Sermons

Eighth Sunday after Trinity
Sunday 2 August 2009

David Paton-Williams

Readings: Ephesians 4 v1-16, John 6 v24-35

I do love walking into a bakery - there is the wonderful smell and on the shelves nowadays there is a whole variety of breads promising so much pleasure and goodness

Well today I want to take you into the bakery of Christ - the bread of life - where the bread has many different meanings. And as we are not having wine it seems a good time to focus on the symbolism of our communion bread.

1. The first bread on the shelves is the Bread of Freedom.

The communion wafer reminds us of the thin unleavened bread of the Passover.

When Jesus broke bread with his disciples at the Last Supper it may well have been a Passover meal.

The bread in that meal was not ordinary bread but unleavened bread made without yeast. And today Jewish people still observe the Passover using Matzot - (a crisp cracker)

This special bread was and is a reminder of how God set his people free from slavery in Egypt.

And in the Passover meal it is explained that the people had to leave Egypt so quickly that they didn't have time to let the bread rise - so they took unleavened bread instead.

It was the Bread of Freedom And as Christians the bread reminds of a second Passover brought about by Christ, who has set us free from a different kind of slavery - the slavery of sin and evil.

For us the bread of communion is a reminder of that freedom we have been given in Christ.

As we feed on it we are being fed by God's grace so that we can go on living in that freedom

And it is a sign of the even greater freedom promised to us at the end of our journey.

2. The second kind of bread is Bread for the Journey

The wafer reminds us of the wafer thin manna in the wilderness.

Getting out of Egypt that was only the start of the journey for the Jewish people - and after the initial joy had worn off there were the forty years of wandering around.

And of course the people complained and grumbled about the lack of food and homely comforts.

After the collapse of Communism one complaint was "You can't eat freedom".

Well "You can't eat freedom" was the sort of thing the Israelites were grumbling, and so, the story continues, God provided them with manna in the wilderness Wafer thin bread covering the ground each morning - just enough for each person for that day and if anyone took more than they needed it would simply decay over night.

Whatever we make of the story the symbolism is clear. If the unleavened bread was the Bread of Freedom the manna was Bread for the Journey bread enough for the day and no more

So for us as Christians the communion wafer reminds us of the wafer thin manna - it reminds us that God provides food for our journey

And when we find ourselves in the wilderness as we sometimes do - a wilderness of pain or grief or loneliness or depression or anxiety
- it is a sign that God is still there and feeds us with what we need to get through
- and that may be all we have, but it is enough.

So the wafer reminds us of the manna - the Bread for the Journey, bread for the wilderness times.

3. The third kind of bread is the Bread of the Presence

There is a symbolism that comes through most strongly in the use ordinary bread rather than a wafer.

When Jesus broke bread and shared it with his disciples around the fireside, on the shores of lake Galilee, or up in the hills - it was ordinary bread.

When he fed the crowds with a few loaves provided by a young boy or some reluctant disciples - that was ordinary bread.

And when two disciples shared an evening meal with a stranger at Emmaus on Easter day - the bread that he broke was ordinary bread - and they knew that Christ was with them.

The message of the incarnation - of the word becoming flesh is that we find God in the midst of the things of this world the divine in the human the eternal in the everyday the extraordinary in the ordinary

To share in ordinary bread helps us to see that God is not remote and removed from our daily lives

It connects us with the carpenter of Nazareth who knew what it was to be hungry and thirsty, to have dirty hands and sweaty feet, and to know joy and pain.

Sharing in ordinary bread reminds us of what Jesus says: that the Bread of heaven is that which comes down and gives life to the world

It is a sign that everyday life, working life, ordinary life is made sacred by the presence of God in it. In the Gospels when Jesus is challenged about his disciples plucking heads of corn on the Sabbath he refers to David removing bread from the sanctuary because his followers needed it. That bread was called the Bread of the Presence.

As we feed on the bread of communion we are feeding on the presence of Christ who sets us free and feeds us for the journey.

But the bread of communion, the Bread of the Presence help us see that God's presence is there in all things -
grace can be found in humblest and most ordinary of things.

4. Lastly there is the Bread of Unity

This is one symbolism that is very weak in our tradition of having individual wafers:

In the Ephesians reading it said "There is one body"
And in this service we say: "We break this bread to share in the body of Christ. Though we are many we are one body because we all share in one bread."

The trouble is we don't share in one bread - we each have our own bit.

Jesus said "I am the bread of life" And when we share in the bread we share in the body of Christ - the one body that was broken and shared for us all on the cross. And we do that as the church - members of the one body of Christ.

Having one physical bread that we break and share brings home the meaning that we are all one and we all share in the one Christ. It is the Bread of Unity

So in some churches now they use one or more large wafers so that everyone has a piece of something much bigger. And other churches of course share in an ordinary loaf of bread.

One way or another they are touching a deeper meaning that we are missing with our individual wafers. I believe that communion would be a richer experience if we did away with them.

But whether we should embrace large communion wafers or a loaf of bread - well what do you think? - let us know.

The bread of communion has so many meanings -

But one way or another they all point to Christ, the bread of life - who gives us freedom, who feeds us for the journey, who is present with us here and in the ordinary things of life, and who makes us one.

Thank God for bread, thank God for Christ, the Bread of Life. Amen.

© St Edmund's Church, Roundhay