3/7/21 “Roadside Tables and Water Filters: Consecrating Our Communion” by Nancy E. Petty

“Roadside Tables and Water Filters: Consecrating Our Communion”
John 2:13-22

To those who hunger, give bread
To those who have bread, give a hunger for justice.
To those who thirst, give drink
To those who have drink, give a thirst for justice.

Our experiences and encounters in life shape how we understand our faith. There are two experiences that shape my theology of what it means when we gather around the table to share bread and drink. The first is about what it means to receive and eat the bread of life.

As some of you know, in 1999 I traveled to Vladivostok, Russia to adopt Nora, my daughter. It was late in the afternoon the first day I arrived in Vladivostok and to great disappointment I learned that I would have to wait until the next morning to meet Nora. Although I was exhausted from the nearly 24 hours and three legs of flights to get there, I didn’t sleep that first night from excitement of finally being in the place where I would hold my daughter in my arms. And if honest, anxiety was also playing a factor in my sleepless night. So, I was showered, dressed and ready to get to the orphanage by 6:00 a.m. I waited and waited for my interpreter to arrive. Along about 9:30 she arrived and announced that we would now go get breakfast. Breakfast, are you kidding me? But I was not in control so off to breakfast we headed. I didn’t think that breakfast would ever end. Finally, around 11:00 it was announced that we would, at last, head to the orphanage. But first, we would go to Babies Hospital to meet the child the other couple was adopting. Excited for them, I took a couple deep breaths and prayed that no one would need lunch any time soon.

It was around noon when we finally arrived at Nora’s orphanage—a two level center block building. As we walked up the stairs it felt like my heart might pound out of my chest. As I walked into a large room, I saw about six other children, all boys, sitting on potty’s lined in a row. To the right sitting on a changing table being dressed was one little girl. The woman dressing Nora turned and saw me and quickly picked Nora up brought her to me and placed her in my arms. With Nora in my arms, the woman began patting my chest and speaking to Nora in English—mama, mama, mama. Nora looked at me with her curious big brown eyes as the woman continued. Being only half dressed, the woman took Nora back in her arms to finish getting her dressed. I was taken to another room to wait. A few minutes later they brought Nora to me with a toy and a stale piece of bread. The caregiver stood Nora in front of me, broke the piece of bread in half and put one half in Nora’s right hand and the other half in her left hand. In the breaking of the bread, two crumbs fell to the floor. I watched as Nora clutched each half of the bread in her little hands and then drop to her knees to eat the two crumbs that fell to the floor. It was obvious from her extended belly that she was hungry and even at age 15 months she was not about to let two crumbs go to waste. It was a heartbreaking moment.

The next day, we were required to attend church at a Russian Orthodox Church. There we were required to buy our child an icon. But before that, we stood in the back of the church and watched as the cleric administered communion to those present. I watched as each person received the bread and drink thinking about Nora holding the stale bread in her tiny hands while down on her knees eating the crumbs off the floor. To those who hunger, give bread. To those who have bread, give a hunger for justice.

Sadly, it was the first time that I would make the connection that the bread of life that we receive at the “table of love” is the bread of justice-love that those whose are hungry are waiting on us to not only share the bread with them but also disrupt the systems that keep them hungry. Theologically, the bread I receive at the “table of love” is not consecrated until I transform it into the bread of justice-love in my service to those who are without bread—literal bread. For me, the act of receiving the bread of life is still an act of unconditional love from the one who made the sacrifice. And I receive it as grace—a costly grace. AND, in receiving that unconditional love and grace, it is my privilege and duty to transform “the bread of life at the table of love” into “the bread of justice-love at the tables that feed the hungry and the poor.” To those who hunger, give bread. To those who have bread, give a hunger for justice. Or as the prophet Isaiah says: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your houses…”

Nora continues to teach me. Working in the dining hall at Springmoor, she is often allowed to bring home lunch from the kitchen. This past Thursday I was picking Nora up after she got off work for an appointment. She called me when she got home and asked if we could get lunch on the way to our appointment. Of course I said. When I picked her up, I asked if she had not brought lunch home from work. She said that she had but that she had given it to a man and child who were standing on the side of the road holding a sign asking for help. She said: “They looked hungry so I gave them my lunch. He had a child with him.” Then she added: It was my favorite lunch shrimp and grits. “Is it not to share your bread with the hungry…” 

We consecrate this bread we receive from the table of love when we transform it into the bread of justice-love at the makeshift tables by the side of the road.

