Latest / Finding God at Work / 11: Witness: Food Insecurity

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11: Witness: Food Insecurity · Finding God at Work

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, I'm Chris.
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This is Finding God at Work.
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Just a reminder that Finding God at Work
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isn't just a podcast, it's also an online
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course.
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Check it out at FindingGodAtWork.org.
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Our current series is Take a Stand, Faithful
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Political Witness at Work.
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And in our current section of the series,
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we're looking at specific political issues and how
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we can think through them, pray through them
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as disciples of Jesus, so that that can
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inform how we love others in the workplace
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when those issues come up in conversation or
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as they affect our actual workplaces and our
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workplace relationships.
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And if you're still with me at this
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point, after we've already tackled the controversial issues
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of immigration and abortion, we really appreciate it.
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I'm going to tackle another issue which is
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perhaps less controversial, although there's still public debate
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about it, which is food insecurity.
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And in this, I get to draw on
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my experience of working at a regional food
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bank.
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So I get to draw a little bit
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on something that I have a little more
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personal experience with, but I want to use
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this issue to kind of explore a specific
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thing you can do in work conversations.
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So this one's a little bit more tactical,
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a little bit more like, hey, in a
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specific work conversation, what's a good thing that
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you can do to express love for the
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person you're talking with and for the people
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that are affected by these different issues.
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So I want you to think back to
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maybe high school social studies class.
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Did you ever have an assignment where you
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were assigned a perspective to defend, regardless of
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whether you agreed with it?
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So maybe there was a debate about the
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American Revolution or something, and one group of
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the class was assigned to defend the loyalist
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position of not rebelling, staying loyal to Britain,
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and the other was assigned to defend the
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American Revolutionary position.
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This is a really good pedagogical tool, right,
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because it forces students to think through, oh,
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what are the strongest arguments for this view,
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whether I agree with it or not.
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Okay, so I want to do something similar
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in what I suggest about political conversations, and
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that's this.
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Can you articulate a commitment to a gospel
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value while also charitably presenting the opposite political
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viewpoint as your own?
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Okay, let me say that again.
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Can you articulate a commitment to a gospel
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value while also charitably presenting the political viewpoint
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that is opposite to your own?
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Okay, now that might sound a little abstract,
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so we're going to give the example using
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food insecurity as the issue.
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So what is the gospel value when it
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comes to food insecurity?
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What's that precious thing that we hold in
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common with other believers, regardless of our specific
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political convictions?
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Well, I would say it's the gospel value
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of caring for those who are vulnerable, caring
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for those who may face food insecurity, doing
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whatever it takes to make sure people have
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the food they need to thrive.
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So let's just use one biblical text of
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many that address this specific issue, Matthew 25.
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This is probably a familiar passage.
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This is one of Jesus' teachings that he
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uses to prophetically speak about his own return.
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So starting in verse 31.
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When the Son of Man comes in his
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glory, and all the angels with him, he
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will sit on his glorious throne.
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All the nations will be gathered before him,
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and he will separate the people one from
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another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from
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the goats.
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He will put the sheep on his right
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and the goats on his left.
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Then the King will say to those on
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his right, Come, you who are blessed by
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my Father, take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared
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for you since the creation of the world.
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For I was hungry, and you gave me
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something to eat.
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I was thirsty, and you gave me something
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to drink.
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I was a stranger, and you invited me
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in.
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I needed clothes, and you clothed me.
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I was sick, and you looked after me.
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I was in prison, and you came to
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visit me.
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Then the righteous will answer him, Lord, when
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did we see you hungry and feed you,
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or thirsty, and give you something to drink?
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When did we see you a stranger and
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invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe
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you?
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When did we see you sick or in
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prison, and go to visit you?
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The King will reply, Truly I tell you,
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whatever you did for one of the least
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of these brothers and sisters of mine, you
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did for me.
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Then he will say to those on his
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left, Depart from me, you who are cursed,
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into the eternal fire prepared for the devil
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and his angels.
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For I was hungry, and you gave me
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nothing to eat.
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I was thirsty, and you gave me nothing
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to drink.
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I was a clothes, and you did not
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clothe me.
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I was sick and in prison, and you
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did not look after me.
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They also will answer, Lord, when did we
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see you hungry or thirsty, or a stranger,
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or needing clothes, or sick or in prison,
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and did not help you?
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He will reply, Truly I tell you, whatever
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you did not do for the least of
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these, you did not do for me.
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Then they will go to a way to
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eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.
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Okay, this is an intense teaching of Jesus.
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He's saying that the way we treat the
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most vulnerable in our society, that's the way
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we're treating Jesus himself.
