In case you’re wondering if this exceptionally high pulpit has given me delusions of grandeur, you should know I had any illusions about my power amongst Unitarian Universalists humbly knocked out of me many years ago, when I served as a volunteer 4th and 5th grade religious education teacher at All Souls in DC. I think I’ve told this story in every congregation I’ve ever preached at, because it’s so fundamental to my ministry and UU identity. It was there that my class came under the influence of a particularly charismatic leader, a 9 year old girl we’ll call Francis. Each class was tasked with making a felt banner that would hang outside of their classrooms on Sunday mornings for the rest of the church year and represent that class’s understanding of Unitarian Universalism.

I had seen the banners the first service classes had made and they were sweet and predictable, with chalices, peace signs, doves, and multi-racial groups of felt children holding hands around a borderless blue and green earth. I was confident in my ability to guide our class toward an equally acceptable depiction of global love and cooperation. But Francis… well, Francis was a true Unitarian. She recognized no authority greater than her own conscience and was confident in her place among the priesthood and prophethood of all believers. She liked to cook and it seemed that while I was busy setting up supplies, she got the whole class in on her plan to make a banner depicting a pot roast dinner. By the time I was let in on the plan, each student had already chosen the ingredient or side dish they’d cut from the felt; kale leaves and cranberries, mashed potatoes, and a loaf of french bread.

My objections were for naught and the art project was underway with or without my blessing. Exasperated, I asked, “what does a pot roast have to do with Unitarian Universalism?” Francis never even looked up from her work cutting and gluing. “We’re supposed to feed people who are hungry,” she said “We’re supposed to share meals with people we love.”

I think about her often and the many lessons she taught me during that patience-testing, beautiful year of religious education. Our children and youth here often remind me of Francis in the best possible ways.

And I’ve been thinking about her, and her matter of fact assertion that we’re supposed to feed people who are hungry, quite a bit during these last few weeks as cuts to SNAP benefits loomed. The ongoing government shutdown and willful inaction on the part of the Trump administration meant that over 40 million people were at risk of losing the funding they rely on to feed themselves and their families. As communities tried to step up to care for their neighbors, the level of cruelty coming from the federal level in response was astounding. Grocery stores were prohibited from providing discounts to SNAP recipients. The Trump administration threatened states who tried to provide full benefits with financial penalties if they don’t take back the benefits they’ve already provided. It was not just a matter of not enough funding, or a government whose hands were tied when negotiations came to a stand still. It wasn’t just that they couldn’t help feed people. They didn’t want anyone else to either. And that is nothing short of state sanctioned violence. I know that sounds dramatic but given the time and effort they put into ensuring no one received benefits, it’s hard to see it as anything other than a government fully committed to figuring out how to starve its people.

Francis’s banner expressed a value system that is so fundamentally different from the one our government is advancing right now. But that’s not especially surprising. And it’s not why I’m telling this story today. I don’t want us to just sit smugly in this sanctuary knowing we have the right values. I want us to act on those values. And that’s what stood out to me about that banner. It was actionable. It was concrete and immediate. We’re supposed to feed people who are hungry. Now, I could probably extrapolate that from the other class's banners eventually. Symbols of peace and equality point me to a world where there is no more food insecurity, but there’s a lot of work to get those lofty symbols pared down to concrete actions.

Figuring out how to act in the face of cruelty, injustice, and inequality is not always easy. The enormity of suffering in the world can feel paralyzing. We know we can’t help every person or fix every problem. We debate what people or what causes are most worthy of our time and have the best return on investment. We worry that charity work addressing the symptoms, rather than the root causes of the problem, is ineffective, so we hesitate to volunteer at the soup kitchen or contribute to the food drive. I’ve heard this in any number of churches, organizing meetings or classes. Why are you wasting your time on direct service rather than working for policy change? We can get so caught up in strategy, we lose sight of our ability to ease the suffering that is right in front of us.

This is not a new dilemma. Dorothy Day, journalist, anarchist, pacifist, and tireless champion of the poor wrote about this in 1938. Along with her friend Peter Maurin, she had started a radical newspaper, The Catholic Worker, and opened a number of Houses of Hospitality providing food, shelter, and clothing to those in need. Day writes, “There is always so little we can do. There is always the complaint–“but we are only feeding them!” from some members of the groups in different parts of the country. It is right never to be satisfied with the little we can do, but we must remember the importance of giving even a drink of cold water in the name of Christ.” She quotes Cardinal Manning, “The existence of hunger, nakedness, misery, death from insufficient food, even of starvation, is certain, and as yet no agency reaches it. How can any man discourage the giving of food or help?” Day concludes, “We must live from day to day, and continue with courage to do the little immediate jobs of feeding the hungry.”

