Neighbor2Neighbor Meal

A Resource Room is available at every N2N Meal, offering grocery and personal care items as available, physicians, and volunteer representatives from agencies such as Medicare, Legal Aid, and the Council on Aging.

Volunteers offer hospitality and presence to our guests. For more information, contact Christian in the Parish Office.

The Neighbor2Neighbor Meal began in 2015 as a joint proposal of the Social Justice Committee and the Parish Pastoral Council. That vision has grown into a ministry of communion, presence, and love in action. Beginning with those households registered with our parish food pantry, the invitation extended to those in our GED program, prison ministries, and beyond. Likewise, the volunteers involved in the Meal come from all aspects of our community, from youth in our sacramental preparation programs to whole families ministering together.

We begin as strangers coming together and becoming neighbors.  At our core, we are sharing a meal (not dispensing food), avoiding the deeply ingrained hot meal ministry mindset of ‘feeding the poor’, and guarding against barriers which set us apart into ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’.  We hope to discover that we are all part of the Body of Christ; each precious in God’s sight. This is a tall order, but we continue, over time, to identify together the ways in which we can neighbor each other better by listening and watching for opportunities for appropriate social advocacy built on trusting relationships.

We see our desire to "feed the poor" as the Lord’s way to surprise us into discovering that we are each poor in some way, and that we all have something to give and something we need to receive. The food is concealing the great fisherman’s hook. And lo, we are the fish caught by our Lord who has a Catch and Release program that sends us out into the world to be God’s body, to love our neighbor, and to be open to transformation ourselves.

Seen this way the food becomes a sacrament, an outward sign of God’s presence in the world. It will be prepared not only to be delicious, but to serve the Lord well. And we believe that it is the Lord’s purpose to use it to bring the people together, because it is only in coming together that we can use God’s gifts to build God’s Kingdom.

Food is used often in the stories Jesus told and the stories told about him. In his gospel, Luke tells us that “The Son of Man has come eating and drinking.” (Luke 7:34)

His first miracle was at the wedding feast at Cana. And at the Last Supper he asked us to remember him in the breaking of the bread.

We expect that the Lord will use the food as a lure to draw both those who serve and those who come to eat, and through our communal meal we will form relationships that honor the Great Commandment:

“You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart, with your whole soul, with your whole mind, with your whole strength. You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37–39)

That’s where the name Neighbor2Neighbor comes from.

We see the Lord as the host of our meal, and we as his guests and agents welcoming the other guests to join us in fellowship.  We're not there to eat and run but to stay, share our time, and tell our stories. And in the listening, the heart of hospitality, we will come to understand that we need each other.

Pope Francis calls us to this “Culture of Encounter,” the idea of reaching out, fostering dialogue and friendship, even outside the usual circles, making a special point of encountering people who are neglected and ignored by the wider world.

This is a counter-cultural approach to the traditional hot meal program, but as we have gone around to some of the other hot meal programs in the area, we have seen Christ in action not only where we expected to, in the people who are serving, but especially where the ‘church’ people are sitting at table with the guests. We have seen Christ in the interaction, hosts and guests and guests and guests. If we think of feeding the poor in only financial terms, we are misguided. People are hungry for much more than food: there is a great hunger for a kind word, a listening ear, simple companionship.

After his resurrection, Christ met two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus.  Even though their hearts burned, they didn’t recognize him when he interpreted the scriptures; they invited him to dinner and only at table, when he blessed and broke the bread, did they come to know him. We, too, can come to know the Lord better not only in the broken bread of the Eucharist, but in the bread we will break together at St Noel’s Neighbor2Neighbor Meal.

Sharon Waltermire, Leader

in memorium— Bill Waltermire