Calvin Synod Herald, 2011 (112. évfolyam, 3-12. szám)
2011-07-01 / 7-8. szám
8 CALVIN SYNOD HERALD Connection between the Lord’s Table and our dinner table Scripture reading: 1 Corinthians 11:17-29. Text: "Give us today our daily bread." Matthew 6:11. Our Lord had instructed us to pray for our "daily bread." If we have the food on our dinner table every day we need, we should be satisfied and grateful. Please keep in mind that bread symbolizes all of our existential needs. We can characterize our "daily bread" with other adjectives as well according to our economical status. Let us see the three basic cases. 1. When the daily bread falls short of satisfying our basic needs. Unfortunately more people are starving in the world than are overfed. The fair distribution of the food supply is a great challenge. Our humble question is how do people react to the scarcity of the daily bread? a. They try to be frugal, be satisfied with the little they have, and are humble enough to ask in a polite manner if more is needed? Read 1 Timothy 6:8. b. Demand more from those who have surplus, and if that is not successful, rebel, use force to take our "fair share." 2. The opposite case is when not only the bread is in abundance but there is plenty of cake with rich icing on it. People feast, enjoy delicacies, and are overweight. A beggar said to a pleasantly plump lady: "I have not eaten for two days." Her response was: "I wish to have that willpower.” What can be the reactions in this situation? a. Be generous, practice charity and philanthropy, help without delay where the need is most urgent, be sympathetic and share. Please read Isaiah 58:7. b. Show off the "well-deserved" wealth and flaunt your affluence. Isolate yourself from the poor, and calm your conscience with the idea that you deserve everything you have worked for so diligently and for so long. You cannot help if others are not so industrious. 3. When you are lucky enough to be in between the two extreme cases and happen to possess just enough to satisfy every need of your family. You work hard, budget your income, cut out luxuries, but provide everything your children really need. Live in a frugal way. What can be our responses when we are able to manage? a. We are grateful that we can earn so much as we need, and we see both, those who suffer want and also who live sumptuously. A thankful heart is a great gift. Please read 1 Thessalonians 5:18. b. We become self-centered, forgetting the less fortunate and become militant to acquire more and more. Greed can be a major driving force, and the financial status is more important than the spiritual life. Please, let us ask ourselves, what helps us to decide to which group we wish to belong, the first or second one, that is, "a"-s or "b"-s? From the scripture reading we learn that already in the church of Corinth there was a tension between the rich and the poor and this had become evident through their meal, "When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. Don't you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?" Verses 20-22. What would Jesus do if He were among us? How would he behave and act if He would be desperate, would belong to the middle class, and if He would be a millionaire? The most important aspect of the whole issue is that God speaks to all the three groups at the same time and everybody should examine himself/ herself first asking, what would Jesus do in my predicament? Hopefully, after this, as we pray, we will say it with deeper understanding: "Give us today our daily bread." Rev. Alexander Jalso d In Journey in Faith Out of the womb of dreaming innocense I awake to know myself Over against the Eternal Thou Who inhabits, not only eternity, But my space and time as well. Fleeing the encroaching Presence, Simultaneously I desire relationship With this One from whom I seek escape. The Presence seems both an intrusion And an intervention in my life. Then appears the Man of Nazareth, He mirrors the aspects of God As would a prism scatter light before me. 1 experience him as God for me, Redeeming love for others-Christ. Believing, Iface the world. Having been loved into being Now I struggle to know The meaning of and strategy for love Andjustice in the daily round. Finally I hope in the faithful thous Who people my life as aspects Of the trustworthy One present to me Now-and in the time to come- And beyond my own time and space. David B. Bowman, Ph.D Saratoga, CA *1_________________________________________________r*
