Understood in terms of rejecting Wonder Bread's superficiality, all of those elements in the accounts of Jesus' words and deeds should give "Americans" pause. They should call into question the very notion of patriarchy, our worship of the rich, our wars against the world's poor, our attitudes towards empire and capital punishment, as well as our very denial of truth's possibility (which Gandhi boldly identified with God).
That sort of hard-to-chew bread forms the backdrop implied in today's readings. See for yourself. Here are my "translations." You could find the originals here to tell if I got them right.
I Kings 19: 4-8
Prophets are lonely people
Living on the edge of
Death and despair.
Elijah was no different.
He even prayed for death
On his way to Mt. Sinai.
Instead, generous Spirits
Fed him with bread and water
Twice!
He didn't have to eat again
For the remaining 40 days
Of his journey
To God's holy mountain.
Psalm 34: 2-9
Elijah's miraculous bread
Gave him a taste of
Life's Supreme Goodness
Directed especially
Towards the threatened
And afflicted poor.
The taste of bread
Replaces their shame
And distress
With joy and confidence
In Life's protective Source.
Ephesians 4: 30-5:2
So, Elijah
Should never have been sad.
In fact,
For those filled with God's Spirit
(And bread!)
There can be no room for sadness
Bitterness, fury, anger,
Shouting, reviling or malice.
There is space only for
Kindness, compassion,
Forgiveness and love
That mirror
Life's own abundance
And inherent generosity.
John 6: 42-51
John's community of faith
Identified Jesus' teaching
With the bread
That fed Elijah.
In fact,
They called Jesus himself
"The Bread of Heaven."
Consuming his teachings
Would strengthen them
For "the journey without distance"
(From heart to head).
This still upsets outsiders
Unable to overcome
Fundamentalist literalism
That yet confuses
The Bread of Life
With Wonder Bread,
And fairy tales
And spiritual nourishment
With gross cannibalism
Conclusion
When I was a kid, I actually liked Wonder Bread. In fact, I still kind of do. Don't you? I mean it's a bit sweet; it's easy to chew; it's a nice base for peanut butter and jelly, and it goes down easy. It's comfort food. My well-intentioned mother fed it to me and my three siblings without a second thought. I ate it the same way.
But then most of us got more conscientious about what we put into our bodies. With Elka Schumann, we realized that Wonder Bread didn't really nourish us. So, we turned to bread that (initially at least) was less familiar and that required more chewing and changing of taste-preferences - a bit more work - maybe not as strong as Elka's bread, but more substantial nonetheless.
For many of us who have stuck with faith as a source of meaning, it's been the same. We outgrew the beliefs that no longer nourished. We woke up to the fact that Jesus' teachings need adult interpretation that demands thought and decision about those issues I mentioned earlier -- patriarchy, grossly unequal wealth distribution, perpetual wars precisely against the world's poor, empire, capital punishment, and about agnosticism concerning the Truth that parallels our denial of what we know to be genuine relative to the great issues of our day.
Instead, we've reduced "faith" to childish fairy tales that none of us can believe. We've made it into Wonder Bread. And this at a time in history when acceptance of life's essential unity - proclaimed not only by Elijah and Jesus, but by all the world's great religious traditions - is necessary for our species' very survival.
In the words of John, the Evangelist, I'm trying to say we need the Bread of Heaven, the Bread of Life now more than ever. We don't need comfort food.
Thank you, Elka Schumann for using your puppets and bread to drive home that truth.
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