The Hard Knock School of Hospitality

The loud knock on the front door at Manna House came shortly after I arrived. I had plugged in the coffee pots, put laundry in the dryer, and then sat down to start my morning prayer. I relish the thirty minutes or so of quiet before volunteers arrive in which I prepare space in my heart for hospitality. But the loud knocking was persistent. I reluctantly got up and went to the front door.

I could see a lone guest through the glass window to the side of the front door. I did not recognize him.

 

“We’re not open until 8,” I shouted through the glass without opening the door. 

 

The guest was not impressed by the information I had given him.

“I want some socks!” he shouted back to me through the glass.

 

Although I know opening the door opens me to more requests, I opened the door and said, “When we open at 8, I’ll be happy to serve you.” 

 

“Just a pair of socks!” he insisted. 

 

I closed the door and walked away. Past experience echoed in my head, “It is never just a pair of socks. I’ll bring the socks and then there will be another request, like ‘Just a shirt.” I listened to the voice of experience and I went into the laundry room and settled back in my chair. The knocking began again.

 

A long time ago, Ed Loring of the Open Door Community wrote a short book about offering hospitality and living in community. He titled it, “I Hear Hope Banging at My Back Door.” But on this morning, I did not hear hope. Maybe because the banging was at the front door. Or maybe because I was just bone tired.

 

I did not get up and go back to the front door. After a few more minutes, the knocking stopped.

I thought about the importance of accepting my limits. I need to recognize that I cannot serve everybody all the time. Yet, this was somebody at this one time. 

 

I thought about the importance of boundaries which give some structure to offering hospitality. Set hours of operation make hospitality possible as it allows time to prepare the space for hospitality. There must be times for material and spiritual preparation for offering hospitality.  The doors cannot be open all the time. Yet, I could have opened the door for a few minutes to give out “just one pair of socks.”

 

I wrestled with acceptance of my own finiteness and the importance of my resisting the sinful pride of being the savior, the one who always responds to need. 

 

I thought perhaps all of my thinking was really just a way for me to legitimate my sinful refusal to offer aid to the stranger who had knocked at the front door. If that was Christ in the stranger’s guise (Matthew 25:31-46) standing at the front door, I did not let him in and I did not give him a pair of socks.

 

I went back to the front door. There was no one on the porch. The stranger had left. I went back to the laundry room and sat down.

 

I opened my prayer book. If there is anything this work of hospitality teaches me over and over again it is that I am in need of forgiveness and God’s grace. I do not know with certainty what the right thing to do was this morning. I do not know with certainty that what I did was the wrong thing. I do know with certainty that offering hospitality has its own moral perplexities and complexities. There is no moral purity in the work of hospitality. I am saved by grace, not by offering hospitality.

 

I also know with certainty that at 8 a.m. I opened the front door, along with a small but adequate group of volunteers. I know, too, that for the next three hours we together offered hospitality, including fresh socks for every guest. I also know that the person who was knocking did not come back.

The Fragrant Work of the Gospel

“I’m sorry I smell so bad.”

 

I had been approached by a guest in the backyard. He was wearing clothes that were wrinkled and dirty. This apology were the first words out of his mouth.

 

“You have no need to apologize,” I said to him, “How may I help you?”

 

“I need fresh clothes, underwear, pants and a shirt. I can wash up in a gas station bathroom.”

Then he apologized again, “I’m sorry I stink.”

 

“It isn’t you who should be apologizing,” I responded.

 

“If not me, who? I’m the one who stinks.”

 

“How about the rich, the powerful, the people who run this country. The capitalists and bankers and politicians. They’re the ones who need to apologize to you.”

 

Another guest standing nearby said, “Ain’t that the truth!”

 

I told the apologetic guest, “Meet me at the front door and we’ll get you set up with some fresh clothes and a shower.”

 

Earlier in the morning, when I had first arrived at Manna House, I went into the laundry room. I was greeted by the stench of shit. I traced the stench to one of our big black trash cans that serve as laundry baskets for the dirty clothes of those who shower. I sorted through the clothes and found the offending underwear. It is not unusual for the underwear of our guests to be soiled in this manner. No public restrooms combined with soup kitchen food leads to bathroom emergencies unmet. In other words, shit happens.

