Thanksgiving Eve 2019

 Thanksgiving Eve 2019  

When I was growing up, my grandma always baked bread.  I remember the smell of her house as the loaves were rising, and then baking.  I remember her kneading the dough, pushing it and folding it.  And I remember eating the bread together, warm from the oven.  One of my very earliest memories was standing in her kitchen looking up to her kitchen island and seeing the ends of the bread peeking over.  I remember reaching up to see if I could get one of those loaves.

                Starting about when I was 4 or 5, my grandma would hand me some dough to work.  I stood next to her on a stool at that same island and kneaded that bread right next to her.  Then we would put it in my own little loaf pan to rise next to the big loaves.  My grandma died in 2006 and the only cookbook of hers that I have is an old church ladies cookbook.  There is no trace of her bread recipe, but I can’t help but think of her every time I make bread.  I don’t do it the same way she did.  I don’t use white flour, and I like to put a little ground flax in mine.  I have a bread machine that does all the kneading for me.  But when the cycle in the bread machine is done, I put it in my now full-sized bread pan and I think of grandma as it rises on the counter.  The bread does not satisfy except for a couple of hours, but what does satisfy is a relationship of love and working together and mattering to each other.  Even after she has been gone all these years, I know she still matters to me and I to her.

                The crowds were following Jesus.  They really liked his bread.  They really liked feeling briefly satisfied by the food he gave them.  I don’t know if Jesus felt used.  He seems a little tired.  He has been trying to get a little time for himself.  He went over on the other side of the lake to pray.  But they followed him.

                So Jesus uses this moment to point out that there is more satisfaction in life to be found.  Bakers can be found in every area of this world.  But Jesus has something unique and satisfying in the long-term to offer that they might be missing out on, if they are focused only on filling their bellies.  Jesus did not want to be a vending machine, dispensing food everywhere he went.  He wants people to know of God’s love, to participate in healing community together, to work to create a more just world together.  He wants them to know the new life that he offers, the relationship that affirms that they matter.  And He wants them not just to look at him, but to stop and look at each other, the body of Christ in the world.

                Alone, we can do very little, but when we look around at each other and build relationships with each other, we can join our gifts together and from that Jesus can really make something lasting.  Jesus calls us together tonight as the body of Christ in Port Orchard, yes to receive a little bite of bread and dessert and a little sip of wine  Jesus calls us together to connect us to the hungers in our neighbors, the need for nutritious fruits and vegetables, the rumbling tummies.  And Jesus calls us together to ask about the greater hungers behind all that, the hunger for purpose, the hunger for stability, the hunger for justice, the longing for connection.  God is inviting us to this table, to stop and really look at each other and to see each other’s gifts a small part of Christ’s body in the world.  Together we fill a huge need in this community for food.  How could we better work together to see that food is distributed?  Who could we be talking to about seeing that it is equitably distributed?  How can we see in our neighbor the face of Christ?  How can we be safe places for people to share their deeper hungers and longings?  How can our foodbanks partner together and see each other as workers with us rather than as competition for limited supplies?  How can we connect with our communities who have extra food and time and ability to lend a hand?  With God all things are possible, and we are still learning how to ask for help, how to let go of control, how to say we can’t do it all ourselves.

                At Lifecare Community Food Bank at Spirit of Life, like all Foodbanks, God is always at work.  We don’t pretend to do it all, but it is a beautiful God moment when Jesus arrives in the form of a family of nine, some still in their PJ's, little 5 year old twins loading up the basket, squealing with delight over a special dessert.  Last week God arrived in the form of a box of apples and about 10 different beautiful squashes straight from the farm.  One family shared their favorite squaxh recipe, a pumpkin cheesecake they make from ingredients from the food bank that they will serve on Thanksgiving.  God arrived in the form of a 15 year old volunteer.  His mom was sick, but he went right to work, packing bags of groceries, retrieving items that fell on the floor, and lifting heavy items.  God arrived in the form of a neighbor bringing 4 dozen eggs his chickens had laid in the past week.  All these dark days and yet the chickens kept producing.

                So much good work is done and yet we feel the weight on us of people in need.  Our Foodbank fund is getting low, so we’ve quit buying items that we used to give out—flour and sugar in large sacks that we repackaged into ziplock bags.  We have less miscellaneous items that can make a lot of difference—boxes of cookies, or bags of nuts.  And we don’t have any coffee to give.  Imagine if you had to live without coffee.  It is hard to imagine, I know.  We are blessed to give what we do, and no one complains if we don’t have their favorite extra item, but we know how much a little bag of flour or coffee can make.  We know that this food which perishes, that lasts only a little while, gives a bigger message, “You matter.  We care about you.  God loves you.  When you are hurting, we are hurting.”

                Today we come together to benefit two area Foodbanks doing God’s work and seeing in our hungry neighbors the image of God.  We look at each other and see so many gifts, so much willingness to serve, so many abilities, so much love and compassion.  We hold this bread in our hand for a moment, knowing that it is more than bread, that it is our Savior Jesus, that it is the body of Christ, that it is us, bound together, doing God’s satisfying work.

                And I don’t know about you but I am filled with gratitude.  This was the night one year ago when my husband called to tell me he got a new job and our lives would be changing.  I felt empty.  I felt scared.  But today, a year later I feel grateful, because God was handing us new life, a new community to join with, new work to do in a new place, new faces, new gifts, new learning, new challenges.  The promise is that as we work together in faith, Jesus works with us.  I picture Jesus making bread, like my grandma, and we’re all standing around with our little loaf pans, trying our darndest to knead the bread.  The end product isn’t the point, but the relationship with Jesus and each other, the memories we’re making, the learning that is occurring.  Let us give thanks for Jesus, the bread of life, the food that satisfies our deepest hungers and those of our neighbors and makes one loaf out of us, overflowing baskets of love and grace.