• Deuteronomy 26: 1-11

Robert Alter writes that this excerpt near the conclusion of the Book of Deuteronomy is “the first full-fledged liturgy in the Torah, to be recited by each Israelite farmer.” (The Five Books of Moses, p. 1004)  Each person is instructed to bring a portion of each harvest “to the place that the Lord your God choose to make His name dwell there.”  The text then provides a creed to be recited upon the presentation of gifts, which recalls their ancestors, wandering in the wilderness and on the verge of starvation, but then who were “made a mighty and multitudinous nation.”  Taken into slavery, but then freed by the Lord, “he brought us to this place and gave us this land flowing with milk and honey.”  The instructions continue: the worshiper is to place his offering before the Lord your God, bow and “rejoice in all the bounty that the Lord your God has given you and your household.”  But the liturgy is not complete until “the alien who resides among you” is invited to also join in the celebration.

• Psalm 100

The psalmist declares how, where and why we owe thanks:  “Shout” thanks before the Lord in song because the Lord “made us, and we are his people.”

• Philippians 4:4-9

In this very personal letter to the church in Philippi, Paul prompts his readers to “Rejoice in the Lord always….”  For emphasis, he repeats, “again I say, Rejoice.”  Do not worry, know that the Lord is near and God’s peace “will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  “Keep on doing the things that you have received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”

• John 6: 25-35

On the day after Jesus miraculously fed more than 5,000 people from just five loaves of bread and two fish, the crowds have followed him to the other side of the lake.  Their motive, John writes, is more food.  But Jesus enjoins them to think of another kind of food, a “Food” that endures for eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”  What proof can you give us, the crowds ask because in the wilderness “our ancestors ate the manna….”  But Jesus identifies the source; it was not Moses who gave them the food, but “it was my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven.”  When they ask for “this bread,” Jesus replies: “I am the bread of life.”  And continues: “whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

The liturgical rubrics and creed in Deuteronomy inculcate a narrative about immigrants who come from nothing, but who now enjoy prosperity and national identity because “your God has given you” all you need.  It includes a fitting moral injunction: therefore, include all immigrants in your land in your celebration because you were once aliens without your own nation, too.  The psalmist notes a singular cause  for her thanksgiving: the Lord made us and we are the Lord’s!  

At the 1997 Villanova conference, “God, the Gift and Postmodernism,” organized by John Caputo, Fr. Richard Kearney interviewed Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Marion on the centrality of “the gift” to their work.  At one point in that conversation, published later under the same title as the conference, Derrida decided to summarize Marion’s approach this way: I have come “to interpret everything as a gift, everything… that we meet in perception, given to my intuition.”  Derrida continued as if speaking for Marion:

“I perceive this; it is not given.  I did not produce this.  I did not create this… the finite subject does not create its object, it receives it, receptively.  Receptivity is interpreted as precisely the situation if the created being, the creature, which receives everything in the world as something created.  So it is a gift.  Everything is a gift.”

If I join this narrative (as articulated by Marion, via Derrida),–“everything is a gift”– it leads me to discover who I am, how I got where I am, and my relationships to others.  It might be just a slight shift in perspective to “see” this way, but is alters my viewpoint totally.

John’s gloss on Jesus’ miraculously feeding thousands from next to nothing is really an invitation to accept and to live inside a world view in which I see myself as a recipient as well as a source of generosity to others; I am recipient of  unsolicited “gift” as well as potential benefactor of “gift” to others.  This gift is unique: it cannot be measured by any human calculation; it is a surprise; it never is finished; it exceeds all I need; it spills out into every expectation I have of myself, others and the world.  The math in the story (feeding thousands of people from one boy’s lunch!) intentionally does not add up because the message and person of Jesus is to give us the gift that enables us to discover that “Everything is a gift.”  His message and his life and death are staggering, overwhelming excesses of generosity that put everything is a new light, the light of “gift.”  This is the “true bread” which, if received, means you will never be “hungry” again.  John’s gospel is not as esoteric as it is sometimes made out to be.  He is expressing explicitly the truth the other gospel writers leave implicit: the enduring gift of the miraculous feeding of the thousands from so little is not the bread and fish they received, (after all, they will be hungry again in a few hours); rather, it is in the knowledge/insight, which is the heart of Jesus’ message and which he embodies in his life and his fate, that allows them to discover that they are the recipient of a “gift” from a God who was generous before they realized it.  Jesus’ gift is to make us aware of our giftedness, which, if we choose to see it, alters how we see ourselves and others permanently.  Finally, we are full.

In the United States, some are re-examining the founding narrative, which privileges Europeans exploring and occupying land that had been the home to others for millennia.  The biblical texts require God’s people to honor others who share the same abundant, beautiful land, acknowledging that we are all beneficiaries of an unimaginable generosity that comes freely to us, all of us.   May God grant this nation wisdom as we begin this re-examination of the story we tell ourselves.