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And he's also saying that when he judges
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us, the expression of our faith in Jesus,
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in loving the vulnerable, will be the kind
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of evidence on which he assesses was our
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faith in him genuine or not.
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So that's pretty intense.
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If you're like, I believe in Jesus, but
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then you do nothing to help the vulnerable,
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Jesus is like, I don't think you really
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believe in me.
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I don't think your faith is genuine, because
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this is the basis on which he makes
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this judgment of who enters into his kingdom.
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This is about a way of life that
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we enter into as disciples of Jesus.
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But Jesus is saying, part of that way
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of life is caring for the vulnerable, including
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those who don't have enough food to eat.
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It's very clear.
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That was the first thing listed in all
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of his examples in that passage with both
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the sheep and the goats.
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I was hungry.
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And do you give him something to eat
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or not?
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Okay, so that's the gospel value.
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That's something that Christians across the political spectrum
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can hold in common is we believe that
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it's our responsibility as disciples of Jesus to
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help those who face hunger, help those who
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face food insecurity.
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Okay, now I'm using a contemporary phrase there,
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food insecurity.
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So I just want to kind of tease
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out what do I mean by that?
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And it's a phrase like financial insecurity that's
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meant to convey, hey, the situation that people
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are facing.
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So in the past, we tended to use
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the word hunger, but hunger can describe something
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that's happening in your body, right, like a
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sensation.
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So this more technical term food insecurity was
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introduced to try and distinguish from the physical
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experience of hunger to, hey, what's the overall
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kind of social condition that people are experiencing?
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So for example, the USDA, their definition of
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food insecurity is limited or uncertain access to
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adequate nutritious food.
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So limited or uncertain access to adequate nutritious
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food.
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Feeding America, the national network of food banks,
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has a similar description of food insecurity on
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their website that I'll link to in the
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show notes in case you want to dig
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into this more.
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But again, basically like financial insecurity means you're
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not sure that you're going to have enough
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money.
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Food insecurity means you're not sure that you're
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going to have enough nutritious food for you,
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for your household, for your children.
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And I'm personally most familiar with the situation
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regarding food insecurity in Northern Illinois, because that's
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the food bank that I work at serves
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that part of Illinois.
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And so according to Feeding America data, one
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in nine residents of Northern Illinois faces food
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insecurity, and that includes one in nine children
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in Northern Illinois.
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So one out of every nine kids in
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our community doesn't know that they're going to
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have the food they need.
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Wow, that's really significant.
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That is an immediate fact of relevance to
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this gospel value that we see from Matthew
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25.
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As a disciple of Jesus, I deeply care
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about those kids, those one in nine kids
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in Northern Illinois.
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This raises the question, what is my response
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going to be?
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Now, among Christians in the United States, there
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are two basic camps that people fall into.
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Now, this is an oversimplification, obviously, but one
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camp is the government can really help address
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the needs of food insecurity.
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The other camp is the church should meet
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those needs and the government shouldn't really be
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involved.
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Now, I hasten to add, even among these
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two camps, both people agree that the church
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should be involved.
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It's just on the one side, people think
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the church can be involved, and so can
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the government.
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On the other side, people think it should
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be the church and not the government.
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Okay, now I want to model what I'm
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talking about in charitably representing the view that's
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politically opposite to your own.
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So I'm not going to start by saying
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which viewpoint is my own, although the fact
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that I work for a food bank might
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kind of give it away, but I want
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to present the church should do it viewpoint
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as best and as charitably as I can.
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So I looked for a Christian who has
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this viewpoint, and I found one.
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He's a blogger named Alexander Griswold, and he
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has a blog piece from 2013, but the
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kind of philosophical questions haven't really changed since
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then.
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He's blogging for the blog Juicy Ecumenism, which
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is the Institute on Religion and Democracy's blog,
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so that's kind of a more conservative-leaning
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group in terms of thinking about how religion
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and politics interface.
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And Griswold is writing to counter the idea
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that Christian compassion should lead us to support
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federal programs that address food insecurity.
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So this is what he says about Christian
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compassion.
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He says, there is no Christian compassion when
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the state, relying on the threat of imprisonment
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or fines, takes from one man's wages and
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gives them to a second man.
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There is no Christian compassion when men who
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might give to charity use their contribution to
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federal programs to justify not doing so.
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There is no Christian compassion in spending billions
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more than we can afford, taking care of
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today's problems, and expecting future generations to pay
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the bill.
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And there is certainly no Christian compassion in
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making millions of Americans dependent on bureaucrats in
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Washington instead of teaching them to forge their
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own God-given destinies.
