Born in the House of Bread

Posted on April 23, 2021 by a43dcb5_wp

It seems that most cultures and civilizations have some easily grown and processed starch as the staple in their diet. Think manioc, taro root, rice, corn or other grains, squash, potatoes, beans… These highly starchy foods supply caloric fuel that enables laborers (and some athletes) to endure arduous exercise for many hours on end. For many, including our biblical ancestors, the local basic element of their diet was (and is) bread.

Bread has been referred to as the staff of life. It supports and sustains us, so we can go about our days with sufficient energy to accomplish what we need and/or want to do. Bread is so life-centric that English slang uses it, along with dough, to mean money.

Jesus, further along in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John (John 6:32-35), refers to himself as bread, the bread of life, and the living bread come down from heaven. He is the essential nutrient for the fullness of life that Abba God desires for all. His body, his very being, given over in free, total love, all the way to death, is the food we need to become fully alive. Jesus is our currency for the long and winding journey of life leading to Life.

And where does Jesus begin among us? Tradition says that he was born in Bethlehem, which can be translated, “house of bread.” Maybe it’s not too much of a stretch to say that Bethlehem is the birth home of the life-giving Bread from God.

Reclining in the Mountain Grass

Posted on April 17, 2021 by a43dcb5_wp

It’s interesting. For years I have been reading and reflecting on certain texts of the Bible and then suddenly, one day, something that I had never noticed or paid attention to before seems to jump off the page. What a gift and surprise!

Take the beginning of the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John – a familiar recounting of a superabundance of bread and fish through the presence and action of Jesus (John 6:1-13). A large crowd, who had seen Jesus healing and freeing people from the grip of evil, follow him up the side of a mountain not far from the Sea of Galilee. Philip approaches Jesus with a logistical problem. What to do with a mass of hungry humanity when the community treasury is low?

Andrew to the rescue? He brings a lad to Jesus with five loaves of barley bread and two fish – locally sourced. What is this to a huge crowd with whetted appetites?

Jesus asks his disciples to have the people recline on the lush carpet of grass. Recline! That’s a word to indicate the posture at a feast or a banquet – not fast food or a family picnic. Jesus takes on the role of gracious host. He provides the impetus through which all the people are able to eat, be satisfied and there is a basket of leftovers collected for each of the 12 tribes of Israel.

It seems that with Jesus there will be a festive gathering, even when the fare is as simple as barley loaves (the bread the poor could afford) and fish (abundant enough to be the basis for a major regional industry). Jesus invites us to turn our ordinary, simple meals into banquets by sharing what we have with those around us and by being aware that Jesus is present with us. Lean back and savor these moments!

A Voice from 2800 Years Ago

Posted on April 8, 2021 by a43dcb5_wp

During the Eighth Century BC Israel was filled with prophetic warnings and instruction. People were taking advantage of one another, especially of those with little power, wealth or status. They were ignoring their obligations to God, while enriching themselves. They believed that their strength was sufficient to save them from any danger. (Sound familiar?) The people’s infidelity to the God, who had bonded with them in a covenant, was opening them to invasion, destruction and being carried off into exile by Assyria – the big, bad, pagan empire of the time. The last of this series of prophets to passionately cry out and call for conversion was Micah.

Micah loved God and was deeply concerned with his people. He summed up what God required of them in three interrelated phrases: Act with justice; love fidelity; walk humbly with your God (Micah 6:8). In other words, “Get your act together. Turn your life around before it’s too late!”

We tend to view justice in terms of a balancing act – weighing out deeds and consequences in some kind of mathematical formula (e. g. an eye for any eye and a tooth for a tooth). We think that it is very fair if someone who does something wrong or harmful gets a properly measured punishment. We are into payback; not justice. Justice in Scripture is infinitely different (literally).

We are to treat others as we would like to be treated. But there’s more! We are called to treat others as God treats us. Whoa! God, an equal opportunity lover, makes the sun to shine and the life-giving rain to fall on good and bad alike; on wicked, sinful unbelievers the same as on those of us who think of ourselves as the righteous ones. That’s unfair! That’s the God that Jesus reveals to us – the only true God there is. Deal with it. God forgives everybody for everything. God works for the good of all. We are to act this way.

Love, in the understanding of the people of God, meant to choose to be wholeheartedly for someone or something. The word for fidelity in Hebrew, hesed, is at the heart of the covenant. It captured how God was for the people: faithful, kind, loving, good, compassionate, tender. To love fidelity is to put our whole self, holding nothing back, into infusing all our relationships (God, others, self) with faithfulness, kindness, love, compassion and tenderness.

Adam and Eve, as pictured in the first chapters of the book of Genesis, were accustomed to walk with God in their garden paradise in the cool of the evening. Their intimacy with God was shattered when they decided that they preferred to be like God rather than to simply savor being with God. They cut themselves off through their arrogance. To walk humbly with God has two main facets: to walk in step with God, not trying to get ahead of God nor falling behind; and to walk humbly, certain that we are loved as we are. We are wonderful, amazing, precious, but we are not gods. Humility is about holding in dynamic tension our littleness and our awesomeness.

Micah invites us to reorder our lives in justice, fidelity, love and humility. God will supply the grace-energy needed to live in this way. That’s a promise.