Living By Bread Alone
A Sermon in The Other Six Days Series
Rev. Mark Schaefer
Kay Spiritual Life Center
February 10, 2008
Leviticus 19:9-10; Matthew 4:1-11

Lev. 19:9   When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.   10 You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.

Matt. 4:1     Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.   2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.   3 The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."   4 But he answered, "It is written,
            'One does not live by bread alone,
                        but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
5     Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple,   6 saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written,
            'He will command his angels concerning you,'
                        and 'On their hands they will bear you up,
            so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"
7 Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
8     Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor;   9 and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."   10 Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written,
            'Worship the Lord your God,
                        and serve only him.'"
11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

I.  BEGINNING

So, here we are, a mere five days into the season of Lent, and already, my Lenten fast is becoming difficult.   In addition to the usual abstaining from junk food and colas, I have decided to abstain from cheddar cheese as well.   Now, for those of you who know me, you know that a brick of sharp white cheddar is to me like ambrosia of the gods.   As Benjamin Franklin once said about beer, I would say that cheese is "proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

So when in the supermarket the other day, it took considerable will-power for me to walk past the display of all the cheeses.   Especially when there is that aged black-wax Cabot cheddar there. I was sore tempted.

II.  The Text: Jesus' Temptation

I suppose it's no surprise, then, that the first thing Jesus should be tempted with during his forty days in the wilderness should be food.   Jesus has gone out in the desert for a time of testing and preparation.   In Matthew's version of the story, Jesus has already fasted for forty days and forty nights and is famished when the devil comes to him tempting him to turn stones into bread.   Jesus responds with the word: "It is written, one does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

In our situations of relative comfort might be inclined to think that the greater temptation might be for the glory and power that the devil tempts Jesus with last: "all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor."   There are a lot of people in this town who would surrender to that temptation in a heartbeat.  

But the devil knows that without food, any hope for any other kind of success is fleeting.   Jesus is not simply hungry--the way you might be after a long night of studying, or that I might be in the cheese aisle at the Safeway--Jesus is famished.   The translators of the New Revised Standard Version sought to make clear that this was not an ordinary context of hunger.   Jesus has a deep need for food--having fasted for 40 days and 40 nights.

And so we are surprised that he resists temptation so forcefully, deflecting the tempter's invitation by relying on the word of God.   Were we to go without food for a long period of time, we would be hard pressed to find anyone among us who would resist the invitation to food.

Indeed, the first need that any of us has is for food.   We might be tempted by power on Day 1 of fasting.   Day 4 will see us longing for what is most elemental: the food we need to survive.

III.  The NEed for Bread

Unfortunately, there are far too many people in need of this elemental necessity of life.   Hunger is one of the great issues and challenges of our age.  

And of course "hunger" as a problem is not the same as the hunger you and I might feel after skipping a meal.   "Going to bed hungry"--which former President Reagan could not believe anyone in America actually did--has nothing to do with going to bed without your supper.   The United Nations World Food Programme describes two main manifestations of what they mean by "hunger":

Under-nourishment is used to describe the status of people whose food intake does not include enough calories (energy) to meet minimum physiological needs for an active life. At present, there are around 854 million undernourished people worldwide: 820 million undernourished people in developing countries, 25 million in countries in transition and nine million in industrialised countries.

Malnutrition means 'badly nourished', but is more than a measure of what we eat or fail to eat. Malnutrition is characterised by inadequate intake of protein, energy and micronutrients and by frequent infections and diseases. Starved of the right nutrition, people will die from common infections like measles or diarrhoea. [1]

There are over 854 million people--that's more than the populations of the United States, Japan, and the European Union combined--who are hungry in the world today. Nine million hungry people live in those same developed industrialized countries.   Twenty-five million hungry people live in "countries in transition".   Of the remaining 820 million chronically hungry people:

212 million are in India
206.2 million are in Sub-Saharan Africa
524 million are in Asia and the Pacific
52.4 million are in Latin America and the Caribbean
37.6 million are in the Near East and North Africa [2]

The numbers of the hungry are increasing by a rate of nearly 4 million a year.

That means that one out of ever seven people in the world is hungry.   I submit to you, friends, that as Christians, we cannot tolerate a situation like that any more.   Something must be done to alleviate the suffering of hunger in the world.   Hunger is a problem that creates other problems.

