“Bread Enough to Share”
Exodus 16:9-21; Acts 4:32-35
Rev. Dr. Deborah L. Clark
February 28, 2016
I was almost glad the line was so long. I stood staring at the menu board. It’s going to take a while to make a decision. Chicken pesto panini. Mediterranean veggie wrap. Chipotle black bean burrito. This is my kind of place.
By the time I made it to the front I’d decided on the panini. Sitting there on the counter was a sign: “Thanks to you (our wonderful customers) Daniel’s Table served 2273 meals to people in need in January.” Yes, this is definitely my kind of place.
I joined my colleagues at a long table reserved for the Framingham Interfaith Clergy, and we began our meeting. Eventually the noontime rush slowed down enough for David Blaise, the co-owner, to join us. A few years ago, David and his wife Alicia sold their restaurant in Walpole and found this tiny space on Fountain Street in Framingham, across from Loring Arena. They opened Foodie Cafe, with the idea that they would donate a portion of their profits to charity, as they had done before.
When they began to see the extent of the needs in Framingham, they felt called to take it a step further–actually a giant leap further. They set a goal: to end hunger in Framingham. They started small, making sandwiches for Framingham Street ministries to distribute on Saturdays. They opened the Foodie Cafe once a month for a free sit-down dinner. Then they began taking a small food trailer out on Thursday evenings and serving meals at the Pelham apartments. They decided they would not ask for identification or proof of need; they would feed anyone who came. They called the program Daniel’s Table, after their son who died at birth.
Daniel’s Table is growing exponentially. The day I met David he was negotiating with the bank to finance a much larger food truck. Their plan is to have a fleet of trucks that will fan out all over Framingham serving meals to everyone who comes. Ultimately, their goal is toserve 20,000 to 30,000 meals every month. Ending hunger in Framingham.
David and Alicia come to this project from a faith perspective. Jesus commands us to feed the hungry and promises that when we do, we will meet him in each person we encounter. David and Alicia know they don’t have to do it alone; they hope this project can bring Christians in Framingham together with a clear purpose. They speak about Daniel’s Table wherever they are invited, but they don’t ask for money. They trust the Spirit to do the work. David told us about the day their bank account had dwindled to a few dollars. They prayed, and a few hours later a Foodie Cafe customer wrote a check for $40,000.
I had lots of questions that day for David, and there wasn’t time to ask them. I love the model of keeping it simple–just feeding people. I also know the problem of hunger is complicated and multi-layered. What about advocating for public policy change so families don’t have to rely on a food truck? How about teaching ESL so recent immigrants can get better jobs? To end hunger in Framingham, we need people of faith working on many levels: some with food trucks, some with protest signs, some through education, all of us at the ballot box.
Some of my questions were about their approach. The more important questions–which I also didn’t get to ask–were about faith. Where do they find courage to tackle such a huge problem? How do they know the money they need will keep coming in? What keeps them going when they get overwhelmed?
I thought of Daniel’s Table this week as I looked at this third line of the Lord’s Prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.” At the surface, this line is about asking God to give us what we need. The words lead us deeper, if we are willing to go, into a prayer for strength to ensure others also have what they need.
A few weeks ago, David Blaise spoke at the Edgebrook Church of the Nazarene. I watched the youtube video. Two things David said helped me understand how this line of the Lord’s Prayer leads us from concern for our own needs to caring for others.
In his talk, David refers to the book of Acts as his inspiration. From the example of the early church, he is learning to live what he calls a “need-based life.” “There are plenty of things that we want,” he says. “There are some things that we need….When I started to live a need-based life, I had so much more freedom…and it gave me a willingness to just give things away. I know now that nothing is mine; God gives me everything I need.”
This line of the Lord’s Prayer calls us to pay attention to the difference between needs and wants. It’s not “Give us this day our daily filet mignon.” Jesus teaches us to pray for our most basic needs; as we focus on our needs, we begin to experience freedom from the ways our “wants” constrain our lives.
David goes on to talk about the power of prayer. “Two years ago, before we started Daniel’s Table, I used to pray with hope–hope that God was listening. Now I pray with an absolute surety that he is there, that he answers our prayer.” Since they started this project, he says, he believes God has answered every prayer within a couple of days. Wow.
That’s another conversation I’d like to have with David, about the different ways we understand the power of prayer and how God works in this world. In the meantime, I am inspired by the depth of his trust.
David’s words about prayer–and the words of this line of the Lord’s Prayer–point me to the story of manna in the wilderness. It’s a story about trust. After complaining that they are hungry–a reasonable complaint in the desert–the Hebrew people wake up one morning to find a fine flaky substance on the ground. It is tasty and nutritious. Moses tells them only to collect what they need for that day. Of course some of them don’t listen. After all, they are out in the desert. It’s great to have food for today, they say, but how can we be sure there’ll be food for tomorrow? They collect extra and store it. Overnight, it breeds worms. They learn that there is nothing they can do for themselves to ensure they will have enough food for tomorrow. For them, trusting in God isn’t a choice. It’s their only option.
The other amazing thing about the manna is that no matter how much each person collects, everyone ends up with exactly what they need. There is no way one person can accumulate more than another.
Once the Hebrew people settle into the Promised Land, things change. It becomes possible to save for tomorrow. It also become possible for some people to accumulate more and more–until their every want is fulfilled–, while others have less and less, until their basic needs are no longer met.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” As Jesus teaches his disciples to pray these words, I wonder if he is thinking of the manna story. I wonder if he is calling his disciples to reclaim the trust their ancestors learned in the desert. I wonder if his words awaken in the disciples their collective memory of a miraculous time when God’s abundance was shared by everyone.
Only a decade or so after Jesus teaches his disciples this prayer, the early church tries to live it out. They sell their possessions and share everything they have in common. It is a dramatic experiment in trust–trust in God to provide their daily needs, trust in each other to share. It doesn’t work perfectly, for human trust and trustworthiness are far from perfect, but they try. David and Alicia Blaise–together with their volunteers and donors–are embarking on an equally dramatic experiment in trust. It doesn’t work perfectly, but they are trying. Hungry people are being fed.
Jesus doesn’t teach us to pray, “Give me this day my daily bread.” The prayer is for “us.” If we understand “us” more broadly than just the people in the room, then we know the prayer has already been answered. God’s creation is abundantly fruitful. Even now, after all the ways we have abused it, after our multiple population explosions, the planet produces more than enough food for everyone to eat. If we trust in God’s abundance enough to risk sharing, if we learn to distinguish between what we need and what we want, then David Blaise is right. We can end hunger–in Framingham and around the world.
“Give us this day our daily bread.” Implicit in this plea is a prayer for God to help us distinguish what we need from what we want. Behind these words is a prayer that we might learn to trust in God’s abundance enough to share what we have.
O God, give us this day what we need and free us from the prison of our wants. Give us this day trust in you and in each other, so we may dare to let go. Give us this day bread enough to share. Amen.