Can You See God in the Faces of the Hungry?
But in the generous love expressed by those who see the hungry and act to help them, God is also doing something. Hunger is a scandal, but not one that leaves us without hope. The greater scandal would be if it did not scandalize us. The greater crisis would be if we followers of Christ did not see it as a crisis. But the fact is, at both local and international levels, the sight of hungry human beings still moves the heart of Christians to compassion and generosity.
Our response to what God is doing in chronic world hunger is guided by Catholic social teaching, which outlines a threefold strategy for combating hunger: immediate emergency food relief for those suffering from malnutrition and starvation; long-term solutions that enable people to become self-sufficient in food production, thereby eliminating food insecurity and restoring hope; conversion of the world economy to eliminate the structural causes that give rise to hunger. These three strategies are guided by more basic principles: respect for the dignity of the human person; the universal destiny of the goods of creation, which teaches that all people have an equal right to benefit from the goods the earth produces; and our Christian obligation to effectively practice solidarity in subsidiarity, that is, giving aid to the needy and respecting that they know best what needs to be done with it. These, in turn, flow directly from the teachings of Christ.
We should not forget that Jesus also knew hunger. Luke 4:1–13 recounts how following his baptism, Jesus is led into the desert to fast. His hunger makes him vulnerable to three temptations. His response to each of these, and how each answer is lived out in the rest of the Gospel, provides us with our own Christian “Rule of Threes,” outlining the attitude with which we are to live the Church’s social doctrine with respect to hunger:
One does not live by bread alone. It is not enough to give food to the hungry; we must also give them hope and love. It is too easy to turn food into stones by giving only to fill the stomach and in the giving strip a person’s dignity, independence, and the ability to grow and develop as a full human person. Jesus is moved by compassion and feeds the thousands, but only after telling his disciples to give them something to eat. He multiplies the sharing of his followers. Jesus also reminds them that food alone is not enough to be fully human and fully alive. He himself becomes the bread that will nourish them and transform their hearts of stone into bread for one another in communion. It isn’t enough to give things to people; we must also give them our love. The bread of communion is Christian solidarity.
You shall worship the Lord your God. Him alone shall you serve. The pursuit of power, wealth, comfort, admiration, and fame can blind us to the activity of God the Father. It is far too easy to see care for the poor and hungry as just another business venture, to speak of food relief as an investment that will eventually benefit those engaging in it. Though self-interest is a powerful motivator and effective in convincing people to give, it is not a worthy motivator for the follower of Christ. Some seek an unholy grail of hunger relief, a technological and economic solution whereby we can solve the problem without its requiring of us any personal cost. This is the very perversion of the Christian spirit of worship. Feeding the hungry is an act of worship. Worship of God requires sacrifice. Christian worship requires the sacrifice of love. The Eucharist we celebrate is a sacrificial meal. Our charity must be authentic love for the one who hungers because God is present in that person.
You shall not put the Lord, your God, to the test. God is present and active in the world around us. We must not fall prey to those who wish to make God into a magic remedy for all human problems and then deny God’s existence when the magic doesn’t happen. The problem of world hunger cannot be solved by prayer alone or by the naive notion that God will do all of the fixing without our cooperation. Nor can it be solved by presuming there is nothing of God in world hunger and that we can solve the problem by our own efforts. God chooses to act in and through people, and the presence and power of God is most visible when we do God’s will and live faithfully Christ’s teaching.
World hunger is primarily a moral problem, but it is also an opportunity to serve God. We pray that God will give all of us our daily bread. And we see that prayer answered again and again in those who practice its plea. But not all prayer results in manna falling from the heavens; we must do our part. Justice and mercy meet when the hungry are fed, when their rights are respected, and when their dignity is preserved. Feeding the hungry and working to eliminate hunger from our world is caritas in the true sense, divine love expressed in a tangible and real way. It is a corporal work (an incarnation) of divine mercy. It is sacrificial love, a sharing of who we are with others. It is the essence of the very communion that defines our Christianity.
Father Stephen Rehrauer is extraordinary professor of moral theology at the Accademia Alfonsiana and invited professor at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas and the College of the Venerable Bede in Rome, Italy. He is the author of? Theology for Today’s Catholic: A Handbook (Liguori Publications).