The WFP notes that "Eradicating hunger... is the key to development. While people are hungry, all other development activities are thwarted. The hungry cannot concentrate on anything other than their next meal. Hungry mothers give birth to hungry children, who, if they live long enough, grow into hungry adults." [3]

Hunger, then is the obstacle to the development of stable communities, freer peoples, and more prosperous societies.   People will always worry more about bread than ballots.   And so the march to greater democracy, human freedom, and justice is thwarted when basic material needs of life are not met.

So, we know we have to do something.   And what we have to do is obvious isn't it?   We have to provide food for those who do not have enough.   There are certainly easy enough ways to do this.   The World Food Programme distributes food to nearly 85 million people a year and is always looking for donations.   You can make a more personal connection by adopting a child through WorldVision or one of the many other direct charities out there.   You can even improve your vocabulary and feed the hungry by going to www.freerice.com, where playing a vocabulary game helps to raise funds to purchase rice for the hungry.   There is a lot we can do to provide food for those in need.

But there is a dangerous temptation here, in that we can become too easily convinced that what the hungry need most is food, and so we provide food.   Whether it is in massive amounts in relief efforts, or the cup of coffee or the sandwich to a homeless person here on the streets of Washington.   But Jesus' words speak to us in our temptation to take the sentimental and, all things considered, easier way out.   Jesus reminds us that "One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."

IV.  The Word of God

Words like those found in the 19th chapter of Leviticus:

Lev. 19:9   When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest.   10 You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the LORD your God.

"You shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest... you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God."

When we take into account "every word that comes from the mouth of God" we understand that the majority of those words have to do with righteousness and justice, not bread alone.

What is being described in Leviticus is not a system of charity, but a system of justice. An economic system that requires that the needs of those who are less fortunate be taken care of.   Indeed, the entire Mosaic covenant describes an economic system that was rooted in economic equality and access, coupled with a political system rooted in justice.   If we are to understand our living not by bread alone but by 'every word' from the mouth of God, then we are to understand ourselves as committed not only to charity, but also to economic and political justice.

Mark Muller of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) writes: "If we are serious about addressing hunger and poverty, we must address the larger, structural issues that underlie our food and farm systems."   These larger structural issues include policies that encourage agricultural export dumping and low prices for farmers, industrial farm practices that deplete the soil and water resources, and an emphasis on artificially cheap, unhealthy food. An IATP report found that with appropriate policies, renewable fuels could play a role in addressing these structural issues. [4]

It is a point that the World Food Programme makes clear.   Direct provision of food and supplies is necessary, but that it works in conjunction with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to bring about systemic change.

One does live by bread, but Jesus reminds us that one does not live by bread alone.   Mere provision of bread and food will not solve the crisis of hunger in our world.   Only a commitment to changing systems and working for justice will do that.

V.  END

So what do we do as Christians?  

We give as much as we can for the immediate provision of food for those who are hungry.   There are plenty of opportunities to give in this regard.

We can support efforts for justice: for ensuring that economic systems do not oppress others and deny them access to the tools they need to survive on their own.

We can contribute to agriculture that is sustainable, to development that seeks to empower those who receive aid rather than make them dependent on our generosity.   This can be done in great and small ways.  

We can support efforts at microfinancing--helping individuals and communities--rather than nations or governments--to receive money for investment, development, and growth.   We can support responsible development of bio-fuels that doesn't deplete the surplus corn supply.   We can support food policies that do not dump surplus grain on the markets where local farmers cannot compete.   There is much we can do on the big stage.

We can do as we are doing tonight with the funds raised in our offering--purchasing an animal through the Heifer Fund.   We are already three-quarters of the way to purchasing a llama for a family.   And depending on how much we raise tonight, we might be able to add a goat, or some chicks, or other animals.   These are not donated as one-time food donations.   These animals contribute greatly to a family's economic independence.   Rather than give hungry people milk, we give a goat who can continue to give milk and add wealth to people's lives.   It is a kind of giving that goes beyond charity to sustainability.   Toward justice.

We are in the midst of the season of Lent.   A time of when our fasting is meant to remind us of our dependence on God for the necessities of life.   It is a time, too, when we develop spiritual disciplines designed to resist temptation, and in our world today the biggest temptation is toward inaction.   That is why in our Lenten devotion, we must dedicate ourselves all the more to the kind of radical spirituality that Jesus models for us.   A spirituality that embraces not only charity, but justice.   Not only prayer, but worship.   Not only lives that are are holy, but systems, communities, and societies that are holy as well.   Lives that live not only by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Notes
http://www.wfp.org/aboutwfp/faq/index.asp?section=1&sub_section=9
Id.
Id.
http://www.commondreams.org/news2007/0918-06.htm