“Christian community at the
table also signifies obligation. It is our
daily bread that we eat, not my own. We share our bread. Thus we are firmly
bound to one another not only in the Spirit, but with our whole physical being.
The one bread that is given to our
community unites us in a firm covenant.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, Fortress Press, 2015
(Reader’s Edition), page 48.
How has it happened that, more
often than not, we eat alone? How has it happened that members of families
often eat alone? How has it happened that even when people are physically
together that they often eat alone – not sharing hearts and minds with one
another but rather watching video or texting or speaking on the phone? A line
from a favorite prayer says, “The enemy is within the citadel, come Thou in
almighty power and cast him out…”
We cannot be a city set on a
hill unless we are a people, and to be a people we must share life together; it is not sufficient that
we subscribe to the same worldview, or gather in the same venue once or twice a
week – after all, we gather with coworkers five times a week but that does not
make us a true people and it does not make us family. We gather publically and
then we recede into our isolated lives with our isolated thoughts and our
isolated needs and our unused and undeveloped gifts. My bread is my bread and
your bread, if you have any bread, is your bread – let us not get our bread
confused.
While it is true that Paul did
counsel the Corinthians to eat at home before they gathered (1 Corinthians
11:17 – 34), he did this as an immediate response to an immediate problem – the
Corinthians were not gathering to share bread, when they gathered they had the
attitude that “my bread is my bread and if you don’t have bread you can be
hungry.” Paul’s extended teaching on sharing the material things of this world
in 2 Corinthians Chapters 8 – 9 portrays a way of life in Christ that is a life
of sharing with one another so that no person goes hungry. What Paul, in 2
Corinthians, expects the Corinthians to do in their relationships with
Christians outside Corinth, he certainly expects them to do at home in Corinth.
2 Corinthians Chapters 8 – 9 is a threat to our materialistic way of life in
the church, at least in the West, perhaps we had better not preach those
chapters – too dangerous – better not question our use of time or money or
resources – after all, they are “mine, mine, mine!”.
Bonhoeffer continues (page
48), “As long as we eat our bread together, we will have enough even with the
smallest amount. Hunger begins only when people desire to keep their own bread
for themselves. That is a strange divine law.”
Yes, perhaps it is a “strange
divine law,” a law that goes against our desire for self-preservation – but isn’t
the way of the Cross the way of denying ourselves and following Jesus? And isn’t
the way of following Jesus the way of loving others as ourselves and laying
down our lives for our brothers and sisters? Can we not trust God to feed us as
we feed others? Can we not trust Jesus to be at table with us all and to care
for us?
Life
together is a way of life, it is the way of Jesus Christ – He gave
His life for us…surely we can give our lives for one another…surely we can live
our lives with one another…surely we can break bread together.
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