How Bread Makes Us One

 How many different kinds of bread can you name?

There's White bread, whole wheat, rye and pumpernickel. There's tortillas, rolls, bagels, croissants, na'an, pita and 'pandesal' (a favorite Filipino bread)

So this idea of bread is so important in every culture, we have lots of different types of and words for 'bread'. 

This story of the feeding of the multitude is so important in our history and tradition that versions of it appears 6 times in our 4 gospels. It's so important to John, the evangelist, that scholars say he uses this instead of the Last Supper story to give example of the Eucharistic meal: that Jesus feeds us both literally and figuratively.

What is different in Johns version of this story is that Jesus is the one taking the initiative: he wants to satisfy their hunger, he distributes the food, giving us a reminder of God's immense generosity. Thousands of years later, we can listen to this story and see how it is a glimpse of what is to come at the Last Supper: Jesus takes bread, blesses it and shares it with those around him...whether that's 5000 "men" or the 12 disciples gathered around that table.

 What does this mean for us today?

Whenever I reflect and pray about Eucharist I am always reminded of a question I heard so many years ago, that really haunts me: Am I a changed person, a different person, after I've received Eucharist? And if I'm not...why not?

 In John's account of this story, Jesus is seen at the service of his people. He recognizes their hunger, their need and looks to satisfy them.

Just like in the foot washing, we see a humble Jesus stooping to offer food to the crowd and kneeling to gather up the leftovers so nothing is wasted. And even though the story counts "5000 men" were fed, we know from the other accounts there were women and children there as well, even if they weren't counted, or in the eyes of some, "didn't count".

 Everyone mattered to Jesus that day on that mountainside.

He didn't discriminate between the folks who were there to hear him and the folks who were there looking for miracles:  they were all hungry and they all needed to be taken care of.

 What about us? How do we treat folks? I know we like to think we are welcoming and inclusive, both in our own lives and as a parish.

Some days we're really good at this aren't we?

Other days maybe we falter a little. Sometimes it seems to take a lot of effort to go out of my way to welcome someone at Church who I don't know.

Sometimes I can choose to be a real wallflower.  But oh! When I do get out of my own way and greet someone else, it's like the sunshine coming out after the rainstorm! The other person is so thrilled (most times!) to have someone recognize their presence and is happy to enter into the moment!

 Some days I just challenge myself to get over it...like at the lemonade stand when it's so much easier to catch up with the folks I already know, and miss for not having seen them in a while, but it's more important to say hello to the folks who are brand new and looking for a church home!

 Sometimes I ask myself what I'm afraid of...sometimes it is that someone looks mentally unstable and I should move to a different subway car, but sometimes it's just that someone dresses differently from me, or is playing music I may not really want to hear...but they're not doing anything wrong, so I need to check my attitude.

 I learned a lesson from a young man whose name I'll never remember, but whose story lives with me forever. I was volunteering in a small, poor parish (St Mary of the Angels in Egleston Square, one of the best parishes EVER!)  in the worst neighborhood in the worst neighborhood in Boston in 1987-8. Working with the youth group a young black teen explained to me that I would never understand what it was like to walk into a store and have security follow me around because it was assumed that I was there to steal something, not to shop. He's right, I'll never understand that. But I remember it every time I start to make an assumption about someone who looks different from me, and I pause to assess what I'm thinking and why I'm thinking that. Then I try to move on in a spirit of peace.

 And sometimes, because of what I've been taught along the way, I might just offer an affirmation to someone who crosses my path during the day: "love what your t-shirt says" or "what a beautiful color that is!" Most folks appreciate a compliment I'm learning.

 The story of the feeding of the 5000 can be seen as a foreshadowing of the Last Supper and the gift of Jesus' very self to us. Eucharist means we are all one in Christ. Do you believe that? If you do believe this - do your actions give witness to what you say you believe?

 May God help us be bread for one another today.

 

What Did He Say?

 Don’t you wonder why this crowd in the synagogue didn’t recognize Jesus' wisdom as he preached in front of them? The fact that they had known him his whole life should have been an asset, not a hindrance to their seeing and understanding his gifts and talents. I guess they could only see the poor carpenter in front of them, not the many he had become. From their privileged place in the synagogue, they could only look down on him. You and I certainly would have recognized Jesus' authority in our midst right? We never look down on those who are different from us!

Isn’t it also true that most times we just don’t see what we don’t want to see?

We are an anti racist church….at least that’s what our banner outside our church doors proclaims.

