Me ... my three year old son ... one year old daughter ... their Mother.
We had nothing in the cupboards.
There was some rat poison ... pellets really and not even a box ... some wax paper ... and a can of beats ... to this day I remember the can of beats.
"Can you feed this to a one year old?" we asked.
"We need milk," was the answer.
But we didn't have any.
We didn't have a dollar or so for a half gallon of of it either.
There was an eight of a tank of gas in the car though.
We lived in a Church in the middle of the Projects because I was the Pastor and it was a nice apartment ... on the third floor of a three story concrete block building painted yellow/gold.
The bottom floor was a Social Hall, kitchen, clothes closet, food pantry and a really nice gathering room with a sofa only used on Sunday nights for the evening service no one attended.
Yes ... there was food in the Food Pantry and I had a key but ... I wasn't one of those who needed it ... I was the minister ... a Suffering Servant of Christ willing to make my family suffer too.
The second floor held a Sanctuary built to sit 200 so there was plenty of room for the 20 or so who came... a library full of donated books from other Church Libraries ... three offices and four Sunday School rooms.
The top consisted of two apartments ... one large which we lived in ... one smaller ... and three massive Sunday School rooms which were used for storage.
In addition to the Projects, the Church was surrounded by Adult Bookstores, abandoned buildings and homeless people.
We lived there because it was free.
It was free because I was the minister and the Southern Baptist believe poor black neighborhoods should convert to their beliefs and act more white ... so a white minister's needed to lead the way ... and for better or worse, that was me.
The Seminary had taken all our cash and we believed ... prayed really ... the Lord would provide but God's time frame wasn't matching up with the pains in our stomachs.
It's worse when your babies are crying.
And there was nobody to ask because we'd already asked everybody and either they didn't have more to give or we couldn't bring ourselves to ask again.
Pride fuels hunger in all of its manifestations.
So the babies cry, the wife yells, God keeps quiet and I don't know what to do except pile us all in the car and take a drive.
In addition to being a Minister and full time Seminary student, I was the sole waiter at an 8 table German restaurant owned and operated by two old world immigrants who forced me to wear a white shirt, black bow tie, red vest and black slacks ... I looked like a Monkey begging for change working for an organ grinder.
I hated it but the tips were great so I endured the monkey suit 4 nights each week.
Otto and Marlene were a crazy couple, constantly fighting in German, arrogant to customers, derogatory to deliver men and forever belittling the dishwasher and me for ... oh everything.
But, the food was out of this world ... authentic German with no scrimping served with excellent wines and fine European beer ... with a tremendous patronage.
So, I don't know why though it was probably because I had no place else to go, I took my entire family there.
Entering through the rear service door, Otto's drinking beer from a crystal mug, smoking a fine cigar, reading "Der Spiegel, a German magazine and raises his eyes to mine, confusion filling them as he looks at my son ... daughter ...
"Wie Gehts?" he solemnly asks.
How's it going?"
"Nicht gut," I answer.
Not good.
"Hmmm," he grunts.
"I'm happy so you come by," he says in his crazy English.
"Need you to get rid of things for I before Wicked Witch returns."
The Wicked Witch is his wife, Marlene, but I'm holding my son without a clue of what he's talking about.
Suddenly the big man is a blur of motion in and out of the walk in cooler and in no time is handing me a box full of Sauerbraten, Bratwurst, Spatzle, Red Cappage, German chocolates and Beer.
He grins.
I stand motionless holding my son.
"Ah Scheisse!" he mutters rushing back inside the cooler.
Returning, he hands us a gallon of milk.
At that precise moment, Marlene enters the kitchen ... long black hair in a red dress with fingers flaunting diamonds ... and is caught off guard with my family holding arms full of food.
"Danke Micheal!" Otto says shoving us towards the door.
"Vat is happening?" Marlene coolly asks.
"Micheal throwing out old food we no use," he snaps more than explains.
German words fly out of her mouth as if fired from a machine gun.
Giving us one final shove through the door we hear Otto's booming voice returns fire with a cannon shot of German words.
We run to the car and drive home as fast as possible.
And we fed the babies and eat.
To this day I love German cuisine.
There's lots of ways to be hungry but the physical pains of being malnourished is perhaps the worst. We say we're starved to death even if we're not really but it feels like it and that scares us to death which is almost the same thing.
It sucks to be hungry.
But it's something we've all shared ... some sadly to extremes.
Sadder still is all of the ways we can be hungry ... certainly for food ... but for company ... understanding ... companionship ... honesty .... truth ... love.
I find it little wonder then that the top requirement to getting into Heaven ... closer to God ... even feeling better about yourself or the world we live in ... is to give a hungry person something to eat.
It's funny because the first requirement of entry isn't loving God or going to Church or doing something magnificent for others ... it's sharing food.
“When the Son of man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate them one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will place the sheep at his right hand, but the goats at the left. Then the King will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, O blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food ...
After that the requirements pretty much match Maslow's Hierarchy of Need ... thirst ... loneliness ... shelter ...
It's really sort of cosmic no-brainer isn't it?
Holiness begins with caring for the hungry ... your own and everybody else's.
And if you don't, then there's nothing Holy about you.
It's one of the reasons I love Bar Church serves food during Church!
When I returned to work the next day, Otto greets me with a bear hug and tells me fix me something to eat before the customers arrive.
I do and he helps me cook ... combining spatzle with a scrambled egg, diced onion, fresh mushrooms, diced ham covered in melted Provolone cheese.
He pours me a beer in a crystal glass to wash it down as I eat.
"I'm sorry I caused a fight with Marlene," I mumble eating with a bowed head.
"She's a bitch!" he laughs.
"Hurry up!" he continues, "We have important things to complete tonight."
Just as I finish washing my dishes, Marlene arrives glaring at me and if looks could kill ... well then I'm long dead several times over.
The bell above the front door tinkles as the first customers arrive and Marlene decked in a silk black dress matching her long jet black hair with fingers full of diamonds, rushes out to greet them.
It's a giant party of 16 virtually taking over the entire restaurant.
"What's up first boss?" I ask, willing to do anything at all he wants.
"Grab coat," he grins.
Confused, I do.
"Auf wiedersehan," he whispers towards the swinging door connecting the kitchen to the dining hall pushing me out the service door.
"What are you doing" I ask as he pulls the metal door shut and leads me where our cares are parked beside the dumpster.
"She handle business tonight."
Otto's the Chef.
I'm the waiter,
Mitch, the dishwasher, called in sick.
That's leaves Marlene hosting, waiting, cooking and cleaning up alone.
Of course Jesus' version of the Last Judgement ends with God saying, "Depart from me ... Go to Hell ... for I was hungry and you gave me nothing."
There's no great end to this story ... except ... somehow ... it reminds me of Jesus' parables, which have crazy, unexpected endings driving home wild points about ourselves and others.
So Marlene is left to feed an entire roomful of only people who can pay.
Otto takes me to their house where he pour us two beers and, with our stomachs full and happy, we laugh at what we've done.
And I swear to God, somewhere in Heaven they were laughing too.
