On a street corner downtown, a group of homeless men shuffled about with their eyes studying the concrete just in front of their feet, clearly hungry. Each of the men exhibited telltale signs of hunger--yet without expressing them, because hunger was a constant in their lives, a fact taken for granted. For these men, to be hungry was for the sky to be blue. Why trouble yourself to point out a fact that was true yesterday, is true today, and will be true tomorrow? It had always been true, at least as long as they could remember.
This day was as any other. They were hungry, and that would not change. Sure, most would eat that day, but they would not be satisfied. What they received was meant as charity, but it better resembled a cruel joke, for it did not fill them up. It simply provided only enough sustenance for them to survive another day and be hungry again.
To see these men was to see a cloud. Within a cloud are several tiny, yet distinct crystals of water. Yet when we witness a cloud pass by over our heads, we do not notice the crystals, only the sum of their effect drifting in a noticeable but almost indistinguishable shape on the canvas of the sky. In the same way, you might say that while each of the hungry men we have been describing were distinct human beings, they had no identity on their own, for all one would see in passing by would be a group of homeless beggars slowly milling about on the canvas of the street.
But this day, on the edge of this cloud, something out of the ordinary began to take place.
One of the hungry men--an ordinary man, who on any other day would simply be an indistinct member of the crowd--hurriedly joined the group and excitedly began to tell a story. He had no coat on this cold autumn afternoon, only a red shirt worn through at the elbows. At first, none of the other men noticed--they had long kept to themselves noticing little else besides their own hunger. But the man in the red shirt pushed his way to the center of the crowd, refusing to be ignored. One by one, the men listened to their companion and the news he had brought to his friends--he had found bread. Free bread. Available at no cost, and without limit. None of them would need to go hungry again.
As a silence encompassed the street corner, the simple news seemed incomprehensible. Surely they had misheard the excited man, for such good fortune was not available to those who live on the streets, quietly living out the life they had resigned themselves to. Some had found their way to the streets because of foolish choices. Others, by a perfect storm of bad luck and simple mistakes. At least a few had never known any other home. Though they had taken different paths, they all had this in common: they had nowhere left to go. Free bread? Such a gift was only available to those who could pay for it.
But the man in the red shirt insisted. He had found free bread. And he came back to show his friends the way to the Breadgiver.
"Why doesn't the Breadgiver come here?" one man protested.
"The bread he gives is free; he only requests that we come to him to receive it," replied the man in the red shirt. "Come, and I'll show you! It's not far."
"And once we get there--then what? I suppose he'll require something else of me once I'm there," said a man with a cynical laugh. "There's always a catch, my friend. You've been swindled."
"There is no catch, I assure you," said the man in the red shirt, bewildered at the growing protest. "I have eaten of it myself, and paid nothing."
A man who was missing his left foot leaned on his crutch and shouted his question for all to hear: "I suppose you require a nominal payment for this journey you'd have us set out on. What's in it for you?"
"I require no payment, friend. I've been given bread at no cost, and I will show you the way for that same price."
"What if we go with you, and there is no bread?" asked an old man with a scratchy white beard as others echoed his question. "We'll have wasted our time, and missed our evening meal here. It's not much, but at least it gets us through until tomorrow. Why should we leave what we have here?"
"This meal pales in comparison to the bread that awaits you," replied the man in the red shirt. "I promise, if you'd just follow--"
"What gives you the right to think you're too good for this meal we've eaten every night since...since I don't know how long?" shouted an angry man in a black and green plaid shirt. "Yesterday, you were one of us, and now you're too good for us. That bread you've found sure seems rotten to me."
The man in the red shirt was flustered by the accusation. "Really, sir, I mean no disrespect. If you would just follow me, I can show you. I promise."
One young man spoke in a soft voice without raising his head from his chest. "If there is free bread, I assure you, I am not worthy of it. I would be ashamed to taste it, let alone to take all I wanted."
The man in the red shirt laid his hand on the young man's shoulder. "None of us is worthy, my friend, least of all me. But the gift the Breadgiver
At this last comment, the crowd of men began to shout at the man in the red shirt with such force, he could no longer understand their words, though their message was clear. With a defeated look on his face, he stepped off the curb and crossed the street. He turned around one last time to implore his friends to at least see for themselves whether the bread was real.
"Just come with me, and if I am wrong, you can return here tomorrow to this life of hunger, and you will have lost nothing. But you have everything to gain." These parting words only made the men angrier, and he hurried down the block and disappeared around a corner, believing he had failed.
When he was out of sight, his former companions continued to disparage him amongst themselves, as they waited for their meager evening meal. Yet the young man near the front who was ashamed to even look at the one who had told them about the Breadgiver had not taken his eyes off of the corner where he had disappeared out of sight.
What if what he says is true, said the young man to himself. And he felt his heart begin to pound as it filled with something it had not known for years: hope. As the other men continued to mock the one who had come to tell them about the Breadgiver, the young man crossed the street unnoticed and set off to see for himself. Though he did not know where his journey would end or if he would ever find the Breadgiver, he knew he at least had to see for himself--for somehow in his heart he knew that there was no other place he would ever truly be filled, never to hunger again.
