|
Today’s
subject is bread. And I have got to believe that, were I to
divide you into groups of five and give you ten minutes to
discuss the matter, each such grouping would come up with
twenty good bread stories, so universal is the topic. But
since our sanctuary is not built for small group discussion, I
am going to tell you my bread stories and you will have to
either resonate or suffer in silence. So here goes: “A Short
History of Billy and Bread.”
I
am but a boy….a “wee lad” as the Scots say. It is either
a Monday or a Thursday (those being the days my grandmother
bakes bread). Never on Tuesday or Friday. Always on Monday and
Thursday, with at least one loaf per day coming home under the
arm of my father. As bread goes, it’s good….although I am
more impressed with the baking part than with the eating part.
For my grandmother’s crusts are….well….crusty. Which is
why I make my mother trim them from my sandwich before cutting
my sandwich into squares…..or (better yet) triangles. Living
with my lunchtime requirements is not easy for my mother. But
I outgrow them in time for marriage.
About
this time I become interested in the communion bread at my
church. Not theologically interested, but functionally
interested. I notice that the bread is always passed on little
silver trays piled with precut pieces. I find myself
wondering:
-
Who
cuts the pieces and do they need any help?
-
Who
decides how big the pieces should be, and how quickly can
I scan the entire tray in order to select the biggest one?
-
Do
Christians always trim the crusts before cutting the
pieces, or is this simply the whim of the Methodists?
Occasionally,
I ride with my father down Grand River late at night and pass
the best smelling building in all of Detroit. It is the
building where they bake Wonder Bread, and the aroma that
permeates the street almost persuades me to become a baker.
Except my father points out I’d have to work nights. Today,
that building houses a casino and, in its own way, still makes
bread. Which still smells.
I
am now a young minister, attending a denominational meeting,
listening to a sermon by a man who, for my money, may be the
best preacher I ever heard. His name, Colin Morris. His
denomination, Methodist. His country, Great Britain. His
particular assignment, President of the United Church of
Zambia. In his sermon, he is describing a severely
malnourished Zambian male who dropped dead just a few feet
from the front door of the manse. A subsequent autopsy
revealed nothing in his stomach, save for a few undigested
balls of grass. When death came to the beggar outside his
study, Colin Morris was inside his study reading a clergy
journal of the Church of England. The subject of the lead
article being: “The Ceremonially Proper Way to Dispose of
Leftover Eucharistic Bread”….meaning communion bread
already consecrated by the priest, but not consumed by the
smaller-than-expected number of congregants. Within a few
weeks of hearing Morris’ story, a grade school kid
approaches me after communion and asks if he can have the
remainder of the loaf left on the altar. I hear myself saying:
“Sure.” In response to which I hear him saying: “Oh
boy.”
I
am now as mature in my career as I am in my midsection, having
been just appointed senior minister at First Church,
Birmingham. It is late Saturday night before my first Sunday.
The doorbell rings. I open it to find Bill and Ivah DaLee
standing before me. I learn that Bill bakes bread as a hobby
and that he and Ivah think it appropriate to feed me on
Saturday night prior to my feeding them on Sunday morning.
Which they do. And which I do.
A
few more years go by and Kris and I find ourselves in Egypt.
We are quartered in a converted Cairo palace, one of the most
opulent hotels in which we have ever been privileged to lay
our heads. In one of the garden courtyards, a woman is baking
flatbread in a makeshift, wood-fired oven. Still stuffed from
lunch (and having just made reservations for what I expect
will be a sumptuous dinner), my stomach rebels with the cry:
“No….no….pass her by.” But seeing her seated there
baking her heart out (looking for all the world like an
Egyptian Martha), I can’t not buy some.
Finally,
I am in an Israeli kibbutz, flush on the shores of the Sea of
Galilee (midway between Tiberias and Capernaum). I am far from
alone, given that forty friends are with me. The morning
cannot be any more perfect (even though the tour bus is a tad
late). Communion by the lakeshore is suggested. Of course. Why
not? An inspired thought. Someone produces a bottle of wine
bought the day before. Someone else produces a silver chalice
bought the day before that. But what about bread? No one has a
spare loaf anywhere. A breakfast bagel, maybe. Toast from the
dining room, possibly. Then it is remembered that the buffet
table in the dining room features an incredible centerpiece of
foodstuffs (fruits….vegetables….cheeses….and a beautiful
loaf of braided bread). Which I dispatch someone to steal (the
bread, I mean), so that we can break it with Jesus….on his
shore….of his lake….in his land. In response to which
everybody says: “Never has holy communion meant so much to
me. Thanks, preacher, for creating such an inspirational
moment.”
