Bread, Bread and More Bread

At Caritas, we get a lot of bread.  It is the single largest donation we get each week, enough to feed many families.

And again he said, ‘To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’ - Luke 13:20-21

In today's reading, Jesus challenges the status quo with a highly unusual image, that of a woman adding yeast to flour.

She is making bread, a common, everyday task.  Yet she is doing so on a grand scale, enough to make the amount of bread we get delivered in a month or more.  She is a one-woman professional bakery.

According to Fr. Dominic Garramone, the Bread Monk, from his bread blog, concerning the message of this story:

"It’s simple: The kingdom of heaven is like a woman who wants to do more than feed her family.  The kingdom announced by Jesus is like a woman who wants to feed the village.  The kingdom of God is like a woman who wants to feed the world.  The kingdom is for everybody." 

I like that interpretation, which he tells us is from “Preaching the Parables of Jesus” (Church, Winter 1992; pp. 19-24) by Dr. Richard Stern.

But if God's kingdom is for everyone, and God is seeking to feed the world, shouldn't we be making sure none of the bread goes to waste, that everyone gets some?

This is the challenge I believe Jesus is giving to his disciples, and through them, to us.  We can't let the bread go stale.  We need to be out there distributing it.

I have seen the challenge of too much bread first hand, in our simple example of receiving donations.  I never know how much I am going to get, so I need to be ready and able to reach more people in need when I get too much for those who come.

I also need to find a way to feed all who come when I get too little.  That's the story of the loaves and fishes feeding the five thousand.

Our challenge, I think, as God's children and agents on earth is to be resourceful, to find ways to make ends meet, whether those ends overwhelm or disappoint us.

There are so many lessons that play out in our daily encounter with those in need, from barely having enough to having a need to build barns for storage.

Through it all, I need to remember the purpose of our efforts, to feed the world with God's love and grace.  So, if today brings too much bread, you will see me out there looking for more to feed.

And if today brings many more than I had planned to the table, I will be asking for your help.

We all need to get involved in this one.  It's what He wants us to do.

More to come...


Note: This Saturday, the Police here in Port Chester are holding the annual food drive at Costco.  Why not take some time to go down and buy a few things to contribute to the cause?