My little RE student Francis and Dorothy Day both understood the same thing. This call we follow, from the scriptures of Isaiah and from Matthew, our UU principles and values, from the still small voice inside that guides us, this call is not a political strategy, it is a moral imperative.

We’re supposed to feed people who are hungry. We’re supposed to share meals with those we love. This doesn’t mean we ignore that long-term work to change our systems and our culture, to address the root causes of poverty and food insecurity and inequality. We absolutely need to do that work. But what I want to remind us of today is those immediate acts or direct service, those actions that ease suffering where we can, even just for a moment, are never a waste of time. They are good and worthy in their own right, but they also serve two important purposes that I want to lift up today.

One is that they keep us connected to humanity- our own and our neighbors. Francis said “We’re supposed to share meals with people we love.” But who is it that we love? Who is my neighbor? LIberation theologian Gustavo Gutierrez says, “You say you love the poor? Name them.” The truth is, I think a lot of us are more comfortable at an interfaith organizing meeting about a ballot initiative than we are serving food to those who are hungry or offering beds to those without shelter and actually forming relationships with our neighbors. I say this as someone who spent 10 years doing professional policy advocacy. It can be distancing. It can disconnect us from the very real suffering poverty and inequality cause in our country. When we break bread with someone we are intimately connected. “Strangers maybe never again,” Ross Gay tells us in the poem Marlene read earlier. We’ve got to get proximate, to use the phrase popularized by attorney and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson. Stevenson says, “What I believe is that in poor communities all across the world, in places where there is suffering, and places where people have been marginalized in jails and prisons, and places where people have been oppressed and pushed down, there are still songs being sung. When you get proximate, you hear the songs. And those melodies in those songs will empower you, they will inspire you, and they will teach you what doing justice and loving mercy is all about. Find ways to get closer to the poor and the excluded, the marginalized and the neglected, and to go with an open heart and listen for the songs that will teach you the things we need to understand.”

The second reason is that direct acts of service remind us we have the power and agency to care for one another and create change.

During my two years serving in Portland, I was privileged to join alongside the volunteer team of congregants who established the 13 Salmon Shower Project. We were in the heart of downtown Portland and trying to figure out how to best serve our unhoused neighbors. We had willing volunteers and an unused basement space with an accessible shower. So two days a week, we opened that as a space of respite, hygiene access, and community. Neighbors would stop by for a hot shower, a clean set of clothes, some lunch and a safe space to rest and build community with one another and with our volunteers. In the wake of the 2024 election, I noticed that the shower project volunteers were the least despairing people in the church. I knew they cared about politics and I knew they were keeping up with the news, so I asked them what was different. They said every week they were doing something tangible that reminded them they were not helpless. They still had the power to live out their values, to care for one another, to make change, even in small ways. And in the process, their broader advocacy efforts were invigorated. They were showing up at city council hearings consistently, providing testimonies, and committed to systemic change in a new and deeper way.

And it’s why I’ve been so inspired by the responses to the SNAP crisis and people’s eagerness to figure out how to directly and immediately feed their neighbors, through mutual aid networks and local food pantries, and free community refrigerators. I was so heartened by how many of you reached out to say, “What are we doing? How can we get food to people?”

Because this response, like the shower project, is a way of holding on to our power, agency, and moral compass in an increasingly authoritarian system. It’s part of how we keep us from slipping over into totalitarianism, where those in authority seek to govern both public and private life, including our thoughts and values. Direct service reminds us that we do not need the government’s permission to care for one another and our communities. When we do policy work, as important as it is, we are appealing to the government to deem people worthy of food and shelter and dignity. When we feed people ourselves, we say we already know who is worthy, each and every single child of God, and nothing those in power can do or say will change that. Authoritarian systems need us to feel powerless, helpless, and fearful. They want our attention and they don’t particularly care if that attention is good or bad as long as they have it. Each act of care and mercy we perform apart from that system is an act of resistance, a reclaiming of our attention, our power, our values and our humanity.

So, how are you called to live out your faith in material and tangible ways? This month we are giving half of our Sunday collection to the Salem Pantry and are collecting non-perishable food items for Beverly Bootstraps. I know some of you volunteer at the panty or with our LifeBridge dinners. May this not be the end of this work, but rather a blessed beginning. Let’s keep pushing for systems change but let’s also take literally the call to love God by feeding the hungry and providing shelter to the poor. May we engage in actions that connect us to, rather than distance us from the embodied suffering and embodied joy of our shared humanity. May we refuse to let oligarchs and unjust leaders define who is considered human and worthy of humane treatment. And may we remember our own power to care for our neighbors and communities. It is a holy thing to ease the suffering of another, even if just for a moment. May we make it an article of our faith and a cornerstone of our work for justice.

Amen.