1st August: Exodus 16:2-4, 9-15 and John 6:24-35
Paul Hollywood has become known at the ‘King of Bread’ by fans of the Great British Bake Off. It takes a lot to impress him in terms of taste and technical skill - and the coveted Hollywood handshake is a rarity in bread week.
For all the exotic flavour combinations on show, Paul himself talks about the simplicity and nostalgia of baking: the taste and smell evokes memories of childhood, community and comforts. Civilisation, he says elsewhere, is ‘built around wheat, around people’s settling down and not being nomadic.’
No wonder then that the Israelites long for Egypt: for the time when they were able to eat their fill of bread. It seemed to them that forced labour was compensated for by the sensory delights of bodies and food.
They’d have been content to die there. Now, in the wilderness, they were unsettled and hungry; hungry and vulnerable.
In the wilderness, in their vulnerability they see only the prospect of death: they complain and cling to nostalgia of the old ways. Perhaps we recognise that longing.
They hunger for life, for comfort, for bread; but life was nomadic, relentless, unpredictable. The congregation complained.
The Lord hears this complaint.
The Lord speaks to Moses.
Moses speaks to Aaron.
Aaron speaks to the congregation of the Israelites.
In their hunger and vulnerability, the Lord does a new thing.
That new things is a gift of bread from heaven.
Manna from Heaven - Original by Alexander Kanchik
What is it? They ask. It is the bread that the Lord gives.
This bread rains down from heaven and settled on the wilderness as the dew lifted. Fine. Flaky. Fragile.
And in those gathered fragments hunger is satisfied; it is a practical gift of physical food.
More than that: in these fine, flaky, fragile fragments, the faithful God calls a people back to faithfulness.
In this substance they find sustenance: but it is just enough.
No selfish storing up; no greedy gathering of too much; no excessive consumption.
It is enough for hunger to be satisfied; for complaining to turn to gratitude; for vulnerability to become community.
There is grace. It is enough. Day by day.
Loaves and Fishes - John August Swanson original
Jesus too had looked upon a crowd with rumbling stomachs and grumbling words: in compassion he responded to that hunger and vulnerability and took what was offered - blessed it and broke it.
He gave it to them, and they ate their fill; they had enough.
Fragments are collected up and baskets are filled.
But they wanted more: they look for him.
When they find him, he points them beyond the meeting their physical needs to a deeper longing.
He points them beyond the food that perishes, to the food that fills our stomachs and leaves us wanting more.
He points them to the food that endures for everlasting, abundant and eternal life.
He points to himself: the one who is God’s eternal word; the one who is flesh of our flesh.
Believe in me, he says; believe in the one sent to you because of God’s love for this world.
They know the story.
They jump in with their own telling of the story of fine, flaky and fragile bread.
Jesus listens. Yes, he says, you’re right about Moses. You’re right about the way a faithful God calls people back to faithfulness with these gathered fragments.
But he says, there is more: there is more than eating your fill; there’s more than nostalgia for the old ways.
There is more than the bread shared that day: which smelt so fresh and filled their stomachs; but which will go stale and mouldy.
This more than is the true bread from heaven: God’s own son.
This more than is the living bread: giving life to the world.
This bread is known to us in the fine, flaky, fragile fragment which we break and snap, bless and share at every communion.
For there, in that place, we receive a fragment of Christ’s body to be united as Christ’s body.
The body that was bruised and bled; died and rose to new and eternal life. In communion we are draw near to this gracious and fragile life.
In that place, the fragments of our lives, our stories, our hungers and our vulnerabilities are gathered up; they become more than the sum of their parts.
There is communion in this. As the bodies within one body we are fed; where we learn to hunger for God; where we learn to love each other as God loves us.
Our faithful God calls us into faithful communion in this way: through the giving of himself in fragility that our fragments might be made one.
So we pray that our bodies may be revived; that the body of Christ might be revived. That we might be strengthened in the Spirit; that we might hunger for God’s ways; that we might meet others in their vulnerability.
With open hearts might we touch and taste and see how gracious our Lord is. For what is fragile and fragmented is the stuff that makes for communion. Amen.
© Julie Gittoes 2021
