When the turkey didn’t show up

While in seminary, I worked at the downtown homeless shelter called Faith Mission. Faith Mission was for the “least of these,” a hole in the wall place for people with late stage alcoholism, drug addiction, and mental illness who had no home.

When I say hole in the wall, I should say hole in the ceiling, because the office was on the second floor, and you could see right up into the office through the hole about two feet by two feet.

Worse, the sewer pipes were exposed and there was a leak in the pipe, so we were told not to use the upstairs bathrooms, otherwise raw sewage would drip down the side of the sanctuary wall.

In an attached building, these individuals with no other place to stay slept on bunk beds, unless they were too inebriated, in which case we called the city police who would come by and take them to the “drunk tank” to dry out for a couple of days.

When the bunk beds filled up, the men slept on the pews in the sanctuary. The sewage never seemed to bother anyone, as long as no one used the upstairs bathrooms at night it was fine.

I happened to be working on Thanksgiving one year; that evening it was very cold with temperatures in the teens, and the shelter filled up fast.

Soon the pews filled up too, and men lined the walls to sleep sitting up. But first, we had to feed this group.

The way it worked at Faith Mission was that area churches signed up to bring in meals, and they would bring all the food and a crew to cook, serve, and clean up.

This particular Thanksgiving, the church who had signed up forgot all about it. This was a fairly common occurrence, but unfortunate on Thanksgiving. We were anticipating a turkey dinner, but the skeleton work crew consisting of me and another seminarian ended up scrambling to come up with something to feed the fellas.

We had a pantry stocked with elbow macaroni and pasta sauce, and usually ground beef in the freezer, so one of us could throw together a meal of goulash, (which they called Johnny Marzetti), in about a half hour while the other seminarian did a short worship service.

My friend and classmate Dave, with whom I still correspond weekly, decided I would cook and he would run the service.

Dave ran out to the sanctuary and gave his usual speech, standing with his arms outstretched and talking in his deep booming bass voice: “We are going to have a short Christian worship service. You are welcome to stay and worship no matter what religion you are. If you are atheist, agnostic, if you are Muslim, Hindu, if you are a Zoroastrian dualist, you are a Sikh or Celtic polytheist, if you are a Roman neopagan or Slavic neopagan, or Wiccan or Hellenist or Confucist or Taoist, or Jainist or Buddhist, you may go into the basement while the service is going on. The meal will be served following the service.”

As you can see, Dave is a real character, and he was trying to buy me some time.

Meanwhile I ran to the pantry and threw open the closet doors to see there were plenty of boxes of elbow macaroni, but very little pasta sauce, and few cans of tomato soup and chicken noodle soup.

There was about three pounds of ground beef in the freezer, to feed about 55 homeless men and a few women and children.

I cranked the gas flame as high as it would go and threw in the frozen ground beef, and in a separate pot a few gallons of water.

It took forever to cook and boil, and Dave was winding up his service by calling down into the basement: “If you are an atheist, an agnostic, a Zoroastrian dualist, if you are Scientologist or a Moonie or a Jainist, whatever you are, if you want to come up now, the Christian service is finished! Dinner will be served shortly.”

Not a chance, I thought to myself. The water was just starting to boil. It would have been nice if it had been one of those times when God came through and someone pulled up to deliver a full turkey dinner, but it wasn’t one of those times.

I threw the pasta in the tepid water, turned over the ground beef, already burnt on the bottom, and raw on the top, and waited impatiently.

Dave was giving a long, involved table prayer: “Lord, we thank you for this Thanksgiving Day. We thank you that there are Scientologists and Seventh Day Adventists and Appalachian Snake Handlers, and Ebionites and Second Temple Jews and Bahais….” And you get the picture. On and on Dave prayed while the homeless were getting a little antsy. For a short time, “Amens” punctuated the pauses in Dave’s prayer, eventually the murmuring turned to “God gets the point Dave!” and “God heard that already!”

Mercifully, the pasta was no longer crunchy so I drained it, threw everything together: pasta sauce, tomato soup, noodles, ground beef, and chicken noodle soup, added about a quarter cup of garlic salt, which makes everything taste better, and called out to Dave to stop praying, dinner was ready.

Surprisingly, while the meal was among the worst ever prepared at Faith Mission, no one complained. They were grateful for warm food and a warm place to sleep on a bitterly cold evening, even if it was leaning against the wall.

We can compare ourselves into misery, when we compare ourselves to those who have more. But it also works the other way.

Seeing someone who had nothing, not even a home, be thankful, made me a better person. I took an honest look at these people who had so little, and yet still found reasons to be thankful.

Thanksgiving is a posture of the heart. I found that if I practice gratitude no matter what my circumstances, I am happier.

I find more reasons to give thanks and then, surprisingly, both my joy and gratitude multiply. Gratitude can grow in us when life goes wrong just as much as when everything goes right.

And in the kingdom of God, even burnt ground beef, hard pasta, and chicken-noodle-soup-surprise can become a feast because gratitude isn’t about the quality of the meal, but the faithfulness of the One who provides.

About the author: Rev. Sharon Smith is the pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, where she is passionate about helping people discover God’s grace in everyday life. She enjoys storytelling, teaching, and finding humor even in ministry’s messiest moments. Shar is convinced that gratitude is a posture of the heart that can flourish even at the most disastrous dinners. Contact Sharon at tct@pageone-inc.com