Are You Hungry?Muestra

While baking bread has seen a rise in popularity over the last few years, breaking bread with others has not. As recent studies show us, Canadian adults eat many of their meals alone, and on average, families don’t share a meal altogether more than a few times per week.

In Jesus' day, however, meals were eaten slowly with those who belonged to you—family and kin. Around a table, the bread was broken and rebroken until everyone had some; no one was left out.

Picture Jesus taking the loaves of bread into His hands and breaking them into pieces, saying, “This is mine, but I’m making it ours.” When the 5,000 were fed, no one was left hungry. No one was excluded from the feast, even though only one child contributed. Jesus did this to show us a picture of the kingdom of God. In the ministry and miracles of Jesus, we are shown a picture of a satisfying feast that won’t run out, given without earning it, just because we are His family.

In God’s kingdom, He has everything and is generous with it. In God’s kingdom, there is abundance. And not just enough to satisfy our basic physical needs. There’s enough to meet our emotional and spiritual needs that ask questions like, “Do I belong? Am I worthy to participate? Is this for me?”

Jesus invites us to pray that this kingdom would come here and now to this broken world. The Bible gives us the image of the realized kingdom as a place without hunger and endless feasts. And you and I can be agents of announcing this beautiful reality when we, like Jesus, practice generosity and abundance. Abundance isn’t wastefulness or extravagance. Rather, it is a posture of trust and gratitude for everything God has given us. Abundance takes our eyes off what we lack and onto what we have to share.

If you or I have bread, what does it look like to break it so that everyone has enough? What does it tell others about life under God’s rule when we take an action that costs us something—when we break our bread, give it away, and entrust it to a God who makes it enough?

Reflect:

• What does it mean that Jesus takes what is His and makes it ours?
• Do you feel a sense of scarcity in this world or abundance? What does Jesus tell us is the true reality if we belong to His Kingdom?
• What do these two things mean for your life?