Washing Dishes for Jesus

While everyone has handled the pandemic differently, many of us have used some of the same coping mechanisms. I cleaned out closets, finally sorted the attic, regained about ten pounds I had worked hard to lose a year ago, and learned to Zoom. It was probably the same, low-grade depression everyone else in the world has been enduring. We were supposed to spend most of May in Scotland, Ireland, and England. Instead, I read mindless fiction, wandered around my patio watering the flowers in my planters, and ate too many Cheetos. With all the time in the world, the one thing I could not bring myself to do was write this blog. Several friends asked me about it. I always said there was no tripping and nothing fantastic about staying home during a pandemic. I can always manage to be awkward.

Then in mid-April, I volunteered with Project Connect. Actually, that is not true. My friend Sally volunteered and when I found out she was driving all over North Nashville by herself knocking on doors and delivering meals, I said I would go with her. We wore our masks, socially distanced (I sat in the back seat), liberally used our hand sanitizer, and delivered meals several days a week. Soon there were several of us who attend St. George’s Episcopal Church volunteering in teams of two. We even had our own stash of toilet paper and cleaning supplies that we kept in our cars so we could meet individuals’ needs without having to return to the ministry. I liked to think of it as a kind of reverse smuggling of illicit donation items. At the end of the second week, the volunteer coordinator asked if any of us was open to helping in the kitchen. I switched from delivery to kitchen duty and another friend became Sally’s wingman.

The kitchen, owned and operated by Just the Crumbs Ministry out of Mississippi, is a fully built out commercial kitchen in a trailer (like tractor-trailer). The meals are filling and nutritious if not gourmet. They feed between 450-500 people every Tuesday through Saturday partnering with Project Connect to meet the needs of the community that had been hit first by the tornado then immediately by the pandemic. I was so impressed to see what a very few people could do with the donations of individuals and organizations like Second Harvest. When someone donates five hundred pork patties, then lunch is pork and gravy over rice with green beans. I learned an amazing new way to make a huge peach cobbler with cheap cake mix, canned peaches, and a few eggs. I also have a new appreciation for parboiled rice.

Part of kitchen duty was serving up the meals. We pre-made about 250 lunches for delivery and stored them in insulated containers then switched to serving another 200-250 individuals who came by the ministry to pick up lunch. I loved when I started to recognize people who came by. I began to feel like part of a community I had not known before.

One particularly hot day we were serving lunch and an older black lady in a wonderful pink outfit stopped by to get lunch. We chatted for a minute and I admired her perfectly coordinated ensemble. Later that afternoon, she came back by. She had been to the grocery and she brought us bananas. If she had a car, I never saw it. She was walking. She walked back to bring us bananas to thank us for helping her community. I ate that banana right then and it was life-giving. From then on, I looked forward to seeing her. She became my neighbor when before she was a stranger.

While I enjoyed the interaction of delivering and serving the food, the thing I liked most was washing the dishes. When you are cooking for 500 people, you dirty a lot of pots and pans. I have never minded washing dishes. It is instant gratification. That said, I used muscles I didn’t know I had scrubbing gravy off of giant skillets. Give me grease and stuck-on rice any day. Gravy is the devil.

I joked that I was washing dishes for Jesus. But isn’t that what we are called to do? Serve God by serving our neighbor? I have always struggled with the story of Mary and Martha. I know Mary did the right thing by choosing to be with Jesus, but Martha got dinner on the table and cleaned it up afterward. Martha’s kind of worship resonates with me. I spent more time in worship and prayer standing at those sinks than I did any other time in the last four months. And, because it was just me, with my back to the rest of the kitchen, I didn’t even have to wear my mask.

Our world is still very unsettled. No one knows what tomorrow will bring. Serving with Just the Crumbs got me away from the Cheetos and self-absorption and into doing something for someone else. I began to feel like myself again. I am still reading too much mindless fiction and watching the news for the number of new cases every day. I am still obsessively wearing my mask and using my hand sanitizer. But it now feels like a new normal that we will weather. If you are discouraged and frightened by things that are completely out of your control, maybe go find some dishes to wash. It worked for me.