One should
not live on bread alone. There is always more than one way of reading a text. I
am pretty sure you’ve heard countless homilies on the First Temptation. I offer
another one.
Given the
reality of hunger and starvation under the Roman Empire, eating plays an
important theme in the Lukan landscape. Luke’s Jesus as a baby was laid on a
manger or a feeding trough. Jesus’ body, represented by bread, is broken and
shared among his disciples. 5000 eat together in the wilderness. Jesus spends
40 days in the wilderness, ate nothing, and is challenged to turn stone into
bread.
One does not
live on bread alone. A person does not live on bread alone. God did not create us to eat alone!
The empire
is built on greed, power, possession, property, and commodification. For the
empire, when one is hungry, one eats. When one is thirsty, one drinks. One
eventually eats and drinks even if one is not hungry or thirsty. One eventually
hoards. Like the Rich Fool. Like the rich young ruler. Like Zacchaeus until his
encounter with Jesus. Thus, the rich in Luke is told to sell everything they
have and give the proceeds to the poor.
Humanity was
not created to eat alone. Eating is a communal thing. The most sacred of our
rituals is a community breaking bread together. The most remembered ministry of
the early church was its open table. Remember that line from the prayer our
Lord taught us? Give US today our daily bread. Give US. It's not Give ME!
Our daily
bread conjures up manna from heaven. God gave manna to the Hebrews so that
everyone could have food one day at a time. Hoarding was not allowed. Each one
was expected to make sure that everyone had food for one day. Today. Tomorrow
is in God’s hands. Unfortunately, we don’t believe so. We play God and make
sure that we have food not just for tomorrow but for as long as we can. This is
why today, this day, 25,000 children will starve to death while there’s one country
in the world that has resources enough to feed 40 billion people!
Finally, lest
we forget and start thinking that we Christians are supposed to provide all the
bread that the world needs, let’s go back to scripture. The five barley loaves and
two fish that birthed the miracle that fed 5000 hungry people in the wilderness
did not come from Jesus. It came from one of the hungry. According to the Gospel of John, it came from
a poor, hungry child with five loaves and two fish. The bread that Jesus took,
blessed, broke, and shared during the last supper, a great thanksgiving that
eventually became our most cherished sacrament, did not come from Jesus.
No one
deserves to be alone. God did not create us to be alone. God did not create us
to live, to eat, to die alone. This is why we confess that in the fullness of
time God became one of us. Immanuel!
So that we will never, ever, be alone.
