I am the bread of life

 Lately we have heard much about bread in our Sunday readings. Jesus tells us “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever”.

Bread of course is one of the oldest prepared foods.  Bread has always had great significance in most cultures from the flat breads of the Middle East, the Chapatis of Parkistan, to soda bread of Ireland and the loaves we are familiar with here in England. Today of course bread production is on an industrial scale. Techniques have been developed which enable lower protein wheat to be used. This, as in our supermarket loaves, enables bread to be produced much quicker by mechanical means and  it requires additives such as flavour enhancers, mould inhibitors and anti staling agents mmmm – delicious. As a result much of the bread we buy today lacks  flavour unlike the loaves baked at home.

 In Old Testament times however it was a different story. Bread-making was the women's work but in the palaces of kings and princes and in large households, the Artisan bakers' duties would be specialized. Bread was leavened using yeast that caused the mixture to rise in the shape of our familiar loaf.

 In the Book of Exodus we hear about the hurried departure of the Israelites from Egypt which prevented their bread being leavened as usual; the Jews today commemorate this event by eating unleavened bread on special occasions. Of course this is true during the passover unleavened bread is required by scriptural law to avoid any form of leaven during that time of year.

Roman culture too relied heavily upon bread. If you have ever been to Pompeii and other buried cities you will see public bakeries where the poorer people brought their bread to be baked, or from which they could buy ready-baked bread.  Indeed at Pompei they still have 81 carbonized loaves which were perfectly preserved in the ash of Versuvious. Bread in roman times as well as throughout history has always been an important staple of our diet.

During the second world war bread was particularly important to prisoners of Auschwitz. Those imprisoned in that terrible place survived on a tiny bread ration a day, as well as a  small bowl of grey soup which was made with rotten vegetables, rotten meat and water. Bread served as a currency substitute in the camp. Stealing a prisoner’s bread was tantamount to taking his life, and was punished by the other prisoners with death. After all the goal of the camp’s entire underground economy was to avoid starvation.

For those in these concentration camps, this bread symbolized life. Bread was a lifeline and the sustainer. Bread was traded, savored and treasured. One of the greatest tragedies of all however, is that this level of hunger is still experienced today in many Third world countries. The hunger experienced by those prisoners of Auschwitz is relived by many men, women and children everyday and often the Western world just looks on.

A small piece of bread about 4 inches by 4 inches is equivalent to one day’s  bread ration for one prisoner of Auschwitz  and  the amount of rice consumed by the hungry in the Third world is about this size.  Imagine how perhaps you could survive on such megre rations.  Later I will leave this bread on the Sanctuary steps which may be food for thought as we approach for communion.  

One particular Prisoner in Auschwitz was Maximilian Kolbe who was a Polish Franciscan Priest who died in Auschwitz in 1941. He was canonized a saint in 1982  and his feat day was celebrated last Tuesday. Having helped over 2000 Jews he was seen as a Jewish sympathizer and was therefore imprisoned. He was forced to work longer and harder than the others and was beaten and kicked savagely many times. He risked death over and over by leading prayers. He volunteered to do the work of those weaker than himself and often gave his meager portions of bread or soup to other prisoners who were sicker than he. Yet most poignantly Kolbe, despite starving to death, sacrificed his own meager bread ration to celebrate the Eucharist with the other prisoners. When the other prisoners offered to pay him back with their own bread rations he refused.   

The union brought about with Christ in the Eucharist was for Kolbe, the most important food for spiritual life; it was strength for the journey that is founded in the mutual penetration of God and the soul.   Kolbe understood and experienced this great mystery with considerable faith and continuity. It was a miracle of God’s love that he entered into profoundly and with conviction.

And here we are today – gathered as a community to break bread. Just as Kolbe, just as Christians in every age before us. And  just as the living bread sustained Kolbe and his fellow prisoners, so it continues to sustain us today.

I think it is truly profound that as we meet together to break bread it unites us with earlier worshipping generations and to the early church. Just as they met around the Lord’s table, so we too gather in fellowship for a family meal. This sense of community reconnects us each Sunday with the Eucharist of the New Testament, where worshippers were in union with each other and Christ.

The Eucharist itself is a dynamic reality in that it connects us to the past, present and future.

The past in that is points us back to the sacrifice of Jesus on Good Friday. It points to the cross where Christ was broken and his blood poured out. Indeed the symbols used by Jesus at the last supper, had at the time a resonance with history, the reshaping of the Passover. Jesus through the Last Supper assigned meanings to the traditional Passover meal of bread and wine.

The Eucharist connects us to the present,  as we share a fellowship meal in the here and now. The sharing of the one loaf and one cup uniting us not only with Christ but with one another. As we receive from the table, we encounter again and again the transformative power of Christ and the future in that it points forward to the promised kingdom of God. It is a foretaste of the banquet which God has prepared.

As we hear from our Gospel reading Jesus says “ I am the living bread which has come down from heaven”. He is no ordinary bread but the living bread. Just as he told the Samaritan woman at the well that he was the living water, so he now tells us that he is the living bread. We encounter Jesus in the living bread of Communion but also we take in Christ from reading and digesting the Scriptures.  We take in Christ from experiencing the Holy Spirit in other loving people. We take in Christ every day as we encounter scenes and situations that invite us to give ourselves in love by serving the needs of others. As we serve the needs of others, the love of Christ enters us more fully.

Jesus is never just ordinary bread that sustains the body which sustains us for our physical lives, Jesus the living bread provides us with energy and nourishment for our spiritual, emotional and moral lives. Jesus is the source of eternal life, the source of the values of our daily lives, the source of love for our daily lives. The basic food staple of the world is bread and Jesus is the basic spiritual staple of the world.

 Jesus in the gospel reading is pointing to bread as a metaphor that stands for our deepest needs, our deepest hungers and our deepest nourishment for life. However, it is not about gathering around the Lord’s table and thinking that all our work is completed. For as I said early, this is a foretaste of the  banquet which God has prepared for us.  As the bread of life, Jesus says take from me your fulfillment.  Know that every act you do testifies to the Kingdom. Every act of forgiveness and of generosity. Every act of justice and compassion. Every act of shared burdens. Every act of hope and of understanding. Every act, as Paul says, of building up each other, of building up the whole body of Christ, in love. Every such act gives life to the world.  In each of these, he who is the living bread is present; it is he, who is working. I pray we can all be nourished by this and never go hungry. Amen