It is a guy joke when someone says they are coming for you, the answer is always, “you better pack a lunch because you are going to be here awhile”. Yeah, corny, macho and definitely what a guy would say. It does remind me though, of earlier times when my mom would pack a lunch for me to go off to school.
My earliest memory of this was way back when I was about 4, living in Utah. My mother would “pack a lunch” for me in one of my father’s old metal lunch boxes and send me out to play in the yard. I would be out there all day (or so it seemed) playing games and being a boy. I have no memory of what was in that lunch box just that she did that for me.
Reading a Lenten book by Jill Duffield, I was suddenly struck by her example of our daily bread when she talked about making those lunches for her kids to take to school. Is that not what Communion is? the Lord’s Supper? Is that not, in his final act for us all, Christ’s way of packing our lunch for us? Think about it, sustenance for the journey of the day. That brings me a very warm and peaceful feeling. The Creator of all has packed me (and you) a lunch that will take us all the way back home.
Then I started thinking even more, what did I do with my lunch when I went to school? Well sometimes, I just didn’t eat it, other times I might have traded it. I know my mother’s hope was that I would share with a kid who didn’t have enough lunch or any lunch at all. Is that not what the Heavenly Mother does for us? God packs us a lunch, sends off for our day and hopes that we will share our lunch with one who is hungry.
Dear ones, that is the point of the Eucharist, Communion, Lord’s Supper, it is not only food for the journey it is a lunch we are to be giving away to those who have no lunch. And, no worries, we know where to go to get another lunch, packed with the Love of the Universe. Share your lunch today!
TMM