 

I thought of St. Paul and his famous metaphor of the Body of Christ. Paul once wrote how God the Creator, “has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as God wanted them to be.” Paul noted that “there are many parts, but one body.” And he continued, “those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment.” 

 

Then he drew the theological and ethical conclusion, “But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it” (I Corinthians 12:18-26).

 

Paul reflected the insight and ethos of Jesus and the prophets. If one part of the body (a member of the community) stinks, it is up to the other parts to do something about it. Those other parts must not shame the part that stinks but do something to take away the stench. Like, give that part a shower and some fresh clothes. 

 

But Paul goes further. He names the cause of the stench. The stench is from the injustice and division that caused some to stink while others luxuriate in perfumed palaces. So, beyond a shower and a change of clothes, the very way all the parts of the body are related needs to be recognized and affirmed. Society needs to be structured so that the most vulnerable are treated with special honor. 

 

I would guess that Paul’s insight into a Gospel response to stench was connected to his knowledge of how Jesus responded to stench. You might recall the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead. Jesus arrived days after Lazarus had died. When he commanded that the stone to the tomb be taken away, Martha the sister of Lazarus objected, “Lord, by now he stinks… It has already been four days” (John 11:39). Undeterred, Jesus had the stone removed and raised Lazarus from the dead. 

 

Jesus’ raising of Lazarus prefigured an even greater work by God. God moved beyond the resuscitation of Lazarus to the resurrection of Jesus. Those who came early to Jesus’ tomb after he had been crucified may have well expected a stench. Instead, of the stench of death there was the surprise of resurrection. God’s loving power raised Jesus from the dead. Easter calls us to this resurrection reality, and to the fragrant Gospel work of hospitality and justice so no one stinks. 

If I Die Tonight No One Will Miss Me

 “If I die tonight, no one will miss me.”

 

One of our guests said this to me on this cold Thursday morning. He had slept outside in the twenty-degree weather last night. Now he was warming himself near the heater in the chapel area at Manna House and waiting for his hot shower. He asked me if I knew whether or not the city would open warming centers tonight. I did not know. 

 

I called the Office of Emergency Management for the City of Memphis which makes the decision about opening warming centers. I waited through a menu of options which included the Animal Shelter, Garbage Pick-Up, and the Non-Emergency Number for the Memphis Police. There was no option for “Homeless Services” or “Human Shelter.” I selected “0” for the operator. I was told that there would be no warming centers tonight. The forecast is for a low of 31. For Friday the forecast low is 18. I later learned from a city official that warming centers will be open Friday night, but they are not consistently open due to lack of funding. Another city official callously said, "There should be plenty of space at area shelters." This is simply not true and also glides over the fact that there is no free public shelter in the city of Memphis. 

 

All shelter in Memphis is church affiliated or run by private organizations. And almost all of those are not free. The largest shelter in the city, the Union Mission, mandates attendance at a Christian worship service in order to stay overnight, and also charges $6.00 for the night. It does offer a few free nights before charging. The only regular free shelter is Room in the Inn Memphis which works with area churches to place people overnight in church spaces. Tonight, there is one church offering shelter through Room in the Inn.

 

At least one person has frozen to death in Memphis this winter. Eric Martin died near City Hall a few weeks ago. Each winter, people on the streets freeze to death in Memphis. Others die from pneumonia or other illnesses they catch in the bitter cold. 

 

Earlier this week I learned that a member of a Madison Ave business association referred to people on the streets as “trash that needs to be picked up.” 

 

The Mayor’s Office and this businessman share the view that some people are expendable. For them, people on the streets have no inherent worth or value. Value depends upon social standing, typically measured by such characteristics as economic status, race, gender, sexuality, and mental and physical health. 

 

The Gospel holds a different view. “Blessed are the poor,” Jesus said (Luke 6:20). And in case someone missed his point he told a judgment day parable in which God takes the position that “Whatever you do unto to the least of these you do unto me” (Matthew 25:31-46).

