I came into the church this morning carrying a hot cup of coffee that burned my hands in a red gas-station cup. As I grabbed my key to the door with my other hand, I met a man struggling with homelessness who needed food on the front stoop. I greeted him, unlocked the front door, and set my coffee down on the quiet heat register because of the 92-degree weather and let him in.
The smell of bananas greeted us from a cart in the foyer, along with donuts, garden tomatoes, and remnants from last night's Wednesday meal. After we got some food, a volunteer arrived, ready to help put it together. Two more volunteers were already on their way with another load. While we waited, three more people came needing groceries. So we talked in the foyer. We filled bags. We handed out bananas and tomatoes. Then the other volunteers arrived, and we started unloading a few hundred pounds of food they had transported in their own vehicles.
One of the women who had received groceries just moments earlier came back to the door. She had three tiny little Jesus figures. She handed them to us and said thank you again. Then, we went downstairs. Unloading. Organizing. Counting. Sweating. Laughing.
Through the conversation, occasionally shouting short, terse instructions that might sound rude to an outsider but are effective in organizing food rang out from our Baptist basement kitchen. We talked about someone's surgery and how it went. We talked about neighbors. We talked about how grateful we were for all the food that had arrived. And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I forgot about my coffee. By the time we were finished, I remembered that red gas-station cup sitting where I had left it. Now cold.
I thought about everything that had happened while it was getting cold. People came hungry and left carrying food. Volunteers came carrying food and left having shared their lives. Neighbors talked. People laughed. Someone brought us tiny Jesus’.
And for a little while, in a hot Baptist basement on the west side of Indianapolis, we belonged to one another.
So this morning, all I can really say is…Thank God for cold coffee.
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