Pat Menke, complete with her Holy Family red baseball cap, has held court in the St. Louis Park church kitchen for 30+ years. Surrounding her is a group of dedicated ladies (and a sprinkling of men!) who serve the funeral luncheons for all parishioner families who have experienced the loss of someone close.

On Wednesday mornings at Holy Family, following 8 AM Mass, there has been a gathering of long-time parishioners near the kitchen. Pat makes them all breakfast sandwiches that would rival a fine hotel’s wares. If there is a funeral on that morning, I know that I am to come early and partake- Pat will make extra sandwiches for the funeral directors. The hugs for the family (most Pat knows personally and for years) and the hugs for the funeral directors are given in equal dosages. There is a bond with Pat and the parishioners at Holy Family, an extension of pastoral ministry that she does not even realize she provides. And at the moment, she is not providing as church luncheons have been tabled for social distancing.

The Church or Kitchen Ladies are a staple of congregations from the Methodists to the Mormons. Ask any clergy where the nerve center of their campus is and they are likely to point down the hall to the kitchen. They are the quickest to volunteer and guaranteed to be the quickest with an opinion, whether we are talking new china or a new Clavinova! If you step in the kitchen and ask them the length in years of their memberships, you will get answers ranging from the 1950’ and 60’s to “I was baptized here!” and you are likely speaking to one in their 80’s.

They are fiercely loyal to their congregation, proud to tell you they are a member of the Ladies Circle of Lutheran Women and equally ready to complain a little, telling you that “is not the same since Pastor Jones left”. Pastor Jones may have left in 1967, they are still there, and still not quite sure about the replacement or even replacement of the replacement! They are equally loyal to their regular funeral directors. If you are clear across town, out of your territory, you will likely be quizzed as to why. Once when I explained I was there because the deceased was a relative of my wife’s family, my answer was dismissed as not good enough!

For 44 years I have watched the kitchens do their ministry. Countless children of an elderly parishioner will recognize a face in the kitchen, a dear friend of their mother and a mother of a former classmate in their high school years. Soon they are gathering their siblings together looking through the posters of Confirmands in the hallway. Sure enough, you will find the daughter of the deceased and the daughter of the kitchen lady standing side by side along with the 65 others that routinely matriculated through the 1970’s at so many suburban congregations. The connection to First Lutheran is the now frail body hugging and consoling, and telling them how much the church and the ladies will miss their friend. It is good to come home, especially when home holds the memories of family baptisms, weddings, church festivals and finally, commending a soul to God.

My first funeral home job was right after high school at the Johnson-Boman Funeral Home in Mankato. I was a city kid through and through. I had never been on a farm. The first fall I was there, going to school at Mankato State, my bosses took me to the St. John Lutheran Church in Good Thunder, MN. I was warned never to say or write St John’s, it was St. John Lutheran Church. The funeral luncheons were a grand affair, full chicken dinners with all the fixins. I was there on Christmas Eve morning to help with a funeral. While in the kitchen, one of the ladies asked me when I would be heading to Minneapolis that day to spend Christmas with the family. I explained that I had to stay and answer the phones overnight, and I would be able to go home for New Year’s, but Christmas was my holiday. She worried aloud how I was going to get a Christmas Eve meal and I assured her that I would be fine, I had food in the apartment.

I was in the apartment around 5:30 PM or so, when I heard the buzzer under the canopy door on the driveway. Sometimes when people would die suddenly enroute to the hospital by ambulance, the local service would bring them without notice, so I thought that to be the case. What other possible reason would bring one to a funeral home on Christmas Eve!

I went to the landing and saw one person standing under the canopy. It was my Good Thunder friend, in the cold, with a full tray covered by towels. The church lady had driven all the way in to Mankato, about 10 miles, to bring me a Christmas dinner. She told me that it bothered her all afternoon that an 18 year old had no Christmas Dinner! When I asked her about her own dinner and family, she told me that they were waiting for her at the farm. In classic church lady style, I was told to eat before it got cold. When I unwrapped my meal, it was all there and it was all warm. How she did that I am not sure.

Modern church administrators and pastors will often tell us that the numbers of dedicated church ladies continues to dwindle and they worry that soon only caterers will be available. That is likely true, but it never ceases to amaze me how we arrive to find a kitchen crew, a little older and not moving like they did 20 years ago, but still providing M & M’s (meals and ministry).

The funeral meal and reception is one of the most important parts of a funeral service. It is outreach for the parishes and comfort for the bereaved. The stories flow, memories are shared, friendships rekindled and every once in a while, relationships healed. At the moment, they are not happening at all, the church ladies are benched.

COVID has disrupted many things, and we hear mostly about the economic impacts. The ministry around the coffee pot and the plate of brownies in the church parlor is another casualty with ramifications and unmet grief resolution we may never know.