Bread for the Journey: Daily Bread

Matthew 7:7-12
The Fifth Sunday after Epiphany 2011

“Wherever the road is turning, there is bread for the journey.” “Pass the Word around: Loaves abound!” 420 loaves, to be exact. Take a look at last Sunday.



This week, hungry adults and children were fed with Bread for the Journey that you provided. I was in a meeting this week and remarked to someone that I was a little anxious that it had taken longer than we had anticipated to bring the bread to the Lord’s Table. “No, no!” he said. “It was wonderful! They just kept coming. They just kept coming.” On Monday, Loaves & Fishes delivered all 420 loaves to Project Host. That’s how Loaves & Fishes works: “mobile food rescue” to feed people who are hungry.

I suggested last week that our primary focus was changing in our consideration of the stewardship of our lives from our bread for our journey to other people’s bread for their journey. To move from our bread for our journey to others’ bread for their journey is not a socially driven shift in focus or an economically driven shift or a politically driven shift. It’s a theologically driven shift in the narrowest sense of the word “theological”: it’s a God-thing.

It’s right there in this morning’s gospel lesson, in Matthew 7:11: “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

Matthew 7:11 is a hard verse for some of us for two reasons. The first reason is that some of us resent it when Jesus or anyone else speaks of us human beings as being “evil.” As early as the fourth and fifth century, two roads diverged in the theological woods, and which one you choose to follow makes all the difference in what you believe about human beings. The great North African theologian Augustine popularized the doctrine of original sin that has led Christian theology down a road called “the total depravity of man.” That’s the “you-who-are-evil” path; and its followers always shout, “Hear! Hear!” when they hear it.

The other road in the theological woods of the fourth and fifth century was walked by a Celtic monk named Pelagius whose view of humankind and creation was very different. For example, Pelagius wrote, “There is no creature on Earth in whom God is absent. . . . When God pronounced that [God’s] creation was good, it was not only that [God’s] hand had fashioned every creature: it was that [God’s] breath had brought every creature to life.” That’s the road called “inherent divine goodness,” and if you are on the “inherent divine goodness” path, you are inclined to shout, “I object” when you read or hear expressions such as “you who are evil.”

Now, in fairness, I have to tell you that these are not two equivalent roads in the history of Christian doctrine. Thanks to the insistent theological politicking of the great Augustine, Pelagius was condemned as a heretic; and you might say that “North African theology” has dominated “Celtic theology” ever since. But many of us in this congregation are more Celtic than we might have thought, and so when we hear “you who are evil,” we at least squirm a bit, even if we don’t shout out, “I object!”

The second reason Matthew 7:11 is a hard verse for some of us is the masculine reference to “Father in heaven” who gives “good things to those who ask him.” Thousands of years before Augustine and Pelagius argued with each other over original sin and total depravity and inherent divine goodness, two other roads diverged in the theological woods. The earliest evidence we have for the human religious imagination includes both the masculine and the feminine in its understanding of the Numinous, Ultimate Reality, Divinity, God. In time, however, there was a fork in the road, and Mother God and Mother Earth were sent packing down a path of obscurity, while “Father knows best” became theology’s superhighway. This is especially so among us Protestants who banished even Mary “the mother of God” from the path we take.

Those among us who are troubled by the whole male domination thing squirm at least and sometimes shout, “I object!” when we come to assertions of the fatherhood of God, just as others of us squirm at least and sometimes shout, “I object!” when we come to assertions of the motherhood of God.

But none of us should permit the core teaching of Matthew 7:11 escape us because of our reactionary affirmations or reactionary objections on the divergent roads we walk. The core teaching of Jesus in this verse says that we human beings do indeed know enough about what is good and are indeed capable of doing what is good to feed children when they ask for food. We know enough not to give them a stone when they ask for bread.

Whether you are on the total depravity road or the inherent divine goodness path, whether you are on the Mother God trail or the Father God highway, you know enough about what is good and you are capable enough of doing what is good to feed children when they are hungry. All around us in society there are horror stories about individuals and families who have failed to exhibit the capacity to know and to do what is good, but those egregious cases do not absolve you and me of the responsibility we have to know and to do what is good.

The same Jesus who said, “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35) said, “I was hungry, and you fed me” (Matthew 25:35). The same Jesus who is “the bread of God” that “comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” (John 6:33) said, “feed my sheep” (John 21:17).

No member of this congregation in the twentieth century cut any wider a swath through Greenville and this church than Schaeffer B. Kendrick. An attorney, a faculty member at Furman, a proponent of civil rights, a person of faith, a purveyor of wisdom, and a raconteur of the highest order, Schaeffer Kendrick insisted nearly twenty years ago that this congregation should lead the way in efforts to alleviate hunger among children in our community.

It is because of Schaeffer Kendrick’s challenge that the large basket sits in the “Come Unto Me Window” in this Sanctuary, and it is because of Schaeffer Kendrick’s challenge that green plastic bins to collect non-perishable food items sit at the primary entrances to this facility. It’s not a stretch to say that “Mission Backpack” is the result of Schaeffer’s call to feed hungry children. If for twenty years we have been hearing what we know is good and what we are capable of doing, then wouldn’t it just make sense to take the next step in doing it. No more stones for hungry children. It’s bread instead, and Mission Backpack is a way to make it so.

