I Missed It
Issue 042
NOVEMBER 28, 2018
WRITTEN BY ZACHARY YOUNG
I missed it. I really missed it…
I teach at a college, so I have to read a lot of books and articles and bible passages. This is what I was doing one morning at a local bagel shop. I can’t remember exactly whom I was reading, but I do remember that it was about the mystery and community of the Triune God. This was a morning when the content of my reading seeped down past my mind and deep into my heart. I knew this was the case, because the more I read the more the lump in my throat kept growing. When I left the bagel shop, I was full of Christ, ready to witness to this new reality that was obviously so present in my life.
As I left the parking lot, I noticed a mother and her two children sitting in the shade on the grass by the street. I can’t remember if they had a sign or not, but they were obviously homeless and probably hungry. I (full of Christ, remember!) drove right past them, without a second look. Two miles down the road I stopped at a stoplight, and a wave shame enveloped me. I missed an opportunity to share a meal with a mother and her two hungry children. I was in a bagel shop!! I could have easily spent 20 dollars and not only fed these folks but somehow—with either my words, my actions, or my sharing in their in suffering if only for a brief moment—shared Christ with them. And, guess what. After this shameful moment at the stoplight, I didn’t turn around. I kept on driving. I really missed it.
“There is something deeply, deeply disclosive about the nature of God in the act of eating a meal with others.”
My friend, Jeremy, has convinced me that something magical happens in the physical act of breaking bread with someone when it’s done in the Spirit of the Triune God. There is something deeply, deeply disclosive about the nature of God in the act of eating a meal with others. One of the most intimate acts in which we partake is eating together. Look at what happens in Luke 24:30-35.
“When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us[k] while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together. They were saying, “The Lord has risen indeed, and he has appeared to Simon!” Then they told what had happened on the road, and how he had been made known to them in the breaking of the bread.”
This is the famous walk to Emmaus passage from Luke. Two of his followers were walking and reflecting on the events of recent past, and Jesus began to walk with them, but, for some reason, they didn’t recognize him. But, look closely at when they finally recognized him; it’s not until he sits down with them at the table and breaks bread with them that they know (really know!) who he was/is/will be. When Jeremy explained this to me in his office a couple weeks ago, I almost fainted. Whatever theological propositions you want to pull out of this passage, there’s no denying the obvious miracle that something magical happened (happens!!) when bread is broken in communion with one another. I missed an opportunity for the Triune God to move among a shared meal with a mother and her children who needed both the sustenance of physical bread and the love and mercy and provision of the Bread of Life. I won’t miss it again.