Tag Archives: bread

AS WATCHMEN WAIT …

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Two disciples meet Jesus on the road to Emmaus - by William Hole

EMMAUS AGAIN in the morning! But I never tire of the story, or of reflecting upon it, nor of any and all the post-Resurrection appearances – because appearances, in the midst of the ordinary, are what the extra-ordinary Resurrection was and is all about.

Recognising God in the most surprising places and joyfully acknowledging  that we’d only got a tiny piece of the story when we thought we knew that God was only to be found in the Temple (whichever particular branch of “the Temple” we thought most likely).

Of course, God was to be found in the Temple, and in temples. But Jesus numbered you and me, in the very midst of all the complex and glorious and painful and wonderful details of our lives, amongst those temples.

God honours and loves us not because we deserve it, or need to deserve it, but because without that honour, and without that love, we wouldn’t have a life. Because that honour, and that love, and that God IS Life – in us!

What shall we do? – shocked hearers of the truth about the crucified Jesus asked Peter, cut to the heart. Quick as a flash Peter replies with one word. Repent. Look again. Think again. See again. Isn’t that him sitting at table with you?

30 years ago when I was a new Curate in Mottram in Longdendale I used to look forward to saying Evensong with the Vicar, Richard Price, on Saturdays especially. I’d never heard anyone pray before, nor ever since, with the utter simplicity and faith with which Richard used to close Saturday Evensong:

“As watchmen wait for the morning, so we wait now for Thee, O Lord our God. Come to us, Lord Jesus, in the morning, and at the breaking of the bread.”

IN THE BREAKING

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EMMAUS. EVENING. Seven miles outside Jerusalem so a bit of a stiff walk beyond where all the religious action’s at. If Jerusalem’s a “vision of peace” then Emmaus, this night, even if all-of-a-flutter, is at peace. Here’s an ordinary, homey, domestic scene at evening. Lovely name for home, Emmaus. In Hebrew: חמת‎ Hammat, meaning “warm spring”.

“Warm spring”. Like the name of one of the much loved guest-houses near the beaches where we (you, and me) laughed away carefree childhood holidays. Conjures an image of Easter, though there hadn’t been such an Easter as ours when the village was named; so just “warm spring” then, and what, outside high days and holidays, we might call “ordinary supper”. Bread on the table, and something to drink. We know the story. “Their eyes were opened and they recognised him in the breaking of the bread”. (Luke 24.31)

Here, in our world, where hearts are aching, and some are breaking, and boys are fighting (too often about religion), and girls are weeping, and the young are in debt, and parents despairing, and old bones are creaking, and we all look more and more alike the older we get, we must stop, look and listen to the sounds of a warm spring, (welling up within us) and pray that our eyes be opened as theirs were, and that we, like them, recognise Risen Life, and rising, in our ordinary baking, and love-making, and suppers, though the transient Jesus of Nazareth be “vanished from their (and our) sight”.

Ordinary supper. Ordinary bread. Ordinary life. Warm spring. Every day. Every place. Always an Easter. Mystical union, communion, recognised in the taking, the blessing, the breaking and the giving – for the whole of ordinary humankind. If our eyes were only opened.

NIGHT HAD FALLEN

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AS SOON AS HE HAD TAKEN the piece of bread he went out. Night had fallen. (John 13.30). And Judas was poised, very shortly thereafter, to betray Jesus to the authorities. The night then, for Judas, was already far gone and his day far spent. He was soon to come to the end of the road. Fear, pieces of silver, hanging on to some imagined vestiges of power brought about a darkness in him into which no light would shine, in this world, again.

On this bright Spring Tuesday morning in Holy Week I too have partaken of bread.  And Morning has broken. And in this gladsome light I must take care never to betray Christ’s gospel of liberation for all peoples, for New every morning is the love, our waking and uprising prove. And the road we’re called to walk along, hand in hand with every child, woman and man on the planet is to be the pathway of humanity redeemed. And any and all who take bread today are to banish the betraying powers of fear, pieces of silver, hanging on to imagined vestiges of power, darkness into which no light may shine – in the Name of the Life who calls us out from darkness to live in his most marvellous light.

HOT OR COLD?

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Patches Chabala

Patches Chabala

ANOTHER RICH SUNDAY. 8am reflection on “The Bread of Life”, led onto 10am Family Eucharist. First communion for young Freya, and visiting preacher, Zambian ordinand Patches Chabala, enthralling us with a very personal “photo album” of life back home in Zambia. Choices are simpler, Patches reflected. Asked whether you’d like a hot or a cold drink you’d simply reply, “hot, please” or “cold”. It takes a while to get the hang of the plethora of choices available in the UK. Here you can’t even get away with “tea, please” or “coffee”, for a further half dozen questions as to personal preference follow on from even these decisions. Get beyond hot or cold drinks and on to “what’s to eat?” and the world of the UK supermarket dazzles. Thankfully, God keeps things simple. In Jesus He’s the “bread of life” … french, ciabatta, naan, flat or Hovis don’t come into it. He just IS the bread of life. In Jesus we encounter God.

As an Iona liturgy has it:

He whom the universe could not contain, is present to us in this bread. He who redeemed us and called us by name now meets us in this cup. So take this bread and this wine. In them God comes to us so that we may come to God

God in the ordinary stuff of life. God in that which we can’t help but to do every day of our lives: eating and drinking. In this encounter we’re not left dazzled or baffled by a plethora of choices, nor asked to tick boxes, nor sent away “to get some experience and come back later”. God meets us today. Now. Where we are are and who we are. Because that’s who and what the Bread of Life is … Here and Now. The doors of God’s hospitality are open to every man, woman and child upon earth, today. We do well to remember that. And to open our church doors, ever wider.

See also: Patches goes to Lambeth