I was going through a previous test for my “community and ministry” class and came upon this test item: “True or false, according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Christian community has enough to eat when one shares it with others. When one desires to eat in isolation, hunger ensues.”
Regardless of what Bonhoeffer thought on this subject (as important as his reflections are to me), what do you think, and why?
If it is the case that eating in isolation leads to hunger, why would that be?
And what about the shipwrecked castaway or homebound elderly widow or widower who longs to eat with others, but who has no one with whom to share his or her food? Does that person grow hungry even while having enough to eat? Or does the divine host-guest fill the individual’s meal with company?
How hungry are you and I for community? Would we rather eat an abundance of food in isolation or smaller portions in abundant community? Perhaps these are good test questions for a community and for one’s own individual life.
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