“Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness . . .” The crowd wanted Jesus to make bread in a miraculous way once more. The last time he had done that, they wanted to set him up as a king.
“Would you like some bread, sir?” The young waiter threw the question out as an afterthought.
“Sure.” I was between meetings and had stopped at a large sandwich shop in a mall for a quick lunch. The waiter brought a round wooden platter with warm bread and a small bowl of olive oil in the center to keep me occupied before the kitchen delivered my order.
How many thousands of years of accumulated experience brought me some bread and oil? And how many hands worked on this loaf, this platter, this bowl, this oil, these spices in the oil? Who planted the wheat and harvested it? Who pressed the olives? Who worked the lathe to shape the bowl? What were the aspirations of the “geek” who worked out the credit card system I would use to pay the tab? And what contributions to everyday life have the fellow diners at their tables, a sundry lot indeed, made—the young ladies across from me in their light blue team T-shirts? The silent old man with his cane and the three talkative ladies with him? The young couple in their stylishly torn Saturday array?
The background music suddenly blares out of control. The chatter stops. Then everyone laughs in amusement, knowing that somewhere some unseen clerk bumped against an overly-elaborate sound system and was frantically turning one or more knobs counter-clockwise.
Somebody in a gated community is making a great deal of money from all this, proud of an accomplished business career. That sense of accomplishment fences off people who work fields, operate olive presses, bake bread, take orders for turkey breast sandwiches.
“Amen. Amen I say to you, Moses did not give you bread from heaven….” No human alone gave me the platter of warm bread with the little bowl of oil. Without the thousands of years’ experience, the farmer, and even the diners who comprised a market for the unknown entrepreneur to exploit, I would have never had it to enjoy. This is all a prefiguring: “… but my Father will give you genuine bread from heaven. Indeed, the bread of God is that coming down from heaven and giving life to the world.” © 2015 Anthony J. Blasi
