Please Pass The Bread

In this beautifully illustrated fold-out book by
Michael Rosen everyone in the world is invited
to share a meal around one bountiful table.

"Once the demands of necessity and propriety have been met, the rest that one owns belongs to the poor.”

- Pope Leo III

In families, the world's oldest and most enduring human institutions, it's assumed that everyone works to provide for the care and wellbeing of fellow family members, regardless of their age, ability or circumstances.

In God's beloved worldwide family, it should be no different. Each of us is responsible to love and offer aid as we are able, even to our most distant global cousins. 

I love the opening lines of Michael J. Rosen's book, The Greatest Table:

The greatest table isn't set 

inside a single home

oh no, it spans the continents,

and no one eats alone.

The table in your dining room,

a picnic bench, a tray,

a party tent, your beach blanket,

a small sidewalk cafe...

each one is just another leaf

in one uncommon table,

where all the guests have cooked or baked

or brought what they are able,

where all of us can help ourselves,

and all of us are fed, 

and no one has been turned away

with just a crust of bread.

Most of us, including myself, fail to see our hungry and homeless world neighbors as our beloved kin, and not only cling to our surplus possessions, but continue to add ever more of them. 

When the crowds inquired of John the Baptist what they needed to do to gain forgiveness of sins, he responded with, "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none, and whoever has food must do likewise."  And when Jesus sought to feed a crowd of hungry people in Mark's gospel because "he had compassion on them," he asked his followers to share what they had, a total of seven loaves of bread. Their offering what they had resulted in a miraculous feeding of 4000 people, with 7 baskets of leftovers.

The Didache, a set of instructions for new believers compiled around 90 CE, states: “Share all things with your brother (and sister), and do not say that they are your own.”

Anabaptist martyr Anna Janzs, in a message left for her young son, wrote, "Love your neighbor. Deal with an open, warm heart your bread to the hungry, clothe the naked, and do not tolerate having two of anything, because there are always those who are in need."

I must confess we have not only two of too many things at our house and in our bank account, but a surplus of stuff we'll never need or use.

What if those surplus items could be converted into food for hungry children in our gobal family? What if our expensive vacations pay for shelter for a refugee family, our excess apparel and jewelry become medical care for a leprosy patient, or our second car an education for a deserving young person?

Let's take a serious inventory of things we could well do without, then go about joyfully sharing our wealth with other members of our world family.