If we were to calculate the amount of waste we produce daily, most of us would discover that we are bouncing too much, including food.
But, if we had the opportunity, would we want to look in detail at what we throw? The fact is that our garbage can impart wisdom. She reminds us that we are not independent creatures that we stand by our own efforts or resources.
We can not stop creating waste. Even the purest water will become waste in our body. There is always something left over. The dead are the only ones who do not produce anything.
In this country, we tend to be wasteful. We are inclined to tire of our clothes before they wear out. We often serve too much food and throw away the rest, burying more than 30 million tons of food in garbage dumps every year (as a nation, we generate around 250 million tons of waste annually).
The truth is that we bounce a lot because we buy too much. And we buy too much because, in the country of abundance, it is not always easy to know the difference between need and desire. Following the logic, there is something that is clear: in terms of human economy, when we have more, we throw more.
But it is not like that in God's economy. In John 6.1-14, we read about the time when Jesus turned a boy's lunch into a banquet for 5,000 men.
When all had eaten and were amazed, He said to His disciples, "Gather up the pieces left over, so that nothing is lost" (v. 12). Despite his ability to produce infinite resources, Jesus recommended saving.
That is hardly what we expect. When food is scarce, when resources are few, and when a god is limited and his miracles are rare, we expect frugality.
Yes, we save every crumb! Because who knows if there will be more later! But when has the God of all plenitude ceased to satisfy every appetite and satisfy every need? Even so, what does not miss anything? Yes even then. Especially like that. In times of abundance, as well as shortages, God's resources are precious.
In the Lord's economy -both in abundance and in saving- we are called not to waste anything. In the parable of the talents of the Lord Jesus (Mt 25.14-29), we see this again. Two men answer correctly in terms of the vast resources entrusted to them by their master (a "talent" was equivalent to twenty years of salary). They invest wisely and earn more, returning the double to their master.
But the last man, who had received the least amount of money, does not use what he received but buries it out of fear and distrust. Then he reluctantly returns it to his boss, saying: "Lord, I knew you were a hard man, reaping where you did not sow and picking up where you did not scatter (v. 24).
Not only does he fail to make use of the resource that his master had provided him, but his motivation not to use it actually increases his crime: he projects his own pettiness to a giving man. By not trusting in what his master has given him, nor in his generous nature, man loses everything. Meanwhile, men who have doubled their money are given more.
We have to remember that Jesus' words rarely work on only one level. Later, in the text of John 6, He gives a new meaning to what the disciples had witnessed in the feeding of the 5,000.
The Lord Jesus clearly identifies himself as the bread from heaven (v. 41), and in doing so he implies that his body was broken to provide us with a life that has no end. The disciples should not waste even the leftover crumbs.
In the same way, we should not waste the bread of our tables or the redemption that the bread symbolizes. We must not waste the broken body of Christ. We must value our redemption and treasure it to feed others.
To use our redemption well, we can not bury or store what the Lord puts under our stewardship - neither our money nor our time; nor (literally) our talents, affections, losses, afflictions or strengths. Like the men in the parable, whether we are given one or five bags of gold, we are expected to use and multiply what we have received, for the success of all.
We serve the God of abundance and also of the saving, whose measures are very different from ours. In a wasteful culture that incites us, paradoxically, to consume on the one hand, and to get out of things on the other, the Lord quietly orders us, in the middle of a banquet: That nothing be lost.
When we see well the value of all that God has given us, and we use it correctly, we can expect to hear the words of Matthew 25.23: "You have been faithful over a little, I will set you much; enter into the joy of your lord. "