Complacency of Fasting

It is of little wonder that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem means ‘house of bread.’ This boy grows up and says to the world, “I am the bread of life”. Jesus equated his body with bread. What else could he have compared his body with in a poverty-stricken world? How else could he have conveyed his conviction in a world where people were and are impoverished by the dominant? Mahatma Gandhi reckons, “There are people in the world so hungry that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”

Christ affirms to be the bread of life. We may interpret this in a very abstract manner but to someone who cannot even afford a slice of bread to satisfy his/her hunger what sense does this affirmation make? Which hermeneutics would do justice to them? This affirmation of Christ then merely becomes a conjecture for them; something that which mocks the hard reality of the impoverished.

Recently India, especially Kerala was petrified with the lynching of the tribal youth, Madhu. He fell prey to mobocracy. The ‘crime’ he committed was stealing food out of hunger. How do you think Madhu would understand this statement of Jesus - ‘I am the bread of life’? Would it make any sense to him at all? He would definitely find it offensive. Remember, the onus to maintain the credibility of the statements of Christ is on the shoulders of his disciples i.e. on us.

India is a country where many die out of starvation not because they are poor rather they are impoverished by the dominant. Dr. George Zachariah opines, “The hungry are not poor because of their fault; rather they are the impoverished ones. Hunger is the consequence of the sinfulness that is deep rooted in our socio – economic relations”. Our complacency would lead to the death of several 'Madhus'.

According to the recent United Nation census India tops the world hunger list having 194.6 million people staying hungry. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations reveals, the estimated volume of the edible food wastage is at 1.3 billion tons, with annual direct economic loss amounting to 750 million U.S. dollars. This reminds me Fyodor Dostoevsky’s classic work ‘The Brothers Karamazov’ wherein which the Grand Inquisitor condemns Jesus for refusing to turn the stones into bread by saying that most people are too weak to live by the word of God when they are hungry.

In a country named Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, people fill their bellies eating mud. The mud is made into cookies by mixing salt, vegetable oil and dirt. These are then laid out in the sun to dry.

Forget about sharing food with the hungry. We live in a culture where we try to exercise monopoly even over our left overs. We dispose food stuffs in tightly packed garbage bags ensuring that nobody has access even to our refuse. In a world dying of hunger this sin of food wastage is an act of desecrating the image of God.

Orthodox theology considers Eucharist as the Queen of Sacraments. If not for this table fellowship where Jesus attributed his body with bread which other sacrament could qualify this title? Nadia Bolz Weber says, “The movement in our relationship to God is always from God to us. Always. We cannot, through our piety or goodness, move closer to God. God is always coming near to us; most especially in the Eucharist and in the stranger.” Thus Eucharist is the celebration of a man becoming bread to the hungry. How could we peacefully celebrate Eucharist when people like Madhu have to steal to quell their hunger and is killed for the same?

Lent is not a time to relish in the complacency of abstaining from food rather it is about sharing our food with others so that this nation does not have to witness people dying of starvation and sheer hunger. Further, it is not only about sharing our food but it is a time to see whether everyone in the society are rightfully having access to their share of food which they are entitled for. At least let us start by sharing.  Do not shy away from feeding a hungry because in each grain dwells the spirit of Christ which needs to be shared. Remember the words of St. Ambrose of Milan, “It is not from your own possessions that you are giving to the poor, you are but restoring to them what is theirs by right. The Earth belongs to everyone.”

I conclude with a fiction

Once Anandan, a disciple of Buddha asked him, “Give me something to remember you.” Buddha gave him some jasmine flowers and said “its fragrance would remind you of me.” Time flew and along with it the aroma of the flowers. Anandan slowly forgot Buddha. Peter asked Jesus, “Give me something to remember you.” Jesus gave his body as bread. That bread became the part of Peter’s body, music, dance, sex, children and grandchildren. Who can forget the one who gave bread for memory?

Let us pray

God of the hungry, we plea that you shatter our complacency of abstinence of fasting and propel us to see the starving lives around us. As your Son became bread to the world may we too become bread to others. For Christ’s sake we pray. Amen

Prayers

Dn. Basil Paul