 

“If I die tonight, no one will miss me.” I wanted to tell this guest at Manna House this morning that he is not expendable, that he is wrong to think such a thing. In honesty, I could not tell him either of those things. So, I simply said, “If you die tonight, I will miss you and so will Kathleen and Ashley and everyone else at Manna House. But please don’t die. It’s time for your shower.”

https://mlk50.com/2022/01/21/a-homeless-man-froze-to-death-outside-city-hall-how-should-the-city-respond/

Brief Reflections on “Sharing the Gospel” or “Evangelizing” or “Saving” Our Guests at Manna House

“Do you share the Gospel with the people who come to Manna House?”

“Do you evangelize the people you serve at Manna House?

 

Yes, we do, if by sharing the Gospel (or evangelizing) you mean what Jesus meant by sharing the Gospel (evangelizing) which was to share

“good news to the poor, 
    to proclaim release to the prisoners 
    and recovery of sight to the blind, 
    to liberate the oppressed,  

and to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:18-19).

 

We hope to be good news to our guests who come from the streets and in poverty by offering hospitality that respects their dignity as made in the image of God. 

 

We hope to proclaim release to the prisoners as we advocate stopping the criminalization of people in poverty, ending the death penalty, and undoing the mass incarceration done by our racist and classist criminal justice system. 

 

We seek to liberate the oppressed as we stand opposed to the “filthy rotten system” of consumer capitalism that oppresses the poor and God’s creation, and we urge a Beloved Community dedicated to the common good. 

We proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Biblical Jubilee, Isaiah 61:1-3, Leviticus 25:1-22) as we urge and practice a radical redistribution of goods so that everyone can enjoy enough to have life and have it to the full (John 10:10).

“How many people have you saved at Manna House?”

We have saved exactly zero people at Manna House. We are not God. We are not Jesus Christ. We don’t save people. God does. Our guests at Manna House do bring Jesus Christ to us, just as Jesus promised, “Whatever you do unto the least of these you do unto me” (Matthew 25:31-46). We seek to love each of our guests as Jesus commanded us to do, “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34).

Appeal for Support for Manna House and the Manna House Women's Sanctuary

 For the needy will not always be forgotten, nor will the hope of the poor perish forever. (Psalm 9:18, Modern English Version)

 

Manna House began sixteen years ago. A few of us gathered as a community of volunteers to serve people on the streets and others in poverty in the downtown and midtown areas of Memphis. Several of us had gotten to know people on the streets as we worshipped at Sacred Heart Catholic Church at the corner of Cleveland and Jefferson. 

 

Three of those people on the streets, Sara, Tyler, and Abe, were regulars at Sacred Heart. They became the “holy trinity” who taught us about the needs and strengths of people on the streets in that neighborhood. They invited us to open a place of hospitality in which sanctuary would be provided, where people would be welcomed for coffee, conversation, showers and clothing, and above all, treated with dignity. Resources were pooled and a house was purchased at 1268 Jefferson to be remodeled into a place of hospitality. 

 

Our guiding inspirations, in addition to Sara, Tyler, and Abe, were the Open Door Community (then in Atlanta), the Catholic Worker Movement of Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, and the long traditions of hospitality in the Christian tradition and in other world religions. 

 

In the late summer of 2005, Manna House opened without fanfare but with much hope, love, and faith. The then five-year-old daughter of Kathleen, one of the founders of Manna House, held a sign that said, “Free Coffee” and announced to all who walked by “Free Coffee for Sale!” People from the streets started to stop in and relationships were built. In the early months, coffee, conversation, and the occasional sweet roll gathered people several times a week, while fresh socks and hygiene items were also shared. By January, a new shower room was opened, so three times a week showers could be offered with a change of clothes. The “socks and hygiene” continued as well. In the winter months, coats, hats, gloves, blankets, sleeping bags, and more were also offered. In the summer months, fresh t-shirts, baseball caps were added. Haircuts were offered.

