BREAD

June 2011 I am sitting under a cherry tree, in an orchard in France, thinking about bread,

My sister in law tells me that on a recent visit to Brittany she was shown round a typical old country farmhouse. The table, around which the household would have gathered to eat, had two grooved out hollows at one end, one for the bread and the other to hold the wine. It was customary, at the beginning of the meal, for the father to break and pass round the bread and then the wine. Two friends sat a meal with the risen Christ on the evening of that 1st Easter day and recognised Him in the breaking of bread. (Luke 24, 30-31). They must have watched Him performing this action many times before, and on the eve of His death, we read that, at supper with His friends He took bread, blessed it, broke it, and shared it with them. (Luke 22, 19). He invited them to re-member Him in this every day action; that He would be present to them in it, and that together they would be recreated into His body in the sharing. I sit in church. I cant see the action. The altar is beyond the empty choir stalls. The lectern, large and draped, stands in my line of vision. And even if it were not there, the priest stands with his back to me, altar against the wall. No one can see to recognise Him in the breaking of bread. Bread. I take it out of the oven. The smell of bread. The texture and taste of fresh bread. I walk past a bakery in our town; from the open door the smell pours out into the street. I am enticed in. I am the bread of Life, Jesus says, delicious, fresh, nourishing, life giving, enticing. The dry tasteless wafer sticks to the roof of my mouth. In a little wooden chapel, on the edge of a valley, a group of us worship. I bless and break the bread. One of the women baked it. We pass it, silently, to one another. Later a woman starts to weep. She tells us that, as a child, she went to church. She was confirmed. As she grew older the space between her and the action at the altar grew ever greater. The words and ritual became increasingly disconnected to the reality of her life. It disappeared into the distance. Now as she sits, in a close circle, she sees, touches, eats, receives and gives bread. Real bread, like the bread she feeds her family on. The bread she bakes or buys. The action of Jesus, this profound action at the heart of Christian worship for centuries, has connected and touched the heart of her every day life. A cousin lives in Uganda. He tells us that his church no longer uses bread baked locally, but proudly imports wafers from a convent in Italy. What have we done to His body? Now processed, packaged, and flown air miles.

A miracle has happened. I am back in the village church. A table stands freely in the wide sanctuary space in front of the stone altar. The large lectern has been moved to the side. I am celebrating communion with real bread. At the end of the service a mother and daughter, who have come to listen to the daughters wedding banns being read, speak to me. They have been deeply moved by the connection of the bread to the reality of their lives. Bread is feeding my family. Bread is entertaining my friends. Bread is the super market trolley, the pizza dough Im kneading with my grandchildren. Bread is school lunch boxes, the sandwiches with colleagues at work, the scone with a friend in a caf. Bread is for poor times and rich times, for party and every day. Bread is every where, Jamaica and Gloucester, Uganda and Ireland. When did you see a communion wafer anywhere in your every day life? Would you buy it if it were offered to you on a stand in the super market? So bread disappeared from Christian worship and so did the table, and the space between the ordinary and the increasingly distant sacred widened. It became so wide that the ordinary people fell off. Only clergy partook. Much has changed since then and many gather around an altar which is again a table. But bread. How many people smell fresh bread anywhere near what they think of as church. Im going to church in London, an Egyptian Coptic Church. I am with my co-granny. As we enter the air is full of scent incense and baking bread. Someone is given the work of baking the bread. An oven full is baked, a washing basket full. Piles and piles of fresh bread. Generous God. the congregation queues up to be fed, from babies to the old. At the end of the service all the left over bread is taken, in the basket, to the doorway of the church, where people take, break, and share it with each other. Co-granny wraps a lump of bread in a tissue, puts it in her handbag and takes it with her to Sunday lunch, to share with those who have not been with her in church. We walk and skip and dance down the garden, carrying our precious picnic. We spread the cloth on the grass and unwrap the bread. Tom is a baker. He has brought the bread. It is beautiful and looks delicious. It is blessed and broken, and shared. Heccys chubby little hands cram bread into his mouth. We all feast. We are satiated with goodness. We are filled up with God. All is holy. It is communion. I am in another, inner city church. Ahmed is a refugee from Syria. He is a tall, gentle, smiley man. He comes to worship with us sometimes. Today he joins the queue for communion. At the altar rail he holds out his hands, saying, as a Moslem I am not allowed alcohol but I would love some bread. Our vicar doesnt know what to do. Ahmed apologises for the difficulty he has caused and asks for a blessing. Ahmed sits at the back. He no longer joins the communion queue with everyone else. Later he stopped coming to worship with us. I have a dream! To wake up on Sunday morning to the smell of freshly baking bread, and to follow the smell! I find an open door and a community of faith gathering around a table brimming with bread. There is space for me and for my quick-silver little grandson. There will be an abundance of fresh bread left over, and we will be encouraged to take some home to share with the others.

The wafers have been counted exactly. No crumbs must be left. There must be no leftovers. Only some of us have been allowed to share in this tasteless feast. 5000 were fed on a hillside and plenty was gathered up afterwards. Was it taken home? Was it shared with people who never met Jesus, and also with the hens? (John 6. 13) Jesus said, I am the bread of LIFE. (John 6.35)