Bread is Christ

There were two obvious ways to go with my message this evening: feet or bread. Truth be told I have recently become quite enamored with one of these things. You can take a sigh of relief…I’m talking about bread. That’s the thing I’ve fallen for and the thing I have come to understand as a profound insight into the divine.

I don’t think I’m overstating it to say that my recent adventures in bread-baking have been profoundly spiritual experiences. Off and on over the past year and a half I have been trying to make sourdough bread at home. Our kitchen counter is home to a glass mason jar with bubbling white substance that is nothing more than flour and water. Well, flour and water with enough bacteria and yeast from the air to introduce the process of fermentation. Every day I add a little flour and a little water, while pouring off the equivalent amount of sourdough starter. Whenever I’m ready, I mix in some of that starter with a large amount of flour, water and salt. Over the course of two days I mix, wait, knead, wait, knead, and wait some more until it’s ready to bake. Yesterday this came out of my oven:

There is nothing quite like the overwhelming sensation of pulling a fresh-baked loaf of bread out of the oven. The heat, the smell, the anticipation, the culmination of all that work and waiting – the hardest part of the process is the three hours of waiting for the bread to adequately cool once it has been baked. 

I don’t need to assign spiritual metaphors to the bread-baking process in order to make it holy. A beautiful loaf of bread doesn’t have to stand for anything other than what it is in order to be sacred. Baking and eating bread is a spiritual experience in and of itself. And maybe that’s why Jesus identifies so intimately with it. Throughout scripture Jesus says things like “I am the bread of life” and holding a loaf of bread he says, “This is my body.” He didn’t say “In a way I am kind of like bread” nor did Jesus say “This bread symbolizes my body.” He meant it quite literally. Which only makes sense when we understand that Jesus as the second person of the Trinity – the Cosmic Christ – is the expression of God that, since the beginning of creation, has been sustaining and energizing all forms of life. 

Did you know that a loaf of whole-grain bread baked from fermented dough has all the nutrients a human body needs to survive? Truth is, if someone gave you an unlimited supply of flour and water and you consumed them on their own, you wouldn’t last very long. However, if you mixed the flour and water, allowed them to ferment, and then baked and ate that bread – that is enough sustenance to last you indefinitely.

When Jesus says “I am the bread of life” and holding a loaf of bread he says, “This is my body,” he is identifying his divine nature that gives us what we need in order to survive and thrive, all of which is found is something as unassuming as wheat seed and water and air.

This is all quite literal; and I could stop now and be satisfied that I have communicated the truth of God’s grace and God’s presence for us in the gift of bread. However, I recently rewatched an episode of the Netflix show Cooked by Michael Pollan and was reminded of the many ways in which bread is an outstanding metaphor for the spiritual life.

[here’s where we watched the video: Cooked season 1, episode 3, final 5 minutes]

Not to take away from the literal truth that Christ is present to us in the physical substance of bread, but I just have to pull some of these metaphors out.

In the video clip, Michael said the wheat seed has everything needed to sustain physical life and our task is how to access the nutrients. Likewise, everything needed to sustain spiritual life is available to us; we do, however, have to figure out how to unpack and access it. Prayer, worship, community, the arts, reading scripture…each of these disciplines comes to us like a tightly-packed seed. Our task is to engage with these disciplines in a way that allows them to expand, change, and create something new in us. Praying, worshipping, reading scripture just to check them off the to-do list (or engaging in them because you feel like you’re supposed to) is like eating a whole wheat kernel…it will be unpleasant and will not yield any benefits because it will just pass right through you without being digested. 

Michael also mentioned that bread-baking is accessible; that anyone can do it, mostly by feel rather than rote recipe. And some times are better than others. So it is with the spiritual life of discipleship. All people have the same opportunity to connect with, and be informed by, the divine. Sometimes our efforts seem to yield little fruit. Other times we are gifted with something truly incredible, sweet-smelling, and nourishing; and the benefits extend into our larger communities.

Also, he said that he found confidence and satisfaction as a result of his bread-baking. As your pastor I pray for nothing less for each one of you. May your walk with Christ lead you to newfound confidence and genuine satisfaction at the gifts God has given you.

I recently came across, and found hope in, the expression, “Spiritual formation is the slowest of all human movements.”* Sometimes we look at our faith and life as a disciple of Christ and wonder if we really have anything to show for it. If the fruits of the Spirit are peace, joy, love, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, how much more of that stuff do we have than we did yesterday? Has all our worship, prayer, service, faith, brought us any closer to a life that looks like Christ’s? The sourdough bread process reminds us that we cannot rush our spiritual development. Instead, our spiritual lives require attention, care, intention, and time.

May you come to know and experience God through the physical universe, with all its complexities and wonders. And in the same way, may you come to know and experience God through your internal universe, with all its complexities and wonders. And may you be transformed into something far more than you could ever expect, hope, or manage on your own.

Amen.

* https://renovare.org/blog/some-things-take-time

Bread and Baseball Cards

John 6:51-58

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh." The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, "How can this man give us his flesh to eat?" So Jesus said to them, "Very truly, I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and they died. But the one who eats this bread will live forever."

