MAKE YOUR OWN #*#* SANDWICHES

A while back I heard a story about a priest who worked in the inner city on the east coast. He spent a great deal of his time trying to feed the homeless and transients who found their way to his city because it was located on a major highway and had more services to offer for those in need. He would go to the local grocery story and purchase fixings for sandwiches for those in need. He made the sandwiches and fed the hungry.

A colleague heard of his ministry and promptly sent him a check for $250 to help pay for the sandwiches. The priest-recipient promptly put the check into an envelope and sent it back to the donor with the message: “Make you own #*#* sandwiches!”

The priest who sent the money thought he was doing something good. And the truth is, he was. The priest who received it wanted him to do something better. It is good to help someone who is helping others. It is better to find those in need and to help them ourselves. It is easy to write a check for someone else to do ministry. It is more difficult to do the ministry ourselves.

We can’t always do that, most certainly. Sometimes all we can do is send a check. Years ago a parish family went to South Africa to do missionary work at a school. It might have been good if we could have gone with them and together do even greater work. But we could not. What we could do and what we did was support them with our prayers and provide funds to ease their burdens.

But then, back then and even now, what we are asked to do is what we can do. The Gospel, our faith, commands us to feed the hungry and clothe the naked and visit those in prison. Sometimes we can do this ourselves and sometimes others have to do it for us because, for whatever reasons, we are not able to do so. But when we can, we must, which was the point of the priest’s returned check and note.

When I heard the story, I laughed to myself. But I also felt guilty, I had to ask myself if I am like the priest who made the sandwiches or the priest who sent the check. It is still a nagging question: what is the best thing I can do, should do? I can always do what is good but what is easier. But to do what is better and more difficult, there’s the rub. To rub elbows with the poor, the needy, whatever the need, with those less blessed, is what we are called to do. Our faith tells us we don’t really have a choice.

Yes, we do have a choice on how we are to help, not whether or not we will. The struggle will be within, as it always is: first, and most importantly, to avoid judging those who are called to serve; then to decide how to serve based on the gifts God has given us; and finally, to discern what is best to do. Do we buy the groceries and make the sandwiches and serve them to those in need or do we financially support those who are doing this ministry or both?