On Sundays, I take a loaf of bread off the table,
break it before the people,
and exclaim, “The Body of Christ for you.”
Then I hold it out to them,
my arms stretched as far as humanly possible.
In that moment, I feel like a twelve-year-old boy again,
playing Truth or Dare at the sleepover on Friday night.
If it’s a truth you want, this bread is for you.
All you must be, all any of us must be, to have it is hungry.
Hungry for a world ordered by belonging and not qualification,
maneuvered by grace.
True or false?
If it’s a dare you want, come and get it.
I dare you to try and make me not let you have it.
For some, it’s the come and get it part that throws us.
We wouldn’t tell our friend at the back of the classroom,
whose mother can’t afford to pack her a lunch,
that she can’t go forward and
take the free meal ticket the teacher is offering,
not when we ourselves wouldn’t mind a change of menu,
a little taste of adventure for the stale heart.
But who wants to be seen chasing
what they’ve told themselves should come to them?
In our own brokenness we have become the bread,
except we tell ourselves we are long past the expiration date.
So, we stay where we are.
In our seats.
In our shame.
In our hunger.
We will not be broken any more than we already are.
We will not be held up,
exposed,
shared.
Should the teacher walk about the room
giving out the bread to every student,
we will all take a piece. A kind gesture
doesn’t seem to know who needs it most,
and even less who deserves it.
If everyone will please stay seated and be patient.
This much we can handle.
No one need know who the truly hungry are.
And besides, aren’t we all, sooner or later, hungry?
In the meantime, don’t make me get in line with everyone else for Christ.
But let’s leave Christ out of this.
His body is broken, too. He can’t come to us.
We’re gonna’ have to go pick him up,
reassemble him.
From my seat in the third row, I see a dog
sneak around one leg of the Communion Table.
On her back she wears a harness with a patch sewn in: Therapy Dog.
I bend down and purse my lips.
Pst, whatcha got there, girl?
But she is already licking her lips and
sniffing about for another piece.
PleaseGrace 