When my grandfather was a boy growing up outside Ogden, Utah, he worked for a farmer he called “Uncle Henry.” “Uncle Henry” was no relation, but “Uncle” said a lot about how much my grandfather thought of him. One evening, my grandfather was with a group of older boys who decided to raid Uncle Henry’s watermelon patch under cover of darkness. My grandfather says he felt pang of guilt about the plan, working as he did for Uncle Henry; but he didn’t have the nerve not go along with the older, bigger boys.

The watermelon patch was behind the house, so once it was dark, the boys made their way down to the river, and from there they slipped across the fields up toward the house. They climbed over the fence, and each of them felt around until they found one of a size and shape they wanted. Back over the fence they went, but one of the boys tripped and fell with a thud that alerted Uncle Henry dogs that something or someone was out there. The boys took off running, but they were no match for the dogs, of course. But they didn’t need to be. All they needed to be was bigger and faster than my grandfather, and they were. When the lead dog reached him from behind, it knocked him down and snarled at him momentarily—until it recognized who he was, and then it stood over him licking him in the face while the other dogs milled around wagging their tails.

Moments later, a lantern appeared and there was Uncle Henry standing in its glow among the dogs. “What’s going on here?” he asked sternly. And then he saw my grandfather and a broken watermelon lying just out of his reach. Uncle Henry shook his head and said quietly, “Victor, all you had to do was ask.” “All you had to do was ask.”

They are asking. All around our community they are asking with their words and with their eyes and with the growling in their stomachs. They are praying in the same words we are: “Give us this day our daily bread.” And it does not matter one whit which road through a theological wood we are on. It does not matter a hill of beans what our social or economic or political convictions may be. On this one, we know what is good and we are capable of doing it. It's the next step in the Schaeffer Kendrick Challenge twenty years later.

So as the call goes out to pray and shop and pack and deliver and give for Mission Backpack, I hope you will take the next step in bringing bread for the journey, not our bread for our journey, but bread for the journey of others. After all, the same Jesus who said, “I am the bread of life,” said, “I was hungry, and you fed me.” The same Jesus who is “the bread of God that “comes down from heaven and gives life to the world” said, “feed my sheep.”

“Wherever the road is turning, there is bread for the journey.” “Pass the Word around: Loaves abound!”


This material is Copyrighted © 2011 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.

Beginning and New Beginning

John 1:1-18
Epiphany Sunday 2011

A couple days before Christmas, I was helping my eighteen-year-old son change a flat tire on his truck in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant. To tell you the truth, I was enjoying myself. I’m not a fan of flat tires, mind you; but once your kid leaves home for college, changing a flat tire together in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant actually feels like quality time together.

We weren’t quite finished when we were approached by a panhandler, a man in his late 30s or early 40s asking for a meal. He said he was embarrassed to ask for help, and he didn’t want money. But he said he was an out-of-work construction worker and he had four mouths to feed, and if I would buy him supper, he would sure be grateful to me. I wanted to say to him, “Can’t you see you’re interrupting a father-son thing here? Leave us alone.” Then I wondered, “Do I have a neon sign on my back that flashes, ‘Sucker!’?” I wanted to say, “Go scam somebody else, man. I don’t have time for this, and your supper is not in my budget.” Not to mention the fact that we were in the parking lot of a burger joint and he wanted dinner for four from the chicken place a half a mile away. Right.

But it was a couple days before Christmas, and he sure enough looked as though he was down on his luck, and he didn’t ask for cash, and I thought about what I would want somebody to do for my son if he was out of work in his 30s or 40s with four mouths to feed, and besides, it had only been ten days since I had preached a sermon about God being in the business of filling the hungry with good things (Luke 1:53; 6:21), so the next thing I knew, I was standing at the counter of that chicken place buying dinner to go for four people I still don’t know.

I don’t know whether I got scammed or whether I actually helped someone, but along the way the fellow I bought dinner for said this: “I’ll be glad when this year is over. I sure hope next year is better than this one was.” At one time or another in our lives, every one of us has a deep need to turn the calendar to a new year. Sooner or later, every one of us comes to a place in our lives when we need fresh start, a new beginning.

That’s what those New Year’s celebrations that some of us are still recovering from do. “Ringing out the old and ringing in the new” is our culture’s attempt at a ritual of new beginning. Those resolutions we make his time of year express the yearning for a fresh start that deep in the human soul we hunger and thirst for. We need new beginnings, and that’s what this morning’s gospel lesson from the Revised Common Lectionary is about. It’s about a new beginning.

John 1:1-18 begins by talking about the old beginning: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being.” Those verses are about creation, “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1). But the point of talking about the old beginning, about creation, in the first three verses of the gospel of John is to create a springboard for talking about a new beginning, about a new creation, about being born all over again “of God,” verse 13 says.

