While serving lunch at a downtown soup ministry, I experienced again that sometimes the ones we hope to help are the very ones who teach us about grace.
The man stepped from the lunch line carrying his bagged meal and softly singing a hymn. The words were slightly out of order, but the melody was unmistakable.
“Amazing grace …” he murmured.
I smiled and asked, “Is that your favorite song?”
“Yeah—one of them,” he said with a grin. Then he asked, “What’s yours?”
“Well, that’s one of mine too,” I replied. “You’re singing ‘Amazing Grace,’ aren’t you?”
His grin widened into laughter. “Sure am! Want to sing it?”
And just like that, in the middle of the Soup Cellar lunch line at Washington Street United Methodist Church, we did.
Our harmony was questionable and the timing uneven, but the joy was unmistakable.
Earlier that morning, my wife Norma, daughter Sheri, and I had joined volunteers from Salem United Methodist Church to help prepare and serve lunch at the Soup Cellar ministry. Five days each week, the church, with the help of other congregations, provides a noon meal and a welcoming place for people struggling financially in downtown Columbia.
For forty-seven years, this ministry has opened its doors to neighbors whom Jesus once described as “the least of these,” and as the Methodist hymn writer Charles Wesley memorably called them, “God’s bosom friends.”
That day, 176 guests came through the line.
They represented a remarkable cross-section of humanity. Black and White. Men and women. Young adults, middle-aged workers, and elderly neighbors whose bodies bore the marks of long struggle.
Some arrived carrying backpacks and sleeping bags. Two came in wheelchairs. One man balanced carefully on crutches while another leaned heavily on a cane.
Some stood tall. Others slumped forward with resolved fatigue.
Most greeted the volunteers politely with thank-yous and “Bless you.” Others stared straight ahead or kept their eyes fixed on the floor.
Baggy pants, loose sweatshirts, and well-worn tennis shoes were common. One man arrived with colorful pajamas visible beneath his knee-length shorts. Another walked in wearing a coat, tie, and formal hat.
Shaggy hair, crew cuts, bald heads, clean-shaven faces, and full beards—all were represented.
Small smiles, sudden laughter, tired sighs, polite greetings, and distant stares hinted at lives most of us could only imagine. Each person carried a story. Most of those stories would remain untold that afternoon.
My assignment was simple: greet people and keep count as they moved through the serving line.
That’s when the singing started.
After we finished our first shaky rendition of “Amazing Grace,” the man started to walk away but quickly returned.
“Let’s sing some more,” he said.
So we did.
This time, we sang “Jesus Loves Me.” Once again, our timing wandered, and our harmony struggled to keep up, but neither of us seemed to mind.
Then he wandered toward the counter where volunteers were handing out lunches and began inviting the others to join in.
Soon he had taken on the role of choir director, motioning with his hands and encouraging the servers to sing. Laughter began to ripple through the room. The volunteers joined in. Others smiled and shook their heads.
For a brief moment, the serving line felt less like a cafeteria and more like a sanctuary.
Grace was everywhere.
Eventually, the line moved on, and the singing faded, as most fleeting moments do. The room returned to its steady rhythm of serving meals, exchanging greetings, and welcoming the next guest.
Later that afternoon, I drove back to my comfortable home in the Columbia suburbs—a world far removed from the daily hardships many of the Soup Cellar guests carry with them.
Yet something stayed with me.
I had arrived thinking I was coming to help prepare and serve lunch. Instead, in the middle of a crowded line, I had been reminded how easily grace can overturn our assumptions about who is giving and who is receiving.
Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when he said:
“Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matthew 25:40).
The line between serving and being served, or between the privileged and the marginalized, is not always as clear as we imagine.
Sometimes the ones we think we are helping are the very ones who put a song in our hearts.
And when that happens—even in a soup line—grace that breaks down barriers becomes amazingly clear.
“We’re going to talk about Jesus,” I said to a resident at Bethany as I was rounding up people for Bible study. Her quizzical stare indicated that she didn’t understand the invitation.
Shifting Margins 