They tell me that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. I can’t do without it to be honest. When I was younger – and probably more pious – I never had breakfast on a Sunday before Mass. But as soon as I was ordained and a full morning was ahead of me that particular practice went out the window! So, breakfast is very important to me, not a ‘Full English’ but some nice granola with yoghurt and honey and maybe some fruit. Delicious!

‘Come and have breakfast.’ (John 21.12)

Jesus meets his disciples in Galilee. It has been some days since the resurrection and St John tells us that they headed back to the place and the jobs they knew best. We read the story in John 21.1-14. The disciples have been fishing all night and in the first light of day they see a man standing on the shore who asks them to bring some of the fish they have caught. Peter realises that it is the Lord and then Jesus, having prepared the food says to them with beautiful simplicity.

‘Come and have breakfast.’ (John 21.12)

The name of the meal gives the game away – it is the meal that breaks the fast that we have kept overnight. With the new day we break the fast and are renewed for all that lies ahead. Jesus, with his usual sense of inclusive hospitality, invites his friends to break their fast and eat with him.

Last week we held a community Iftar in the Cathedral. We had our very first Grand Iftar – the meal that Muslims have at the end of each day of Ramadan – planned for the year when we suffered the terrorist attack on London Bridge and the Borough Market, 2017. By the grace of God it came at just the moment that we needed to come together within the community and the Iftar, kept in the most sacred space at the heart of the violence that had been inflicted upon us, was the right place for it to be. Every year – even through the pandemic when the Iftar moved online – we have met together, Muslims, Christians, Jews, people of faith and no faith, people of good will – to break the fast together. This year was the largest that we have held. 500 people filled the nave of the cathedral, listened to the speeches and some lovely music and then when sunset came and the fast ended, whilst our Muslim sisters and brothers went off to other places outside of the cathedral which had been set apart as prayer rooms, we waited to eat together.

‘Come and have breakfast.’

Every year we have faced criticism for doing this and this year has been no different. Most has been as a result of misunderstanding that there isn’t Muslim prayer held in the consecrated space of the cathedral but some has been more fundamental than that, objecting to the very idea that we should host such an event.

But I am unapologetic. I am thankful that the Muslim community across the country has opened up the idea of the Iftar to others, that just as Jewish friends will invite us to share in their sabbath meal so other friends invite us to join them in breaking the fast. I am glad that we can make the cathedral space, the scared space available to the community so that we can simply break bread together and share a meal, together, as people.

‘Come and have breakfast’.

The presence of so many, from so many backgrounds, was an encouragement to us all to keep working together. Only by doing so can we create healthy, inclusive communities in which our diversity is celebrated as our strength. So, no apology for echoing the invitation of Jesus to come and have break-fast, just a regret that even more were not present to share in such a simple gesture of true hospitality.

Jesus, you broke bread for your friends; may we break bread for each other. Amen.