What’s on the menu?

​My mother-in-law, Peggy, was a truly remarkable cook. After learning a Midwestern style meant to satisfy active farmers and factory workers (meat, potatoes, canned vegetables, lots of pie), she became an itinerant Navy wife with entertaining responsibilities in the white glove era.  Taking hostessing as an art form seriously, she searched cooking magazines and exchanged ideas with others.  Menus at the Munson house went from Jell-O salad (with grated carrots) to tomato aspic (with baby greens). 
 
What’s on the “menu” your church offers?  Meals you offer the community probably reflect area tastes and church members’ talents.  What about your church’s weekly worship feast? Most of us continue to serve our grandparents’ soul-satisfying, “traditional,” menus. Some have moved to offering “contemporary” (baby boomer tradition) or experimental worship feasts.  All of these can be yummy and filling.
 
But I had a problem at Peggy’s table.  It was my problem, not hers.  When proudly offered tomato aspic at family feasts, it triggered my gag reflex.  Every time. No matter how hard I tried to overcome the urge, it just would not go down. This is no judgement on tomato aspic.  It just didn't “work” for me. My family ties kept me trying tomato aspic at Peggy’s table until she took pity on me and offered alternatives. 
 
Most of our neighbors today lack family ties to keep them at a worship table whose menu, or scheduling, doesn’t consider their genuine needs. We wish they did.  But they don’t.  The Portland to Auburn, Maine corridor is currently the most unchurched regionof the United States of America, according to the Barna Group. And it doesn’t seem like telling people they ought to eat their carrots (because they’re good for them, or because mom says they must) will bring them to the table we set with Christ unless we do some careful hospitality planning. 
 
Scripture speaks often of hunger. These three verses could form a scripture “sandwich” of God’s promises to hungry people before, during, and after Jesus’ ministry on earth.  They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. [God] who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.-Isaiah 49:10 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
Matthew 5:6 ‘Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat down on them,’ nor any scorching heat.-Revelation 7:16
 
This is not an easy time for designing hospitality.  Even hosts of church suppers, fellowship times, and communion tables are now challenged by food allergies and other dietary needs. 
But as part of God’s movement of grace, bringing the world into God’s grace and God’s grace in to the world, we are part of God’s hunger management team. If we are genuinely willing to offer soul food to the hungry around us, or to help them learn to cook according to their own needs, the place to start is getting to know what will feed our neighbor’s souls. 
I invite you to ask one person outside church this week what their soul hunger feels like. And before you offer them what’s on the current menu at your church, be sure you’re really listening with open ears, mind, and heart. Maybe you don’t have the right menu option for them right now, and that might be hard to acknowledge.  But we can thank our conversation partners for trusting us with their stories and informing us about the hunger outside our doors. It turns out there’s more than one way to eat your vegetables. (I like stir fry!  Post your favorite in the comments).