*
* * * *
Enough
of stories. Digest them at your leisure. Like over a sandwich.
Or whatever. It’s time to make a few points. Biblical
points. Hopefully, obvious points. Better yet, memorable
points.
Point
number one: We need bread. Everybody knows we need
bread. God knows we need bread. Jesus knows we need bread. And
by “bread,” I mean the kind that is found on the table and
the kind that is found in the wallet. In a best-loved Bible
story, Jesus tells several thousand people to sit down (in
groups of 50, no less) and then tells the disciples to feed
them. As you will recall, the disciples voice a pair of
protests. First, they say they have no bread. Second, they say
they have no money to buy bread. So Jesus takes matters into
his own hands. Or he puts them into a little boy’s hands
(depending upon which version of the story you prefer). But at
the point where the story lands in the lap of the disciples,
they lack bread of both kinds…..the edible kind and the
spendable kind.
Both
kinds are important. Jesus tells the tempter that “man does
not live by bread alone.” Notice he does not say that
man does not live by bread. Of course man lives by bread. Man
is a bread-dependent animal. I am talking about bread which is
wheat, rye or pumpernickel. But I am also talking about bread
which is salary, Social Security and stock options. People
have to eat. People have to be able to afford to eat. I have
never been a proud bread baker. But I have been a proud
breadwinner. Anything wrong with that? Nothing whatsoever is
wrong with that. Unless (and until) I come to the point when
life starts and stops with bread….when the day begins and
ends with bread….or when I get sucked into the popular
mythology that if I just have enough of this (hold up loaves)
and this (hold up twenty dollar bills), I will be happy.
Because I won’t.
Point
number two. We need bread. God provides bread. It is
okay to ask for bread and okay to receive bread. There may be
an occasional blessing we gain from fasting, but there is
nothing that we gain from starving. God wants you to eat. God
wants you to be able to afford eating. God would prefer that
you not obsess over either….eating or affording. But God is
into providing. It may not come as expected. But it will come.
Daily manna is what the people of Israel got in the
wilderness. To be sure, they got sick of it….and tired of
it. But it kept them going. As best as we can figure, “it”
may have been a sticky, sweet secretion from the tamarisk tree
which dripped to the ground (generally in May and June),
crystallized by night, turned white, and actually contained
calories. It hardened into thin, wafer-like sheets which
people broke off and ate. Someone once described it as having
the texture of Styrofoam. But hey, a little peanut butter and
jelly, and anything’s edible.
Did
they actually eat the stuff? Probably. Did they eat it
exclusively? Probably not. But the story is their way of
saying: “It is not God’s will that anyone should go
without.” And the word “daily” means that it will come
when needed (as needed) so that just when you think “Oh,
I’m all right for now, but I’m gonna be hungry
tomorrow….lonely tomorrow….weak and fainthearted
tomorrow….poor in spirit tomorrow….or just plain poor
tomorrow,” you can ask God tomorrow. You can take the
“daily bread” promise to the bank, although you cannot
necessarily take the bread to the bank. This is what is meant
by the suggestion that manna spoils when you try to keep it
overnight. Which is not a prohibition against stored-up things
like savings bonds, insurance policies, college funds, freezer
plans or home-canned tomatoes. But which is a statement of
trust which proclaims: “I may not know what tomorrow holds,
but I know who holds tomorrow.”
Let
me illustrate. I do all kinds of planning, the better to do a
consistent job of preaching. But I never have so much stuff in
the well….so many ideas in the pipeline….so many stories
at the spigot….that I don’t occasionally come up dry. But
I have got to tell you that on those empty-well days,
something always seems to come from God-only-knows where (and
I literally mean from God-only-knows where) when I need it
most. Daily manna! For some of you, it’s a kernel of corn.
For me, it’s the germ of an idea.