I’m very proud of the fact that we have this brand new banner, a gift from our Catholic Anti Racist Parish Collaboration partners hanging at our entrance. I posted a photo on Facebook. Within the first hour after posting on social media, someone from a former parish asked me, in private, why we needed to hang this declaration of our anti racist status. 

This is a really good question, and it opens the door for at least the beginnings of a difficult but much overdue conversation in our church. And I do mean OUR church of St Francis de Sales. Yes, we need to have this conversation everywhere, including with our family and friends. Sadly though we need to have this conversation in our church too.

In one of our earlier Pop Up Theology nights, I believe it was Dr Jeanine Hill Fletcher who spoke with us about racism in the church institution. Now I have been a church nerd my whole life and I want to believe that as often as possible my church has been on the right side of history. It is amazing to me as I think about this, that I have been compartmentalizing things my whole life to make this fit work. 

From the Crusades to the Troubles in Ireland and our current, constant warring in the Middle East, the HOLY LAND for Pete’s sake!! We have used religion as a weapon to hurt one another. 

Over the last few years and especially after the death of our brother George Floyd, and our sister Breona Taylor, we CHURCH were forced to face the reality of our corporate sin. We have been, for a very long time, a very racist church. The example that Jeannine shared with us absolutely shook me to the core. It was a story her mother told her, one that her family lived through while she was a youngster in Chicago. 

It happened that there was a house for sale in the vicinity of their parish church, somewhere in Chicago I’m going to guess this was in the late 50’s early 60’s….

The parish community was adamant that they didn’t want a Black family to move into the neighborhood, and so it was agreed that the parish would buy the house in order to prevent a family of color from doing so. Not only does this make me so incredibly sad, it makes me angry, ashamed and wonder why my parish in Wantagh bought that house on the corner just outside their property in the 70’s. Did we really need that extra building, or was something else at play?

Once that door is open, once I start to question what we’ve done in the past...well, then the ball is just rolling downhill...it’s not just about how we treat persons of color in our churches…

Someone was telling a story last week and mentioned that young persons seem to realize that the CHURCH has difficulty dealing with human sexuality in a healthy way…? Well THAT'S not a newsflash! Women in our church and in our civilizations are treated as second class citizens because NO ONE in our UNIVERSE has learned how to deal with human sexuality in a healthy way! Issues of gender and attraction and how we should dress and who we should love are more confounding to us now than ever. The church doesn’t get a pass on this...if we say religion has love, true love as its cornerstone, than we need to preach the truth that LOVE IS LOVE….and that’s it!

Scripture doesn’t say WHAT Jesus was preaching about that day in the synagogue. As I contemplate this, I’ve come to the conclusion that he was most likely saying something the assembly didn’t want to hear, something like GOD LOVES ALL OF US NO MATTER HOW DIFFERENT WE ARE FROM ONE ANOTHER ...and that was something they just weren’t ready to accept, and especially not from the carpenter's son.

A friend of mine posted something on FB that makes racism a bit more understandable: 

And I quote:

Imagine a guy who hates disabled people builds a hotel, so he banns all disabled people, and builds it in such a way as to specifically make access difficult for them. Years later he sells the hotel to a new owner who has no problem with disabled people. So you have a hotel where the owner has no problem with the disabled, and neither do any of the staff...however due to the actions of the previous owner, the hotel is still build in such a way that it doesn’t accommodate them (no disabled parking, no ramps, no extra considerations, etc) So although the people currently running it are not actively discriminating, they are operating a system designed to discriminate, and need to fix it even if they aren’t to blame for it.

It’s the same with racism. The discriminatory practices of the past still have ramifications today, and even if we aren’t  to blame for them we must recognize them.

As I understand it, this is what ANTI racism means. We acknowledge that this sin has been a part of our broken history...in our world and in our church, and we pledge that now that we know this, we will work to ‘fix our hotel’ if you will, change the way we act in the world: towards persons of color, towards women, towards the LGBTQ+ community….towards any one who we perceive as different from ourselves.

Is this easy, NO. But who ever said living out our Christian values was easy.

This gospel ends with Jesus being disappointed, stunned by the lack of faith of his community. So much so that he couldn’t work many miracles in their midst.

I am proud of our banner outside. My prayer for us is that this banner will lead us into the uncomfortable conversations that will allow our God to be proud of the people we are struggling to be, our best versions of ourselves, and that with our cooperation and faith, God will be able to create room for so many miracles for our world.