An Unusual Eucharist

I think some of us do the work of God here on Earth without ever meaning to, and perhaps that is as it should be.  An example that comes readily to my mind is my wife, who comes home almost daily with stories of “humorous” encounters she has had with folks in her job at a local chain grocery store.  After a recent injury, she was moved to something called “KBS” – an ambiguous acronym for handing out food samples to customers during peak shopping hours – so her job is currently to ask passing customers if they would like to try a bite of the cheese and/or fruit she is sampling that day.  Many folks say yes and thank you.  Some folks say no thank you and walk past.  Some folks pretend they can’t hear her.  And then there are the injured parties.

Yesterday is an interesting example of the injured party phenomenon.  Upon being offered a bite of cheese, a man looked at my wife and said, “Well why not?  Everything else has gone wrong today.”  From her telling, the man’s demeanor and tone made clear that the sample was NOT a respite from his cruddy day; it was, in fact, a logical continuation of the ways he felt thwarted by the holidays and more.  This position (verbal and otherwise) sent my introspective spouse searching silently for what could have offended the man.  Does he not like cheese but feels like he cannot turn down the sample?  Is he lactose intolerant and so sees the cheese offer as his inevitable due in a world conspiring to harm him?  She spends a good deal of time wondering how and why injured parties respond as they do to her offer of a bite of food.  I spend my time wondering how to honor the choice.

In a world hell-bent on everyone being “okay” all the time, I find myself eagerly willing to find and fix and finagle on the grounds that I am making things better if others seem “better” after an encounter with me.  What I am often  haunted by, though, is that these machinations are really about me!  It is not the same to want others to feel good and to meet others exactly where they are at even if where they are at is feeling bad.  I feel great when I know I can offer a bite of cheese, but the inevitable pit in my stomach when the offer is met with disdain or anger is a clear sign that I am invested in more than just the person in front of me feeling good.  I am invested in feeling good for and about myself.

I still believe in my theological training’s emphasis on the offer of nourishment, on hospitality as the face of God.  And I wonder, too, if remaining still and at peace as people figuratively bite the hand that feeds them is not also the work of God on Earth.  I don’t know the stories of the injured parties, and I don’t have the right to make them up.  When I am faced with what could easily be construed as bad attitude, lack of gratitude, or a spot-on imitation of the Grinch, I have the opportunity to see the injured party and say or do nothing…not because I don’t care that a person is hurting, but because I, too, have hurt that way.  It is an unusual Eucharist, to be sure.