Point
number three. We need bread. God provides bread. Churches
ought to double as bread trucks. Meaning that the church
which turns its back on issues of hunger and hungry people
forfeits its right to the title “church.” No matter how
poor the church is….how weak the church is….how hell-bent
and focused on survival the church is….if some form of bread
delivery is not part of its charter, it has no charter. You
think I’m wrong? Read the New Testament and then come back
and tell me where I’m wrong.
Every
year at Annual Conference, a slew of ministers retire. At that
time, they have the option of giving a brief retirement
speech. One year, a fellow whose career had been nondescript
at best, chose to forfeit his few minutes at the microphone
and, instead, presented the Bishop with a loaf of his homemade
bread. Which generated tumultuous applause (either because it
took less time or because it was different). The guy who
followed him was a fellow who really felt that the Bishop had
done him wrong by putting him in all the wrong churches at all
the wrong times, following all the wrong people, thereby
contributing to his overall sense of depression and failure.
All of which led him to say: “Wouldn’t you know it? First
they send me to follow Paul Blomquist and you know how hard it
is to follow Paul Blomquist. Then they send me to follow Tim
Hickey, and everybody knows that nobody can follow Tim Hickey.
Now, on the day I finally hang it up, they send me to the
microphone to follow a bread act.”
Well,
if we clergy read the New Testament, we’re all sent to
follow a bread act. And if we don’t have a bread act…..or
can’t create a bread act….we’d better hang up the old
preaching robe, stick several ballpoint pens in our shirt
pocket, and go door to door selling aluminum siding. Because
the day is coming when Jesus will say, “Friend, why didn’t
you notice me when I was hungry?” And, for the life of us,
we are not even going to remember when that was.
Point
number four. We need bread. God provides bread. Churches ought
to double as bread trucks. And just as Jesus is full of
bread, bread is strangely full of Jesus. Start with the
fact that Jesus is full of bread. Jesus was a Jew. Which
suggests that every Friday night, Jesus celebrated Shabbat
with a Sabbath meal. And every Friday night after his mother
lit the candles and his father poured the wine, he (as the
oldest son) pronounced the blessing over the “challah,”
the flaky bread of the Sabbath family meal.
Which
happened every Friday. Without exception. Until that Thursday
when he said: “I’m afraid I’ll miss the next one,
friends. But if you break the bread without me, I’ll be in
it.” Meaning what….“that I’ll be in it?” Did that
mean in body….in spirit….in memory? Two thousand years
later, we’re nowhere near settling that one. But while the
Catholics come to the table proclaiming “a doctrine of real
presence,” I’ve yet to meet anyone coming to the table
proclaiming “a doctrine of real absence.” All of which
makes me wonder why we can’t come together around the notion
that, where bread is concerned, “Jesus is in there
somehow.”
*
* * * *
That’s
enough for one morning. Except for this. Notice in the
Lord’s Prayer that the request for daily bread is phrased in
conjunction with the request for forgiveness from trespasses
(“Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our
trespasses….”).
Perhaps
it would surprise you to learn that during Medieval times
there emerged a Jewish custom whereby, on the first day of
Rosh Hashanah, people gathered on the shore of a lake or river
to cast their sins into the water. How did they do it? In the
form of tiny pieces of bread, that’s how they did it. The
Jewish name for it is “tashlich,” and it is undergoing
something of a revival in our culture. In fact, I may even
give it a try. I can see it now. As I cast my bread upon the
waters of Quarton Lake, passersby will smile and say: “Look
at that old man feeding the ducks.” Only I will know that
the old man is baring his soul.
Note:
For information on Jewish rituals involving bread, I am
indebted to a wonderful new book by Harvey Cox entitled Common
Prayers: Faith, Family, and a Christian’s Journey through
the Jewish Year. For Colin Morris’ story on the starving
Zambian, find an out-of-print copy of Include Me Out.
For a better introduction to the wonderful body of Colin
Morris’ work, read either The Hammer of the Lord or Mankind,
My Church.
This
sermon was occasioned by the return of 100 persons from First
Church’s Choir Camp, the theme of which was “Bread.” As
a part of the 10:00 worship service, Choir Camp participants
sang a number of bread-related songs. During their week at
Camp Lael, they read bread stories, built a bread oven and
actually baked some of their own loaves for personal and
sacramental consumption.
|
