It’s a classic Christmas movie scene—the greedy kid rushes through the store, pointing at toy after toy and demanding all of it. All of a sudden, he passes a tired mom with a toddler, bending to put back a can of soup. The toddler wriggles in her arms, and she drops the can, and the well-meaning kid picks it up and puts it in her cart. A shadow crosses the woman’s face as she says, “Thanks, but we can’t afford it.”
This plot-pushing movie scene may be fiction to us, but for thousands of families this year, it’s reality. Around 42 million Americans depend on some form of food assistance, with food insecurity rising significantly in recent years due to both changes in government and economic factors. In our own Tennessee/Georgia community, 1 in 6 households don’t know where their next meal will come from.
Food pantries have become critical in the past months; as need skyrockets, they have been pushed to the brink of their capabilities with not nearly enough funding and manpower to feed all the mouths. In spite of this, they have managed—the Chattanooga Food Bank provided 16.9 million meals in the past year.
A recent survey found that 90% of food pantries increased the number of families they fed over the past year, and around 80% struggled to pull in enough food to feed everyone. Hunger Free America says that lower-middle income and even some upper-middle households reported difficulty affording food.
Luke 3:11b says that, “Anyone who has two shirts should share with one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.” We have been given countless examples to follow in faithful generosity—the poor widow’s offering, Scrooge buying an orphan boy a Christmas turkey, and even the award-winning (and phenomenal) 2017 “Little Women”’s touching scene of the March sisters giving up their Christmas breakfast to feed a starving family.
So take five minutes today and Google a food bank near you or your church—chances are, a place to support your community is closer than you think. A can of soup or a ten-dollar donation makes a much bigger difference than you’d think. As we approach the holidays, with Christmas consumerism dialed up to 11 and serving others pushed to the background, let us remember Christ’s example of sacrificial love:
“If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” –1 John 3:17