Soul Food

I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you.
-John 13:15

"Thank you, ma'am," he said, accepting the bologna sandwich I was offering.

"You're welcome." I looked into his eyes, red-rimmed and rheumy. Even at arm's length I could smell his body odor-the result of weeks, or maybe months, of not washing. "God bless you," I said.

The words disappeared in the warm summer air as fast as the man vanished into the crowd of those who'd already received their sandwiches and were queuing back up for seconds.

Another man, cleaner than the first, took his place. As I handed this one a sandwich, the mild Santa Ana wind blew dust from the dirty parking lot all over my new Bass loafers. I frowned and took stock of my grungy surroundings-the corner of Fifth and Wall in the heart of Los Angeles's skid row-the place where the "down-and-outers" of society lived. These were the people who slept in refrigerator boxes-the ones who protected themselves with the kind of knives the man shuffling in front of me was wearing shoved into his belt.

I sucked in my breath at the sight of the weapon, and the question that had been playing in the back of my mind came bubbling to the surface. What's a nice Jewish girl like you doing in a place like this?

I had been raised in a Jewish home. My mother lit the Shabbat candles every Friday night, ushering in the Sabbath. At Passover, my two sisters and I helped her remove all the food products in the house that contained yeast, readying the cabinets for the unleavened Passover food. At Chanukah we spun the dreidel and ate latkes-crispy potato pancakes-piled high with sweet applesauce. Mom taught us the importance of charity, one of the tenets of Judaism, and we gave some of our allowances to the poor.

But though our family was Jewish, we did not live in a vacuum. We saw Christian movies like The Robe and Ben Hur and watched children's TV shows with a Christian message.

My best friend, Rita, was a gentile-pure Irish Catholic. We went everywhere together; I even walked with her to church on Saturday mornings. When Rita stepped into the little black booth to make her confession, I waited, sitting in the church pew, looking up at the face of Jesus.

There was something about Jesus' face that I liked. But I had been taught that he was the gentile's God. Jewish though he was, Jews did not believe he was the Messiah.

Around the age of 14, I began to grow restless in my faith. To me, Judaism was more social than spiritual, and I felt no personal connection to God. A hunger for that connection began to form in my heart.

So I searched for God in various disciplines of the New Age movement, studying meditation, yoga, past life regression and reincarnation, but nothing satisfied the emptiness inside me.

In the early '80s my search was temporarily diverted, as the plight of the homeless began making headlines. Each time I saw a program about the hapless state of these street people, I was driven to tears.

One day, after months of crying, I asked myself, Bev, what are you doing to help?

The drive to do something was so strong I contacted a pastor acquaintance who worked with the homeless. He encouraged me to join a food ministry he knew about which made and distributed sandwiches to the poor. I could do that, I thought.

But just as quickly another thought came. "They're not all born-again Christians, are they?" I asked. I had negative notions about Christians-especially the "born again" types. I didn't want any uptight Jesus Freaks buttonholing me, shoving a Bible in my face. I was a Jew. I wasn't interested in trading in my pastrami-on-rye for a ham-on-white! It was one thing to investigate other religions, but quite another to convert, turning your back on Judaism and your people.
Still, that Saturday night found me at the house of a Christian in the San Fernando Valley. He ushered me back to where loaves of bread sat atop long tables and showed me how to make the standard-issue sandwiches.

One by one, other people arrived and took their places beside me. I had expected little old church ladies and pompous men in suits and ties, but most of them were kids just past their teens. It's Saturday night, I thought. Why aren't these young people out partying?

But although it was ministry, it was like a party-everyone laughing, smiling, joking around.
These were average, everyday kids, and yet there was something different about them. They seemed to genuinely care for one another-and for me, a stranger.

Week after week I made sandwiches, never having the nerve to venture into the streets to give them to the homeless. Nobody tried to convert me. But each week as we met to slap together the meat and bread, I had questions.
They encouraged me to study both the Old and New Testaments-especially books like Isaiah and the Psalms that foretold of the coming Jewish Messiah.

Everything I read seemed to point to Jesus. But while Jesus claimed that he was God, Jews believed he was only a great teacher. That seemed to make more sense to me. After all, how could God be a man?
I remained unconvinced until the day the kids talked me into riding down in the van with them to the street to pass out the sandwiches we'd made the night before.

Skid Row was worse than I had expected. In an empty parking lot in the seediest part of town, I saw 150 people, mostly men with tattered clothes and filthy hair, lined up, waiting to be fed.

A man with rotten teeth came close and talked to me. I felt my stomach heave at the smell of his breath. Before I had a chance to escape back to the van, Robert, one of the leaders of our group, thrust a large paper bag overflowing with sandwiches into my arms. "Hand these out, will you, Bev?" Seeing the stricken look on my face, he laughed, adding, "...and tell them God loves them!"

"Okay," was all I could say.

When all the sandwiches were gone, the ministry broke into small groups of twos and threes, gently approaching the homeless men and women standing and eating. I stood back and watched.

"Is there something you'd like prayer for today?" I heard Shelly, one of our group members, ask a bedraggled mother holding tightly to her lean little boy. The woman nodded.

Shelly reached out and took the woman's rough hands in her own. The moment she did, the woman burst into tears. Shelly moved closer and cradled the woman in her arms. Then she closed her eyes, and together they prayed.

For an hour I watched as this scene was repeated-this comforting of men and women who were dirty and smelly, possibly even riddled with lice. Big men, some of them with weapons, openly wept on the shoulders of these caring Christians.
Suddenly the movie Ben Hur and the Bible account it depicted swam into my mind. I remembered how Jesus touched and healed the lepers, the outcasts of society, despite their cries of "Unclean! Unclean!"

There on that hot Los Angeles street, these new friends of mine were being Jesus to the lepers of their day. And suddenly, I knew who God was. He was flesh and blood before me, living out his purpose in those who called him Lord. Their hands were his hands. Their arms were his arms.

Another mild gust of Santa Ana wind hit my face. I looked down at my dusty loafers. What's a nice Jewish girl like you doing in a place like this? I asked myself again. Now I had my answer.

I could deny him no longer. My heart reached out for him and a warmth spread through me like an embrace. There I was, one Jew, held in the spiritual arms of another.

I walked forward to a man who was standing alone, his back toward me. I hesitated, then touched the frayed yellow vest that covered his paper-thin shirt. He turned, and as I looked up into his face I saw the heartache in his eyes. "Would you like some prayer?" I asked, touching his shoulder. His leathery skin reflected the sun. It was a good face, a beautiful face.
It was the face of God.

Beverly Spooner

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