When we serve food to the poor but don’t eat with them, we miss the point. 

Too often, we see our acts of charity as a task to be accomplished rather than an opportunity to open ourselves to others.  Scripture calls us to love the poor, the outcast, and the forgotten.  However, the love spoken of is not a love filled with acts of charity void of true hospitality.  Rather, they are acts of love filled with shared life, acted through shared bread.   To give food without fellowship is to short-change God’s desire and the act of pure love.

Consider Jesus, the Son of God, who touched lepers, cared for prostitutes and shared his life with others who were ostracized by society.  Jesus was a friend of sinners and in the context of His day, this title was seen with negative connotations and accusations.  God calls us to care for the least of these as we would care for Jesus himself (Matthew 25).  We are not called to care and love as a task of interruption to be reluctantly accomplished but as a growing lifestyle of open hospitality and enacted love.

We are called to be a generous people, caring for the poor and outcast.  We are called to scandalously love all with open arms and big hearts.  These acts of shared life are not simply acts we do but acts bursting forth from who we are.  We are called to be people who are friends of sinners, friends of the poor, and friends of the forgotten in such a way that we share life with them.  In fact, Scripture (Matthew 25) calls us to treat the “least of these” as we would Jesus himself; this reality implies that we would show true hospitality and shared life rather than simply the isolated offer of food or clothing.

Too often our acts of charity can become twisted acts of power.   Charity is important but if it solely serves to remind us of what we have to be grateful for or to relieve the guilt of what we have, it seductively serves to gather power rather than relinquish it.  True acts of love relinquish power and accept others in need as our equals.  We love because God first loved us (1 John 4:19).  Our love should resemble a humble relinquishing of power through generous charity, wrapped in shared hospitality.

When we serve food to the poor and don’t eat with them, we miss the point.  Let’s generously help others in need, but let’s do so with shared life in the way Jesus did and commanded us to follow.