Not Your Ancestors' Bread
John 6:51-58
I cannot resist a promising self-help book. I always know
that this newest one will finally change my life. I will now become as
fit as Jane Fonda was in the seventies in her shiny spandex
leotards and coordinating leg warmers..I will become a great American
writer , grow glorious perennials and...most recently, bake the
absolutely best bread ever baked.
I bought a book this summer titled: The Bread Baker's Apprentice.
My daughter-in-law assured me that this book would lift me to the ranks
of excellent, expert bread makers. I am sorry to report
that although this book is fascinating reading, I am still just a so-so
bread baker. Perfection continues to elude me. My ciabatta
bread rises for the requisite eighteen hours with only 1/4 teaspoon of
yeast but it's a toss of the dice as to how the final product will turn
out. It's a good thing that real Italian ciabatta bread is
supposed to look like a well-worn house slipper because my bread fits
right in to that description.
How often we try to reach human perfection when our hunger is
never truly fed by human achievement. Nor is that deep hunger
within us ever satisfied even with the best bread ever baked by
human hands.
Our ancestors ate the manna that came down from heaven and they still
died. We hear that in the gospel of John in one way or another
for week after week. It is only the "living bread" that
comes down from heaven that will truly feed us and allow us to live
forever.
I've always thought that manna was something like fish food. You
know--that white crumbly stuff that you drop into your fish tank.
It disintegrates very quickly if the fish don't dart to it and eat it
right away. It would probably not be the bread of choice for
anyone in any culture. But it was the bread of necessity that
sustained those hungry people in the wilderness before the real bread
was offered for us and to us.
It's a funny thing about manna. It spoils easily. It
doesn't last long. The Bedouin who still live in the Sinai
peninsula continue to collect what they call manna. The bread
made from that manna is reputed to contain not only a substance like
coriander seeds but all kinds of strange things. It doesn't
have a long shelf life.
That manna in the wilderness was provided by God, not
Abraham, to teach the Israelites that God does provide--not always what
we want but what we need.
And yet, after being sustained in the wilderness by eating the
manna, our ancestors still died because they did not eat the living
bread.
At the Flint Street Food Pantry and Fellowship, we receive all kinds of
food gifts from individuals and businesses in our community--everything
from Reese's Hearts of Palm and exotic gourmet mustard that someone
bought and never used to plain old Campbell's Tomato Soup and Skippy
Peanut Butter. By far the most abundant gift is the donation of
all kinds of day-old (or older) bread from the local grocery
stores. We always have several large freezers full of every
imaginable kind of bread from flour tortillas to bagels to Wonder-like
white sandwich bread to gourmet Artisan rustic loaves. I'll bet
if we dug deep enough we would even find a loaf or two of ciabatta
bread buried deep in the depths of those freezers.
Each time our clients come to pick up groceries, they are able to
choose from a wide variety of breads spread out on our tables to
supplement their meals for the coming three days. When we cook
lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays, our menus are full of ingenious ways
to use bread. From English muffin breakfast casserole to chicken
with bread stuffing to chocolate bread pudding, we find ways to use
that bread. This next Tuesday we will be making French toast with
day-old sandwich bread. Sometimes we get carried away with our
inventive ways to weave bread into the menus; some of our
experiments turn out better than others. Sometimes our
menus are not quite balanced--very heavy on the carbs. Yet, each
person who cooks takes what God provides and feeds hungry people.
Each person who cooks offers the best that she knows how to
offer. Our offerings aren't perfect because we aren't
perfect. We are offering the bread of our ancestors provided by
God. We know it isn't the living bread--the body and blood of
Christ. We know that the bread we serve will not feed the deepest
hunger of those we serve. But perhaps as we offer the bread of
our ancestors, we can, by God's grace bring others to share in the
living bread.
There is "good news" in all of this. The living bread is
there for all of us--for all of us including those we feed at Flint
Street, for every single child of God in the universe. The good
news includes the amazing fact that God takes what our imperfect hands
and hearts offer from his gifts and makes it something nourishing and
inviting.
I don't know about you but I know that I am not always very good at
inviting people to share the living bread--the bread that allows us to
live forever. I believe the message with all my heart but I feel
shy and inadequate sometimes when I try to share that with others. I
don't look like Jane Fonda; I don't write like Pearl Buck; my
perennials are puny; my bread is sometimes tough or dry. Yet, I
believe God loves and accepts us just as we are and just where we
are. He takes what we have to offer, even though it isn't perfect
and he uses it to bring others to the precious gift of the living
bread. To put it another way, he takes our day-old bread, our
tough or dry bread and turns them into something greater and more
perfect than we could ever be.
Last Sunday Father John asked us a question: "Why are you here
this morning?" I've thought about that question all week. I
imagine on any given Sunday, the reasons may be different for each of
us from what they were the week before or they will be next week.
Sometimes we come grieving or rejoicing, seeking or sharing. Yet this
table is always here to feed us no matter why we enter those red doors.
No matter where we are in our lives, we can come here to be fed the
living bread.
It is not the bread of our ancestors that will feed our deepest
needs but the living bread. We open our hands to accept this
bread. We come to this table, not alone, but in community.
We taste and see that the Lord is good. And when we taste and are
sustained, we are called to bless, break, take and eat the living bread
together again and again.
And after we receive, we are called to give. We are called to go out
into the world to share this good news, trusting not in our own
imperfect selves but in God who provides not only the bread of our
ancestors but the living bread that is there to feed us and all of
God's children forever.
Amen.
The Rev. Betsy Porter
St. James’ Episcopal Church
Eureka Springs, AR
11th Sunday after Pentecost
August 16, 2009