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A paternalistic government welfare system robs all Americans
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of the positive spiritual growth that comes with
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personally caring for the poor, but it also
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robs the church of one of its most
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important responsibilities.
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Increasingly, the services traditionally provided by religious institutions,
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caring for the poor, education, moral upbringing, overseeing
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marriage, etc., are being absorbed by their secular
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counterparts.
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Religious institutions risk becoming increasingly irrelevant as they
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withdraw from public life and allow government agencies
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to fill the roles they've filled for millennia.
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Okay, so let's just pause there.
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Would you be able to charitably represent Alexander
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Griswold's view?
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And if Alexander Griswold's view is your view,
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or similar to your view, that might be
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really easy yes for you.
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But if you have a different view about
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the role of government or the state, it
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might be hard for you to charitably represent
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Alexander Griswold's view.
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But this is what I want to say.
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Alexander Griswold's view is not necessarily contradicting what
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Jesus teaches in Matthew 25.
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What he's saying is the way that that
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Matthew 25 vision gets fulfilled is through the
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action of the church, not through the action
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of a state program that uses tax dollars
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and that essentially forces people through their taxes
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to fund that program.
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He says it should be free.
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It should be the generosity of individual people
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and the generosity of the church seeking to
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meet these needs rather than a forced or
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required government program.
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Now this makes a lot of sense.
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This is in some ways a compelling argument.
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It's an argument that puts money back in
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people's pockets rather than taking it away and
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putting it in the government's hands.
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It's an argument for the freedom for individual
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people to participate in the process of helping
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people get the food that they need to
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thrive.
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It's an argument in favor of the church
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owning the responsibility for these things, which I
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think that is the gospel value we all
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agree on that we as disciples of Jesus,
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as the church, are responsible to respond to
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these things.
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So I think we can we can charitably
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present this view and say, okay, I get
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where this person is coming from and not
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demonize this person or make them out to
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somehow be violating Christian teaching.
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Well, different Christian, also writing in 2013 as
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it happens, but again, the philosophical issues haven't
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really changed.
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Jen Pollock-Michelle, she's writing a piece for
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Christianity Today, and she's talking about specifically SNAP,
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which is the biggest federal program that addresses
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food insecurity, uses tax dollars to route money
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for food to families and children that need
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it.
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So she writes this, I favor protection of
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SNAP, not because I cede what is arguably
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the church's responsibility to the state, but because
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I believe God has instituted the government as
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a servant for our good.
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Romans 13, 4, until the church can succeed
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in stretching its hands across demographic divides, rich
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and poor, black and white, urban and suburban
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and rural, for the necessary sharing of its
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resources, it cannot adequately resolve the inequities into
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which people are born.
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This necessitates some level of government intervention, including
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providing food for the hungry.
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Okay, so Jen Pollock-Michelle's view, right again,
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think is it easy for you to defend
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her view that like, yes, the state should
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be involved?
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Or is it hard for you to defend
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that view?
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But let's be charitable about it.
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Again, what she's saying, she's saying, look at
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the reality on the ground of what churches
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are like.
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Look at how divided the church is.
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Look at how many people are not actually
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connected to the church in a meaningful way.
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Can the church actually do this job?
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Can the church meaningfully reach everybody who's facing
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food insecurity?
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And she's saying, right now, maybe if an
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idealized future church could do that, but right
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now, it doesn't seem like the church could
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do that.
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There's a scale of problem here that the
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government is suited to help with in a
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particular way because the government encompasses all of
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society.
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And so she's basically saying, in order to
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get into all those nooks and crannies, in
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order to actually address the scale of the
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problem that we're facing, the government can be
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involved.
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It's not that the church shouldn't be involved,
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but that it doesn't have to be a
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totally either or.
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It's not either the church or the state,
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it can actually be a collaboration.
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Okay, now, again, I think we can see,
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oh, this more collaborative view of the church
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in the state is also reasonable.
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It's reasonable in terms of scale and magnitude
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of the problem.
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Again, one in nine residents of Northern Illinois
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faces food insecurity.
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Could churches actually right size their budgets to
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support that many people's access to food?
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What would that even look like?
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Just to give you a sense of the
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scale for the numbers, there's a think tank
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on federal policy called the Center on Budget
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and Policy Priorities.
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They have a really nice state by state
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breakdown of SNAP benefits.
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And they showed that in the most recent
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fiscal year, fiscal year 2024, each household member
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per month received $192 in SNAP benefits.
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So that's $192 that could be spent specifically
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on food.
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Okay.