 

Hospitality, the welcome of people in their dignity as made in the image of God, and no requirements of ID or “needs testing” has been our central practice at Manna House. A little over a year later, a former guest (now off the streets and housed) began “More on Monday” a simple meal offered every Monday at Manna House. Over the years Manna House has also hosted a variety of start-up organizations, including Door of Hope, Outreach, Housing and Community, Room in the Inn Memphis, and Homeless Organizing for Power and Equality (H.O.P.E.). Most recently we also opened the Women’s Sanctuary, working with Room in the Inn Memphis to offer shelter to women at a second location on Greenlaw.

 

All of this has been done over the years with a completely volunteer staff. No one is paid to work at Manna House. We are ordinary people offering hospitality. We started small and have stayed small so that we can offer a personal welcome to our guests. During our sixteen years, people from a variety of faiths (or no particular faith) have served at Manna House.  We have also hosted groups from schools and universities, and other organizations both locally and from across the United States. 

 

We’ve received financial support from many different individuals and from a variety of religious communities and other organizations. We do not seek or accept any government funding or complicated grants requiring a professional staff. For about $35,000 a year we serve 100 or so guests each day that we are open; that is, about 15,000 people a year. Since we have no paid staff all financial support goes to serving our guests either directly through goods that they receive or indirectly through maintaining our two places of hospitality where our guests are welcomed. We are a 901c3 (official name, “Emmanuel House Manna”), and each year we file a 990. 

 

We have continued our practice of hospitality through the pandemic. Though the pandemic has changed some aspects of how we offer hospitality, it has not deterred us from continuing to welcome guests, to offer a place of sanctuary, to offer showers, clothing, coffee, a weekly meal, and shelter at the women’s sanctuary.

 

Please consider supporting the work of hospitality at Manna House. Checks can be made out to Manna House or to Emmanuel House Manna (the official name of our nonprofit) and mailed to 769 Stonewall, Memphis, TN 38107.

 

Thank you!

 

 

Standing at the Foot of the Cross

The hospital, the jail, or the morgue. These are the three likely places where Manna House guests have gone if I have not seen them in a while.

 

One guest disappeared about a week ago. He showed up this morning. He had a cast on his right arm that ran from his fingers to just below his shoulder. 

 

“What happened?”

 

“I tripped and fell on a sidewalk. I’ve been in the hospital. They’ve done three surgeries on my arm.”

 

He had an awkwardly large and wide sling going around his neck and holding up his arm. He asked for something that would not chafe his neck so much. I suggested we try a tie. I went in and got several from the clothing room. With a little adjustment he had a new slender and non-chafing sling for his cast.

 

I was approached by another guest later in the morning. I had not seen him for several months. 

“Where you been?”

 

“Jail. Do you know how I can get my Social Security started again? They cut it off when you’re in jail.”

 

The Social Security office on Cleveland is still closed to walk-ins due to pandemic restrictions. A person can make an appointment online. Not so easy for someone on the streets. I gave him a few options, like using the public library for computer access.

 

A week ago, I was told that one of our guests had died of COVID. I have not been able to confirm that rumor. I certainly have not seen him, so I can still hold out the strange hope that he might be in jail or the hospital.

 

Many years ago, the Open Door Community in Atlanta (now in Baltimore) had a large crucifix with the Christ figure dressed in donated clothes from the community’s clothes’ closet. “The Vagrant Christ” was a regular at street liturgies during Holy Week. It was the Open Door that first opened my eyes and heart to the Liberation Theology understanding of, “the crucifixion of the poor.” As Jon Sobrino wrote of this crucifixion, “Poverty [and I would add, homelessness] is not some sort of natural destiny… It is the effect of historical decisions made by human beings. It is the effect of unjust structures. … It’s contrary to the plan of God the Creator, and contrary to the honor which is due to God.” 

 

I have learned from the Vagrant Christ and theologians like Sobrino that the poor are crucified. I have learned from the Open Door and at Manna House that when I offer hospitality I stand at the foot of the cross. 

