There is a Jewish folktale about a man named Shalom Aleichem, one of the accursed of the earth. Every misfortune imaginable befell him” He lost his wife, his children abandoned him, his house burned down, his job disappeared - everything he touched turned to dust. Yet through it all, Shalom kept returning good for evil everywhere he could until the day he died.
When the angels heard that Shalom was arriving at heaven’s gate, they hurried to greet him. Even God himself was there, so great was this man’s fame for goodness and humility. It was the custom in heaven that every newcomer was interrogated by a prosecuting angel, to assure that all sins on earth had been atoned for. But when Shalom appeared before him, the prosecuting angel arose, and for the first time in the memory of heaven, said, “There are no charges.” Then the angel for the defense rose and spoke eloquently and movingly about the hardships this man had endured and recounted how in all the difficult circumstances of his life. Shalom had remained true to himself and returned good for evil.
When the angel had finished, God said, “not since our beloved Job have we heard of a life such as this one.” And then, turning to Shalom, the Lord said, “Ask, Shalom, and it shall be given to you.”
The old man raised his eyes to God and said, “Well, if I could start ever day with a hot buttered roll…”
The angels and even God himself wept at the beauty of the simplicity and preciousness of his humble request.
PBS’ Bill Moyers told this story in his commencement address this spring at Hamilton College. He told the graduates that Shalom understood that “bread is the great re-enforcer of the reality principle. Bread is life. But if you’re like me you have a thousand or more times repeated the ordinary experience of eating bread without a thought for the process that brings it to your table. The reality is physical: I need this bread to live. But the reality is also social: I need others to provide the bread. I depend for bread on hundreds of people I don’t know and will never meet. If they fail me, I go hungry. If I offer nothing of value in exchange for their loaf, I betray them. The people who grow the wheat, process and store the grain, and transport it from farm to city, who bake it, package it, and market it—these people and I are bound together in an intricate reciprocal bargain.”
In calling himself the “living bread,” Jesus offers himself to us both as the life of God that animates us with compassion and righteousness and the love of God that binds us to the Father and to one another as brothers and sisters. As Jesus gave “life” to the world through his selfless compassion and humble servanthood to others we, too, can give “life to the world” when we embrace the same giving spirit of Jesus—looking beyond our own needs and security to the good of others, giving not from our treasure but from our poverty, nourishing one another in the love, compassion and selflessness of the Gospel.