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I would guess every person here has bought something this weekend. Maybe it was a ticket to the high school football game on Friday night. Maybe gas for your car, a meal out, food from the grocery store. Maybe a gift for someone else, a gift for yourself, an online impulse buy, or an online automatic purchase. Each one of us looked at an object and said, “That thing has value and I will give something that is mine in order to have it.”

Entire economic courses and divisions of companies are dedicated to the how and why of value attribution and pricing structures. The concept of supply and demand is one part of the equation. There’s also the idea that there is an ideal price point that makes the object affordable for the consumer, but still pricy enough for the seller to make a profit. It’s an amazing psychological dance between seller and consumer that produces a world where things for sale for $999 sounds like a much better deal than a similar item that costs $1,001.

In fact, an object’s price is part of what makes it desirable. If Gucci handbags cost only $3, they would cease to be as desirable because everyone could have one. If Fruit of the Loom came out with a pair of underwear that cost $50, no one would buy it; but Under Armour can sell $50 pairs of underwear without breaking a sweat (pun intended).

Speaking of handbags and underwear, let’s bring it back to Jesus. 

Jesus is in a bit of a bind. He knows that his physical body will not last forever; in fact, he knows it will not last much longer. And yet, there is nothing more valuable to the world than Jesus’ flesh and blood. The people need the incarnated divinity in their lives even when he is gone.

The very idea of salvation (that is, an intimate and restorative connection to the divine) is found in the incarnation of the divine into the body of a first-century Jewish man – the Word made flesh. So how would Jesus make the gift of salvation available when creation can no longer gaze into his eyes, touch the hem of his cloak, feel his restorative touch, or hear his stories?

Jesus’ surprising solution is to declare that the incarnation of the divine will continue in perpetuity in something as seemingly mundane as bread and wine.

If church and communion have been a part of your life for a long time, you might take this idea for granted. But try to let it sink in anew. The flesh and blood of Jesus of Nazareth is just as infused with divinity as bread and wine that is given and consumed in his name.

This idea has to sound bonkers to economists and marketers. Jesus–the most precious and valuable “thing” in the world–promises to be found in two of the most common physical objects in the world. I mean, can you imagine God placing such value on something so mundane? It would be like if God would look at ash and dust and declare that it is valuable.

Which, by the way, is exactly what God does.

Which, by the way, begs the question, “What is it that we value?”

Do we have the capacity to see the divine in something mundane and easily missed, like ashes, soil, wheat, bread, a poor person, a kid who is bullied, or a person with a physical or mental illness?

Do we have the capacity to ascribe value to the things and people who are overlooked and taken for granted our world? If so, we are walking in the footsteps of the incarnated Christ. If Christ is eternal, then the idea of the common and mundane being valued is an eternal truth. 

Allow me to approach this idea from a completely different angle.

I am blessed with a spouse who keeps me organized and forces me to purge things I have accumulated. So one day I was in the basement, at my spouse’s request, looking through the boxes of stuff that my parents had dropped off. A couple boxes were full of baseball cards. Then I found my collection of old comic books. I opened the box and found a note on the top that was handwritten on a piece of paper. It read,

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“Hi Aaron! Well it’s 1999 and you’re about to graduate. Cool. These comics are estimated to be worth over $1,000 now. I want you to sell these and use the money towards your tuition.” Signed, “Aaron Stamper.”

It was a letter I wrote to myself over 25 years ago...apparently back when I thought the word "want" had an apostrophe in it. The letter is precious on a number of levels. First, who doesn’t love it when kids write to older versions of themselves? Second, it’s humorous that I thought $1,000 would make much of a dent towards tuition. Third, it’s downright hilarious that I thought those comics would be worth anything at all. It’s an idea that I had regarding my baseball card collection also. I always assumed that the things that gave me so much joy, like comics and baseball cards, would only grow in value and that I could capitalize on them at a later date.

I had Lindsey read the letter, and of course she laughed…and then she told me to get rid of them. So I did. I got rid of MOST of them – the cards, that is...I couldn't part with the comics. But I also gave a few baseball cards to my boys – a completely random assortment of late-80s baseball players with mustaches and a surprising number of pastel uniforms. We sat together to sort them by team and rank them by which teams and players were best back then. Next, we used the cards to play games the boys dreamed up. 

Those cards and comics didn’t make me rich or even pay for one cent of my college tuition. I never could monetize them. But there was something beautiful about watching my kids play with things that I valued, but which they valued for a completely different reason.

The eternal truth I proclaim this morning is that the things we think are valuable often end up insignificant; but the things that are truly valuable are the things that are all-too-easily overlooked. 

The meal we share every week is financially insignificant. I mean, a prime rib dinner would be a much more impressive meal than a humble offering of bread and a couple drops of wine. And yet is the most outrageously valuable thing any of us will touch, taste, smell, or see. Only when we realize this can we then go out into the world and see everything and everyone, no matter how seemingly-insignificant, as truly valuable. 

Amen.