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Now, when you think about your grocery bill,
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that seems like, okay, $192 for a whole
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month for a person to get access to
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food, right?
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This is not a totally unreasonable amount of
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money.
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But what that adds up to is $4
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.47 billion in SNAP benefits distributed in Illinois
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as a whole, not just Northern Illinois, but
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Illinois as a whole in that same fiscal
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year, $4.47 billion.
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Okay.
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So now let's think about the government and
15:30
church collaboration viewpoint versus the church only viewpoint.
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If that amount of benefit that people are
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getting is a good amount.
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Now that's a big if, right?
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People could debate, you know, are some of
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those people able to get benefits in other
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ways, et cetera, et cetera.
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But if we start with that big if,
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they're like, no, that's a good amount of
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benefit for people to get access to food.
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And if the debate is, should church and
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government be doing it or should just the
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church be doing it, what would it look
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like to divide that up among the churches?
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Okay.
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How many churches are there in Illinois?
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There's roughly 12,000 churches in Illinois.
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So if you do or divide $4.47
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billion in benefits by 12,000 churches, that
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would come out to over $372,000 per
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church per year.
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So could your church right size your budget
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to provide $372,000 worth of benefits to
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people facing food insecurity in your communities?
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So here we get to kind of like
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a really pragmatic, almost real politic attitude about
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it is like, what actually works?
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What actually works to make sure that people
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get the food they need to thrive, right?
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And if you're going to make an argument
16:40
for the church alone should be able to
16:43
do this, I would just be really intrigued
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to hear, well, what's your model for how
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the church could actually step up at that
16:48
scale and do it?
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What would that look like?
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Okay.
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That being said, we still want to charitably
16:53
represent that view.
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This idea that like the church, private enterprise
16:58
should and could replace federal and state welfare
17:02
programs to make sure that people have the
17:04
food they need to thrive.
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Like that's a legitimate philosophical view that Christians
17:08
can hold in good faith.
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I just want to say like, hey, the
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opposite view that there can be a collaboration
17:14
between church and the state, between church and
17:16
government.
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That's also a view that Christians can hold
17:19
in good faith.
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And again, because I work for a food
17:22
bank, I'm kind of an apologist and an
17:24
advocate for the collaborative viewpoint.
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No surprise.
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So now if you'll indulge me, I want
17:29
to just take a moment to advocate for
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what is my particular view, right?
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Not the only legitimate Christian view, but this
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collaborative view.
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And I want to emphasize how collaborative the
17:39
reality on the ground of the charitable food
17:41
system already is.
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So I work for a regional food bank.
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We're like the distribution network.
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We support local food pantries and soup kitchens
17:49
and other feeding programs to make sure that
17:51
they can get the food we need.
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So we're the ones who are sourcing the
17:53
food at scale regionally, reworking it in the
17:57
warehouse with volunteer teams if needed, and then
17:59
transporting it out to the points where people
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actually get it in the form of groceries
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or meals.
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And across our service area, there are about
18:07
900, we call them agency partners or feeding
18:10
programs.
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So an agency partner is a food pantry
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or soup kitchen.
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A feeding program is like something we run
18:16
ourselves.
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Like we have these mobile markets where a
18:17
truck, one of our trucks will set up
18:19
like a temporary food pantry in a parking
18:21
lot at a specific day and time, for
18:23
example.
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You add all those up, there's about 900
18:25
points of contact.
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So this is a big operation.
18:29
We have 160 employees.
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We have a multimillion dollar budget in order
18:32
to make this work.
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You know the biggest source of funding for
18:35
that multimillion dollar budget?
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Individual donations.
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Individuals and families just writing a check or
18:41
giving online because they believe in our mission.
18:43
We are not primarily or even to large
18:46
extent supported by federal funding.
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Before some recent changes, because there have been
18:50
some policy changes quite recently, federal funding accounted
18:54
for about 12% of the meals that
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we distributed.
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So that's not a huge portion.
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It's significant.
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It's 12%.
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It's not anywhere near the majority.
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And so the charitable food network in our
19:06
food bank and throughout the nation, it already
19:08
is a collaboration of individual generosity of churches,
19:12
of those food pantries and soup kitchens.
19:14
The majority of those are at churches.
19:15
So it's not like an either or like,
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oh, are you the nonprofit organization or are
19:19
you the church?
19:20
We're collaborating.
19:21
There are churches, we couldn't do what we
19:24
do without them being those frontline distribution points
19:26
at the soup kitchens, at the food pantries.
19:29
So it's a collaboration between private individuals, between
19:34
corporations that donate to us, either food product
19:36
or financial donations, between churches.
19:39
And yes, also the government program.
