Samuel Feldman is the world’s most famous bread vandal. He did $8,000 worth of damage to bread and cookies throughout the Yardley, Pennsylvania area. He was going around “squeezing, smashing, and poking” bags of bread and packages of cookies. Finally, one store, suspecting Feldman, put him under surveillance and caught him in the act three times. He is charged with one count of criminal mischief. Three years of aggravation and loss were caused by an idle person with a mean streak.
There is a bread squeezer in any group. The church even sometimes harbors a few bread squeezers. These are those sore tails and nitpickers, the storm clouds who live to rain on others’ parades, those who seem to enjoy causing friction and irritating others, those who hold petty grudges, and general pot-stirrers. They are the busybodies (2 Thessalonians 3:11; 1 Timothy 5:13). Solomon described one as a worthless and wicked person who “soweth discord” (Proverbs 6:14, 19). Paul lamented lovers of controversy because they provoke “envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds” (1 Timothy 6:4-5).
Bread squeezers flatten a congregation’s morale, squeeze the worst side out of others, and pick and poke at everyone from the church’s leaders to any other Christian whose name comes into their crosshairs. They taint the productivity, good will, good deeds, attitude and joy of a congregation. They brighten entire rooms just by making an exit.
Are you a bread squeezer? How well do you speak of other Christians? Are you moody? Do you lash out at others when you feel you have been wronged? Do you give the cold shoulder? Do you not speak to others, only to complain that others are unfriendly? Do you wear your feelings on your sleeve? Are you the type that prefers the role of critic, since there are plenty of others to be the “cheerleader”? Then, you are a bread squeezer!
A bread squeezer is as needed in a congregation as Feldman was needed in Yardley! He was entirely destructive, and he caused others to pay for his bad habit. Barnabas was not a bread squeezer (Acts 4:36). Neither were Judas and Silas (Acts 15:32). Certainly, Jesus was not! The church is always in need of more encouraging, uplifting, positive, happy and contented members. Do not squeeze the bread!
