SNAP and the Saints
In August, I shared about the experience of running into my Grandma Luz while volunteering at the foodbank. She’s on my mind again as we expect two things this weekend: the celebration of All Saints Sunday and the lapse of SNAP benefits.
42 million people rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, mostly seniors, families with children, and people with disabilities. Each month, these households ration the benefits loaded onto EBT cards – an average of $187 a month – to stretch what they have to survive to the end of the month. For many of these households, weeks 3 and 4 mean increasingly sparse meals and more time waiting in line at the foodbank.
On November 1, these EBT cards will not be refilled: another casualty of the government shutdown. Since its inception during the Great Depression, the country’s largest anti-hunger program has not been disrupted in this way. [1]
As November 1 looms with no solution in place, I think of Grandma Luz in line at the food bank. I think of the EBT card that my mom carefully stored in her purse. I think of the already increasingly empty Lift UP Pantry shelves. I think of 42 million people who are already struggling to nourish their sacred, God-given bodies day to day, and who will now struggle even more.
And I am heartbroken.
This problem of our own manufacturing will mean that the most vulnerable among us will not have enough to eat next week.
Food should be the easiest part. Our country has massive amounts of food: there is no lack of variety or volume. Some of the other issues we grapple with like mental health, housing insecurity, addiction, healthcare access; these issues have more nuance and runway. But food? Making sure no beloved one is hungry? We know how to feed people while we work on equitable wages, workers and disability rights, and all those nuanced problems that contribute to a household’s instability.
We know how to do this, and yet 42 million of our own families, our own neighbors, are facing hunger this week.
It is heartbreaking for us- and it breaks the hearts of the saints, too. The saints of God are those who have fed and fought for the hungry. They are also those who themselves were fed, who themselves were fought for. Grandma Luz is a saint, but not because she was perfect or miraculous by any means.
When we say ‘saints,’ we’re not talking about the superhuman or perfect faith of a select few. Rather, we are talking about God’s ability and choice to use flawed human beings to do divine things. Through our ordinary acts of love, the vision of heaven is brought closer to earth.[2]
As we prepare for All Saints Sunday, I can’t help but to imagine that great communion of saints looking upon our communities and urging us on toward that vision of heaven, who are as frustrated as we are that this is how our country is shaped, and who summon our resolution to do those ordinary acts of love that are needed in this moment.
I do not think that the generosity of communities of faith and food banks are the solution to food inequity in our country and world. And, this is the tool we have today.
God’s vision is a world where none will hunger and none will thirst.
If you or a neighbor relies on SNAP benefits, please contact Pastor Rachel or I directly for assistance with emergency funds. Let us be present for you with this ordinary act of love.
If your heart is broken like mine:
The Oregon Food Bank is asking Oregonians to petition federal leaders to act on a solution to ensure that these 42 million of our neighbors can access their food benefits while the government is shut down. You can use their form to do this. This is an ordinary act of love that you can take regardless of your resources.
Our cash donation portal for the Lift UP Preston Food Pantry is active all year round: fumcpdx.org/give. This is the most effective way to ensure that the most people receive the most food.
We also collect non-perishable donations (shelf-stable milk, nut butter, canned soup, and canned protein) for Lift UP all year round; donation bins are in the Narthex. You don’t have to collect canned goods by yourself: gather your coworkers or friends to host your own food drive or competition! If our offices are closed when you want to bring your donation, drop it off at Bold Coffee and Books on the other side of Collins Circle.
Lift UP needs volunteers for Thursday/Saturday AM food rescue and redistribution efforts, as well as hospitality and intake volunteers at Preston’s Pantry (operating at First Church). Contact Julie Ramos at Lift UP.
We do this for all the saints on whose faithful shoulders we stand, and for all of God’s beloved who are created not to be hungry but to be fed. This Sunday you will be invited to light a candle in honor of a loved one who has joined the cloud of witnesses. Today you are invited to do an ordinary act of love that honors the saints: those who were fed, those who did the feeding, and all who cheer us on toward God’s vision of earth.
Let us journey there together.
In lament and hope,
Pastor Karyn
[1] https://www.npr.org/2025/10/28/g-s1-95189/snap-food-stamps-government-shutdown-november
[2] Barbara Brown Taylor