19:41
That's part of what we do.
19:43
And we see what that looks like on
19:46
a day to day basis.
19:47
We're currently seeing 570,000 visits per month
19:50
at our locations.
19:52
That's been pretty consistent for the past year
19:54
plus for us, 570,000 visits a month
19:56
across our entire service area.
19:59
So we know that SNAP, the federal program
20:02
that allows people to go get food for
20:04
themselves with those SNAP benefits, that that actually
20:06
really helps because we've seen when those SNAP
20:08
benefits are reduced, we naturally see increased foot
20:11
traffic at our food pantries and our soup
20:13
kitchens.
20:14
And our food pantries and soup kitchens are
20:15
already super near capacity, right?
20:17
We're meeting the need, but there's not a
20:19
ton of margin there.
20:20
And so we're advocating that SNAP benefits be
20:22
protected at the federal level because we believe
20:24
that's also part of the collaborative picture here.
20:27
People get SNAP benefits.
20:28
They can go get groceries for themselves.
20:29
They can purchase it using their benefits.
20:31
That's good.
20:32
And people can come to our food pantry
20:34
or soup kitchen or feeding program and get
20:37
food there.
20:38
That's good.
20:38
It's all part of a collaboration.
20:39
There's an ecosystem where we're working together as
20:43
a community, yes, using individual generosity, yes, using
20:46
the resources of the local church and yes,
20:48
using tax dollars in smart, savvy ways to
20:51
combat food insecurity.
20:54
Okay.
20:54
So it's obvious what view I personally hold,
20:58
but even with that passion that I have
21:01
for that view, I recognize it's not the
21:02
only view that Christians can have in good
21:04
faith.
21:05
And so can I charitably represent the opposite
21:07
viewpoint in conversations?
21:10
So in your workplace, let's say the issue
21:12
of food insecurity comes up.
21:14
Could you articulate why you care about the
21:16
plight of people facing food insecurity as a
21:19
disciple of Jesus, that gospel value, that Matthew
21:21
25 value, but then could you also articulate
21:24
whichever political view is opposite to your own
21:27
charitably?
21:28
Could you say, I think that people of
21:29
good faith, right?
21:31
If you're talking to a Christian, Christians of
21:32
good faith, if you're talking to a non
21:34
-Christian, maybe just people of good faith, I
21:36
think people of good faith who care about
21:38
the plight of people facing food insecurity can
21:40
disagree about what the practical government policy should
21:43
be, right?
21:45
Can you do that?
21:46
Because if you can't do that, you need
21:48
to question, is your allegiance primarily a gospel
21:51
value allegiance or has it shifted to being
21:54
an allegiance to your specific party, your specific
21:56
viewpoint, your specific approach to these issues?
22:01
Okay, so that's one practical way you can
22:05
engage this issue and other issues is think
22:08
what's the gospel value?
22:10
And can I charitably represent the political viewpoint
22:13
that's opposite to my own?
22:14
And again, that's an expression of those things
22:16
we talked about at the first part of
22:17
the series, being prayerful, being thoughtful, being gentle,
22:22
and being courageous.
22:23
Can you engage every issue you talk about
22:25
with prayer, with thoughtfulness, with gentleness, and with
22:29
courage?
22:29
It takes courage to represent multiple viewpoints charitably
22:32
because we have such a toxic culture of
22:34
condemnation right now where people just want to
22:36
condemn the opposite viewpoint and demonize human beings
22:39
rather than charitably thoughtfully engage in conversation about
22:43
these things.
22:44
So you can provide a different way by
22:45
thoughtfully articulating different viewpoints while also making that
22:49
gospel value that you have really clear.
22:52
Lord Jesus, give us your Holy Spirit your
22:55
wisdom to know how to talk about these
22:57
things when they come up and work conversations,
22:59
to know how to inform our own opinions,
23:02
to know how to respect the opinions of
23:03
others, and how most of all to be
23:06
faithful to you, faithful to your gospel priorities.
23:09
Jesus, do your work in us as we
23:10
do our work with you.
23:17
Thanks for listening.
23:19
Finding God at Work is a production of
23:20
Mission Central, a ministry based in Aurora, Illinois,
23:23
dedicated to forming Christians for mission in everyday
23:26
life.
23:27
You can subscribe to the podcast wherever you
23:29
listen to this episode to get 10 minutes
23:31
of teaching on faith and work every Tuesday
23:33
and Thursday.
23:34
To get resources to go deeper with each
23:36
podcast series, read our blog, and get info
23:38
about upcoming courses on faith in the workplace,
23:41
go to our website, missioncentral.church.