Bread, Bread, and More Bread

Bread satisfies us in a way that nothing else can.  It is true that “man cannot live by bread alone,” but it’s also true that bread can fill an empty stomach and fuel our bodies for action.

Jesus understood the power of bread.  He also understood Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 1900 years before Maslow did.  For Jesus and the people of his social class, bread was a matter of life or death. When a person is hungry, he’s not looking for a sermon.  He’s looking for food, and nothing else matters.  Jesus got that.  Let’s look at three examples.

Feeding the Multitudes (Mt. 14:13-21). Jesus could draw a crowd. On one occasion, when the gathered multitudes had grown hungry, Jesus knew better than to let them stay that way.  A hungry crowd can become an angry mob, no matter how great the headliner is.  He didn’t dispatch his road crew to provide assurances.  He found a way to meet their need for food with loaves, fish, and generosity.

The Upper Room (Lk. 22:17-20). Once fed, Jesus could use bread to make his point.  The bread could be a stand-in for something greater.  Think about Jesus’ retirement dinner in the Upper Room.  The menu was set—it was Passover, after all.  Flatbread, bitter herbs, and wine were on the menu—nothing extraordinary. 

Yet, Jesus seized the moment and used those essential elements of bread and wine to make a bigger point.  Their physical hunger having been met, Jesus drew them deeper into his story, their story, our story.  “This bread and wine about which you never give a second thought?  From now on, whenever you sit down together and do this mundane, routine, every-day thing…just think about what’s going to happen to me tomorrow. Don’t forget it.  And don’t forget why.”

Emmaus (Lk. 24:30-32). Then Nouwen opens up yet another Jesus story with bread as a central plot element:  having arrived in Emmaus, Christ breaks bread at the table and—voila!—the two travelers recognize him for who he really is.  In an instant, in an act so unremarkable…so seemingly insignificant…so like a thousand thought-less actions every day…they were transformed.

These three “bread stories” seem to illustrate two important lessons that Jesus is teaching about himself and laying out as examples and expectations for us:

Lesson #1: Meet people at the place of their need.  Don’t give people a lecture when they need food.  Don’t pass judgment when what someone needs is healing.  Give people what they need, not what you have a need to give.

Lesson #2:  We’re not built to be alone.  These stories tell us that it isn’t just about food filling our physical need.  The food was always shared in the context of a community…sometimes large, sometimes small. But Jesus seems to recognize that we need each other.  As much as we like to think of ourselves as independent and self-sufficient, we are a social species.  We want companionship.  We need a witness to our lives.  With technology, found a way to connect despite everything the virus has done to set us apart.  So, let’s ask ourselves: How are we reaching out to others, even in this time when connecting is so difficult?

Through his examples, Jesus taught that “The Way” was more than a warm, fuzzy feeling or a mountaintop experience—it was loving action to meet people’s needs without question or judgment.  And in ordinary daily experiences like the breaking of bread, Jesus shows himself as the Christ, continuously reborn in a world with many great needs.

--Scott Elliff