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BY MELISSA LAUBER
UMCONNECTION STAFF

Be careful what you say yes to, warn the people of Capitol Hill UMC in Washington D.C., where a request for a cup of coffee on a winter's morning led to several hundred breakfasts being served, an oddly remarkable weekly Bible study and the creation of a unique spiritual community, which includes affluent and unhoused people sharing their lives together.

On a typical Wednesday morning, Rob Farley and Dave Kennedy are in the kitchen fixing breakfast for 30 or more before they head off to work. Walter and Shine, who come for breakfast, take care of making the coffee and setting tables in the church parlor.

"It's breakfast and the Word, but it's also what the Kingdom of God is all about," said Margot Eyring, as she makes French toast. "It's real community. This is the Kingdom of God at work."

The church intentionally chose to serve the meal in the parlor after one of their guests suggested the setting gave him a place to relax, eat and place himself in the proper frame of mind to face the day.

There is no "soup kitchen" feel, as the community wakes up together, sharing a Scripture reading from the Adventure Devotional and checking in with how one another is doing.

It was the breakfast community that saw the church's pastor, the Rev. Alisa Lasater, through the birth of her first child, making daily inquiries into her wellbeing.

Lasater and the Capitol Hill members also care for their guests, asking them to check in, on a scale of 1-10, with how they feel. Joys are shared. Concerns addressed.

Lasater shares the teaching of the weekly Bible study with the Revs. Herbert Brisbon and Sam Marullo, but misses the community when she's not there. They broaden her world.

"They're invested in me in ways that matter," she said. "We're growing together, we're learning together. God has made each of us with a lot to teach. If we stay in fixed roles of servant and the one being served, we're not learning according to God's design."

Over the years, working with the unhoused, Lasater said she has learned about honesty. "The guys know when you're walking around an issue and when you're hitting it straight on," she said. "They need you to talk straight. We all need that. Jesus talked straight."

Lasater said she's also been taught a lot about sharing, living in the present, and the sovereignty of God. "I sometimes get caught up in free will, and I can do this or I can do that," she said. "But some of them don't know where their next meal is coming from. They rely on God to provide it."

For her part, she said, she believes the church teaches about the constancy of God. "We're here every weekday morning and on Sundays at the Sunday café. This allows people to have good and bad days and encounter each other in meaningful ways."

Lasater often teaches on the same passages of Scripture to those who have houses and those who don't. She's often moved at how the same lessons speak differently to the two groups. For example, when considering the story of Joseph and forgiveness, the more affluent people at Capitol Hill share about forgiving political rivals who have sidetracked important agendas, while those who have less economically asked about how one forgives a person who tries to set you on fire in the night.

The pastor marvels at how God is present in the lives of both groups. "God has made us all with a lot to teach," she said. "If we stay in fixed roles, we're not learning according to God's design."

Many of the unhoused, who attend breakfast and Bible study each Wednesday, have come to see Capitol Hill as their church. It's a place they know they belong.

While Lasater and Farley are quick to set helpful boundaries, they're also insistent on seeing the Christ in each person they encounter.

At first, Farley said, he didn't know any better. He was a new Christian and thought Matthew 25 meant you should care for those in need. That's just how he read it.

The story of how the breakfasts started stemmed from that. A few years ago, neighbors were upset about people sleeping on the church's porch.

Farley said he volunteered to give them a wake-up call, and swung past with his dog on his morning jog.

One cold morning, Walter asked for a cup of coffee. Farley shook his head no, but his faith compelled him and he didn't feel comfortable saying no.

A tradition of sorts started. With a key to the church, Farley and those who slept outside the church shared numerous cups of coffee on cold winter mornings. During Holy Week that spring, Lester Green, who rode buses all night, showed up with five bags of groceries, including several boxes of cereal he had bought with his disability check.

Lester, Rod and a few of the men shared dinner together on Maundy Thursday, and ate the cereal the next day for breakfast. A tradition was born, Lasater recalls.

"Either you turn your head or you engage," Farley told the Washington Post in a story on the breakfast community.

He engaged and so did the congregation of Capitol Hill UMC.

"Who can't say yes to just one person," said Eyring. "That's how community can start."

"It's about calling people by name, about seeing people for who they are, in their entirety, as children of God," said Lasater. "There's a thread that binds us. We're in this together."