The gospel of Jesus Christ is about “new wine” and “a new garment” (Luke 5:36-37) and “a new covenant” (Luke 22:20) and “a new commandment” (John 13:34) and “new life” (Romans 7:6) and “a new creation” (2 Corinthians 5:17) and “a new self” (Ephesians 4:24). God knows every one of us needs a new self every now and then! And this morning’s gospel lesson is the springboard to a new self for every one of us, for every one of us “to be renewed,” as Ephesians 4:23 puts it, and “to clothe [ourselves] with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” (Ephesians 4:24).

If you only look at the surface of the New Year’s celebrations and New Year’s dissipations and New Year’s resolutions and New Year’s dissolutions, you might not recognize that underneath it all is a deep hunger and thirst in the human soul for a fresh start, a new beginning; but that’s what it is. And verse 12 in this morning’s gospel lesson provides the blueprint, the “new and living way,” as Hebrews 10:20 puts it, to that fresh start, that new beginning, that “new self” that God knows every one of us needs. Three words in John 1:12: receive, believe, become. Receive, believe, become.

Have you ever thought about why it is that “self-help” books are a billion-dollar business? It’s because self-help doesn’t work. If self-help worked, you could by one good self-help book and you’d be done. But have you noticed how those of us who buy self-help books can’t buy just one? It’s like that bag of potato chips: you can’t eat just one. You have to have another and another and another because self-help doesn’t work. Self-help can’t create a new self; it only nurtures the hunger and thirst of the deep need of the human soul for a new beginning. The new beginning that leads to a new self can only come when that hunger and thirst on the inside receive from the outside the nourishment we need. That’s not just a theological assertion; it’s a biological and spiritual reality.

Your body can feed on itself. In the short-term, your body can burn the fat you have stored up, and it can devour the muscle you have built in order to keep itself alive and functioning. But sooner or later, your body must receive nourishment from the outside—protein and carbohydrates and minerals and nutrients and fluids—that will restore the muscle and replenish the fat reserves that it can live on for only so long. Like body, like soul.

The words of Jesus in the gospel of John express this biological and spiritual and theological reality when he said, “those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (John 4:14). Jesus said, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John 6:35). How can that be? Never hungry? Never thirsty? We don’t know any condition of the human body or the human soul in this life in which hunger and thirst are permanently satisfied. But here’s the thing. It’s not one-and-done. It is the constant presence of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, “God with us,” feeding our hunger and satisfying our thirst, offering us again and again the bread of life and the cup of new life.

Now, look at the order of things John 1:12. Receive, believe, become. We don’t receive because we believe. Belief comes from receiving, not the other way around. Belief comes from receiving, not the other way around. That’s one of the things that the so-called “new atheists” refuse to understand about the Christian faith. The Christian faith does not begin with a prior assumption of belief. In fact, the Christian faith begins in the absence of belief. Christian faith germinates and takes root and sprouts and grows when someone recognizes that he or she has received something spiritual from the outside in that is every bit as real as the something nutritional that our bodies receive from the outside in. The Christian faith does not begin within us; it begins outside us in a mystery that we come to understand as God who acts on us and in us and with us so that we come to believe in God because of what we have received, not the other way around. Receive, and you will believe. Receive, believe, become.

When I was much younger, growing up Lutheran, I didn’t understand the old Baptist propensity for an annual revival. I understand it now. It was an expression of the deep human need for a new beginning. It was grounded in the recognition that sooner or later, every one of us comes to a place in our lives where we need fresh start, and an annual revival—like New Year’s and the arrival of spring and the first day of summer and the beginning of a new school year and the beginning of new church year at Advent and the celebration of the birth of Jesus in our world and in our lives—offered one more opportunity for a person and a community to claim a new beginning, a fresh start, for becoming who God has created and called them to be all over again. It’s a shame we urbane and sophisticated Baptists have lost that.

But we haven’t lost it entirely. Because every time we set this table we extend an invitation to receive, to believe, and to become. Not everyone comes here hungry and thirsty for this bread and this cup every time we serve it. That’s why communion doesn’t necessarily move you every time you receive it. We don’t do this every month for everyone. We do this every month for the sake of the one person among us who comes into this room hungering and thirsting to receive, to believe, and to become. The rest of us take the bread and pass it on, and we take the cup and pass it on, not for ourselves but for the sake of the one person in the room whose deep hunger and thirst has brought them this morning to this place and to this people where and among whom they can receive and believe and become who God has created and called them to be.

So let’s take the bread and pass it on; let’s take the cup and pass it on. Because someone among us has a deep need to turn the calendar to a brand new year. Someone among us—maybe you—is hungering and thirsting for a new beginning, a fresh start, to receive, to believe, to become.

Photo by Andrew Dallos, used under license by Creative Commons.

This material is Copyrighted © 2011 by Jeffrey S. Rogers. It may be copied or disseminated for non-commercial use, provided this notice is included. The author can be contacted at jeff.rogers@firstbaptistgreenville.com.