The experiment wasn’t scientific — just one person calling a handful of places — and it doesn’t capture the thousands of churches quietly paying rent, stocking food pantries, or running shelters every day. Those stories rarely go viral.
What it does reveal, though, is a serious gap between what many churches say they believe and how they actually respond. That gap calls for repentance, not defensiveness. If even one church turned away someone desperate for milk, that’s one too many. The Church should be the first place anyone thinks to call in a crisis — not the last.
So yes, the critique lands. But instead of writing off the Church entirely, maybe this is the moment to ask: how can we make sure the next phone call gets a very different answer?
Duane,
Excellent feedback. I know there are thousands of churches quietly helping people in need, and this experiment does more in illustrating the gap as you said. That gap has always existed, just that it is much harder to cover up in the era of social media, instant communication, commentary, and feedback. Perhaps the worst response in that article was the pastor that suggested this TikTok person was under the influence of the devil and called her a witch in his Sunday sermon.
Many years ago I used to attend a CC in Georgia for a short while and would regularly give to their food pantry which consisted of dry and canned goods. I would always donate the soups and items that I would eat (I would try to get them the healthier items like lower-salt soups, etc.). It was run by an sweet dear older lady. Later on, I found out that one had to be an attendee of the church to get those goods, which was one (among many others) I walked away from them. I think they shut down the food panty later on, after I had left.