Last Wednesday, along with more than 200 others, we attended the 45th annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Eve Service at Infant Jesus of Prague Church in Flossmoor. There were songs and hymns, a medley of responses from a rabbi, a priest and a protestant minister. The magnificent Homewood-Flossmoor High School Viking Choir sang and numerous blessings by the various faiths were exchanged.
At one point, Father Frank Jura, of the host church, intoned the words from the Book of Micah. We are required, he said, to act justly and show mercy. Then he inserted a new phrase — “and to feed the hungry.”
Later in the program, Rabbi Ellen Dreyfus urged the audience to consider a Thanksgiving offering to Respond Now, a 48-year-old organization based in Chicago Heights that serves about 900 families each month with food, clothing, shelter and even help with overdue payments for housing and utility bills.
“To feed the hungry” was an unspoken echo that resounded throughout the church.
Earlier that day, last-minute shopping for last-minute items of food that we thought were needed for our table on Thanksgiving took precedence. We spent more than we planned. When ushers passed offering baskets from row to row, all I had was $1. It was dropped in the container.
Today we are snug and secure, but the statistics are appalling. The U.S. Department of Agriculture estimates that more than 42 million people in this rich, abundant country, or about 13 percent of the population, face hunger on a daily basis. At times, most of those in need must choose between getting food and getting medical care or shelter.
And the frightful truth is that many of us are one calamity away from joining the ranks of the hungry.
“And to feed the hungry.”
The next day, during Thanksgiving dinner at our house, our daughter-in-law Elizabeth started the conversation ball rolling with her traditional request that was always part of her childhood at the family’s Thanksgiving meal. The holiday literally means giving thanks, she said, and then she asked what each of us is thankful for this year.
We do this every year, but every year the request still seems new in my mind. The responses were typical. Good health, a better job, and a loving spouse were some of the replies. My turn came and I was about to joke how thankful I was that three people were vegetarians, which meant more turkey for the rest of us.
I did not. Instead, I thought of my dollar in the collection plate, of how that trifling donation meant so little to me, and of how much we spent this year on food to be eaten and to be left over on our table in our warm, secure house. I also thought of those who are forgotten; those with little to eat and few places to rest. I also thought of how, years ago, Rabbi Dreyfus talked about the “extra guest” we need to account for at Thanksgiving.
She spoke of the biblical injunction not to harvest the “corners of the field” but to leave them for the poor and the stranger.
Think about the money you paid for food and its preparation, she said. Recall the dollars spent on refreshments and add the cost of cooking and cleaning up on Thanksgiving. Figure out what it costs to feed each person at your table. Set a plate for one who is hungry. Stick a check in an envelope for what it would cost to feed that person and donate it to a food pantry, a family shelter, a support group or any institution that helps those in need.
We then tried to add the cost of what was on the crowded table. It had to include all the untouched and unopened things, too. The big container of cheese cubes never made it to the table. The bags of chips, appetizers and dips were still on the shelf. Those dozen dinner rolls that could be used to sop up the gravy on our plates were in an unopened bag in the freezer.
We ate well on Thanksgiving. Millions do not.
It was agreed that feeding that “extra guest” needed to be done. And so we were all thankful that this year we were able to do that.
But feeding the hungry cannot be a request. It is a command.
jerryshnay @gmail.com