“ The bread is on the table … Give Christ something to drink”

By His Eminence Metropolitan Cleopas of Sweden 

The parable of the Final Judgment, as it is handed down in the Gospel according to Matthew (25:31–46), constitutes a supreme eschatological text of the New Testament, in which the criterion of salvation and condemnation is clearly defined.

Christ is presented as the Son of Man, who will come “in His glory” to judge all nations. The criterion of judgment is neither external piety, nor knowledge, nor social status, but love expressed concretely toward one’s fellow human being.

The distinctive feature of this passage is that judgment is not based on doctrinal confessions or ritual acts in themselves, but on a lived relationship of love toward the “least brother.”

The passage belongs to Christ’s eschatological discourse and presents the Son of Man as the universal Judge. The image of separation “as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats” (Matt. 25:32) has profound symbolic meaning.

The criterion of separation is not knowledge or origin, but concrete love: “I was hungry and you gave Me food, I was thirsty and you gave Me drink” (Matt. 25:35).

The central theological point of the passage lies in Christ’s identification with the suffering human being: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to Me” (Matt. 25:40).

This phrase constitutes a fundamental expression of Christological anthropology. Christ does not identify with humanity metaphorically, but reveals an ontological relationship grounded in the fact of the Incarnation. Human nature has been assumed by the Logos, and therefore every human being bears the potential for relationship with God.

This evangelical message finds a deep and moving poetic resonance in the poem by Iakovos Kampanellis, «Το ψωμί είναι στο τραπέζι» (The bread is on the table), from the album «Η γειτονιά των αγγέλων» (The Neighborhood of Angels) (1964), with music by Mikis Theodorakis.

This poem, in its simplicity, reveals a great theological truth: that Christ is identified with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, and even the thief: 

“The bread is on the table.
The water is in the jug.
The jug is on the step.
Give the thief something to drink. 

The bread is on the table.
The water is in the jug.
The jug is on the step.
Give Christ something to drink. 

Give, mother, to the traveler.
To Christ and to the thief.
Give, mother, so he may be filled.
Give him, my love, something to drink.” 

The poem highlights Christ’s identification with the suffering human being, capturing with existential intensity the Patristic understanding of God’s presence in the “other.”

This is precisely the mystery of divine condescension. Christ is revealed not only in His glory, but also in the humility of the suffering human being.

The thief, the stranger, the traveler—these are images of Christ. Love toward them becomes love toward God Himself.

The Fathers of the Church approached this passage not merely as moral teaching, but as a revelation of the very nature of salvation.

In his Homily on the Gospel of Matthew, Saint John Chrysostom notes: “For He did not say, ‘You showed mercy to the poor,’ but ‘You showed mercy to Me’; so greatly did He unite Himself with them.” (PG 58, 508)

This formulation reveals that charity is not an external moral act, but a mystical communion with Christ.

In another homily, he emphasizes that honoring Christ cannot be limited to worship: “Do not honor Him here in the church with silken garments, while outside you neglect Him perishing.”

This teaching directly connects liturgical life with social responsibility and reveals that the Divine Liturgy continues outside the church—in the liturgy after the Liturgy—within life itself, within the relationship with the suffering brother and sister.

Saint Basil the Great, in his homily “To the Rich”, develops a radical theology of property and social justice: “The bread which you keep belongs to the hungry.” (PG 31, 276)

This position overturns the individualistic understanding of property and establishes a theology of social responsibility. Refusal to give is not merely a lack of virtue, but a form of injustice.

This is not simply an exhortation to charity, but a revelation of God’s justice. What we consider our own has, in reality, been given to us to share.

In Oration XIV “On Love for the Poor,” Saint Gregory the Theologian presents charity as imitation of God: “Become a god to the unfortunate, imitating God’s love for humanity” (PG 35, 892).

Salvation, therefore, is not an individual event, but an event of communion. When we offer to our fellow human beings, we participate in God’s own work.

Saint Maximus the Confessor, in his “Chapters on Love”, teaches that love constitutes the natural state of humanity: “He who does not love his brother cannot love God.” (PG 90, 965)

The restoration of the human person consists in the restoration of love toward the other. The refusal of love leads to existential fragmentation, while love leads to deification (theosis).

Kampanellis’ poem expresses Patristic theology in a simple yet powerful way and presents the offering of bread and water as an existential act of love: “The bread is on the table … Give Christ something to drink … Give the thief something to drink.”

The figure of the “traveler” also constitutes an eschatological symbol. The human being exists in a state of journey, and the response or refusal of hospitality determines his existential and soteriological destiny.

The repeated image of bread and water has a clear Eucharistic dimension. Bread and water are not merely material goods, but symbols of life and communion. Their offering constitutes an act of communion.

The figure of the mother in the poem is also deeply symbolic. She is the one who offers food, water, and love. She is the one who makes no distinction between Christ and the thief.

In the parable of the Final Judgment, the righteous do not know that through their charity they are serving Christ Himself, and therefore they ask: “Lord, when did we see You hungry?” Their love is spontaneous, without self-interest. They do not love for reward, but because their hearts have been transformed.

The poem expresses the same spirit. It does not say, “Give in order to be saved.” It simply says: “Give.” Give, because the other thirsts. Give, because the other hungers. Give, because the other is also human; that is, your fellow human being.

The passage of the Final Judgment, its Patristic interpretation, and Kampanellis’ poem converge in the same theological anthropology: the human being encounters God through the fellow human being.

The bread on the table and the water in the jug are symbols of the possibility of communion. Salvation is not an abstract concept, but is realized in concrete love.

The eschatological Judgment reveals not merely human actions, but the quality of the person’s relationship with God, which is fulfilled in relationship with the “least brother.”

Thus, the theology of the Fathers and the poetry of modern Greek tradition meet in the same fundamental truth: love constitutes the ontological and eschatological criterion of human existence.

Christ passes before us every day in the form of the poor, the stranger, the suffering, even the “thief.” The question is simple and profound: Will we give? Will we share?