 

To stand at the foot of the cross, Barbara Holmes writes, is to respond to God’s call "to stand silently at the places where the national powers are crucifying the innocent and waging war against the poor... willing to embody a contemplative resistance which is simply the expression of love and faith that transcends the ability to see or understand the outcomes" (Joy Unspeakable p.106). She adds that to stand silently is not to stand passively. Contemplative resistance requires that I listen, learn, and then bear witness to the ongoing crucifixion of the poor in our society. 

 

            I find it hard to stand at the foot of the cross and practice this contemplative resistance. There are mornings I do not want to go into the backyard and hear the stories of our guests. Just like with the guests this morning, there is little that I can do when they tell me of their time in the hospital, the jail, and the ways death comes on the streets and in poverty. In contemplative resistance I come to sit with these realities. 

 

At the foot of the cross, I listen to their stories and learn again how hard and yet necessary it is to trust in the power of love, and in the presence of God in the people who trust me enough to share what they are suffering. They teach me what Jesus knew on the Cross. Even as he cried out, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” God had not abandoned him, just as God had not abandoned him in the silence of 40 days of fasting and prayer in the desert. God was with him in the isolation and the darkness. 

 

At the foot of the cross, when I hear the stories of the Manna House guests, if I practice contemplative resistance, I will also experience the presence of God. I will experience how God remains present and affirms this is not the way things are supposed to be. 

 

Strangest Damn Church

What we call the Chapel at Manna House is an extension of the shed in the backyard. In this covered space there are a few old donated church pews and some park benches, along with a statue of St. Francis, and a large crucifix where a silver Jesus hangs from a wooden cross attached to the shed’s sheet metal wall.  It is not fancy. But it has been the scene for a few weddings among guests, memorial services for guests who have died, and even one ordination for a Manna House volunteer now a chaplain at a local hospital.

In COVID times, since we cannot crowd into the house, guests gather in the backyard, even when it rains. We make do with picnic table umbrellas, a red tent, and the Chapel, as places where the guests can stay dry.

As I moved around the backyard this morning talking with guests, I stopped in the chapel.

“How you all enjoying church this morning?” I asked.

“This ain’t no damn church,” a rather sour faced guest responded.

I said, “You’re sitting on pews, there’s a statue and a crucifix, and over there is the minister.” I pointed to another guest, and then added, “He’s about to take up a collection, $5 dollars from each of you.”

“I’m a minister, too!” the sour guest said. And we all laughed, even him.

Then he said, “Charlton Heston was a horrible Moses. He messed up that movie ‘The Ten Commandments.’”

“He sure did,” I said, “no white man would stand with slaves and get them free. Besides Moses was dark skinned.” 

The guest smiled and shook his head as if amazed and asked, “What’s your name?”

I told him and asked him for his name. Then he said, “Let me tell you a joke.”

“Sure.”

“A man goes to church on Sunday. While he’s waiting for the service to start a Deacon taps him on the shoulder and says, ‘You aren’t allowed in here. You got to go.’ The man is upset, but he doesn’t want to cause a scene, so he gets up and goes. During the week he prays about it and thinks about it and decides maybe he wasn’t dressed properly for church. So, he gets a suit and returns the next Sunday to the same church. While he’s waiting for the service to start a Deacon taps him on the shoulder and says, ‘You aren’t allowed in here. You got to go.’ The man is upset, but he doesn’t want to cause a scene, so he gets up and goes. During the week he prays about it and thinks about it and decides maybe he needs to make a sizeable offering then he’ll be allowed to stay. So, he returns the next Sunday to the same church. He makes it until the offering when he puts $500 dollars in the plate. Just then the Deacon taps him on the shoulder and says, ‘You aren’t allowed in here. You got to go.’ The man doesn’t want to cause a scene and he leaves. But he’s very upset. He prays to God, asking God why this is happening. ‘Why won’t they let me in to that church?’ God answers him, “They’ve never let me in either.’"

As the guests and I laughed, the man said, “I don’t go to church. You see why. That’s why this can’t be a church.”

“Well, you’re here and you just gave a great sermon, so this is church now.”

“Strangest damn church I’ve ever been in,” the man said, only now he smiled.