Let us join now in receiving the bread of life at the table of justice-love.

To those who hunger, give bread
To those who have bread, give a hunger for justice.

[At this point, everyone will eat of their bread.]

I’ll be brief with this next experience. In 2012, Karla and I traveled with other Pullenites to Nicaragua to support the work of David and Laura Parajón through our international partner, AMOS Health and Hope—an organization that works alongside vulnerable people in Nicaragua to create a world where no child dies from a preventable disease and empowers local leadership to improve the health of vulnerable people in their communities.

We knew that on our trip we would be assisting the AMOS staff and the local leadership to build water filters for communities that didn’t have safe drinking water and who spend their days walking miles to transport water to their communities. The process of building the water filters out of 50 gallon plastic trash cans and layers and layers of rocks and pebbles and other stuff I’ve forgotten was educational and fun. Our task was to assemble part of the water filters at the community center and then travel into remote villages to help the local finish assembling and then installing them. The first several days the villages my team went into were accessible by road. However, our last installation was not. For the last village and installation, we were dropped off at the entrance to a small dirt path off the main road and told we would be hiking to the home where we would be installing the last water filter. We set out walking and we walk and we walk and we walk over tough terrain up a steep mountain. I had noticed near the beginning of the walk a small stream running through the valley of the mountain. As we reached the top of the mountain we saw a house and people eagerly awaiting our arrival. We were greeted with open arms, generous smiles and music. In between installing the water filter we sang and danced and enjoyed getting to know one another. The excitement of the prospects of safe, filtered drinking water was palpable.

At some point in all the singing and dancing and working and getting to know one another it hit me that that small stream at the bottom of the mountain, at least a mile below, was their only source of water. Daily, members of that household would make the trek carrying jugs and jars to that small stream to collect their water for the day. I realize that this scene is not unusual for millions and millions of people living in this world. And I realize that I am/we are the exception—that I/we have the ability to turn a faucet in our homes and access safe, clean water to drink and cook with and bathe in. To those who thirst, give drink. To those who have drink, give a thirst for justice. Just like bread to eat, clean and safe water to drink is a justice issue. The drink that Jesus poured out for us—the new covenant represented in the cup—is about justice; it is about liberation from the broken and unjust systems that keep vulnerable people from enjoying the cup of love. People are thirsting for justice—for clean, safe, accessible water to drink, for healthcare, for voting rights, for human rights. People are thirsting for justice and the way we consecrate—make holy and sacred—the cup from which we drink at this table of love is to work for that justice for all people. And justice is about having access to the basic human needs of safe drink and food and healthcare.

We consecrate—make holy and sacred—this cup we receive from the table of love when we transform it into the cup of justice-love in communities in Managua, Nicaragua and Flint, Michigan and in Southeast, Raleigh.

Let us join now in receiving the cup of love at the table of justice-love.

To those who thirst, give drink

To those who have drink, give a thirst for justice.

[At this point, everyone will drink from their cup.]

John writes, “The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.” The Passover in Judaism, our mother religion, is the holiday commemorating the Hebrew’s liberation from slavery and the “passing over” of the forces of destruction. When we work for liberation—from all that oppresses our fellow humans— when we work to eliminate the forces of destruction that keep vulnerable people oppressed we make holy and sacred what we receive at the table of love, the table of love has to become the table of justice-love. That is what Jesus’ actions in the Temple were all about when he poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned over their tables: it was about disrupting the forces of destruction that kept vulnerable people oppressed. His actions that day were about liberation. And as his followers today, we continue that work of liberation: disrupting the systems and institutions that prey on the vulnerable and keep them oppressed, excluded from this table. And so, may this meal today send us forth into the world to work for the liberation and justice for all peoples in every corner of the globe, therefore, consecrating—making holy and sacred—the bread and drink we have received.

To those who hunger, give bread
To those who have bread, give a hunger for justice.
To those who thirst, give drink
To those who have drink, give a thirst for justice.