James T. Cleland - "The House of Bread" Communion Meditation (February 9, 1964)
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| - | The word bread is a term full of significance | 0:32 |
| for the life and ministry of our Lord Jesus Christ. | 0:38 | |
| He was born in Bethlehem. | 0:45 | |
| Now the original meaning of that place name is obscure. | 0:49 | |
| It may have been the house of the God Lehemu | 0:55 | |
| or even the place of fighting. | 1:00 | |
| But by New Testament times, it was commonly accepted | 1:04 | |
| as signifying the House of Bread, | 1:08 | |
| perhaps because Bethlehem was a village | 1:14 | |
| sat among grain fields. | 1:18 | |
| Jesus then was born in the house of bread. | 1:21 | |
| Almost at the very end of his life, | 1:28 | |
| he ate a meal in an upper room, where he took bread, | 1:31 | |
| broke it and shared it with the men | 1:38 | |
| who had most intimately companioned him in his ministry. | 1:42 | |
| The upper room was a house of bread. | 1:49 | |
| Now let us look together at this word bread | 1:55 | |
| in the sincere hope that this chapel may become for us | 1:59 | |
| the house of bread at this service of holy communion. | 2:04 | |
| In several books of the old Testament, | 2:11 | |
| the expression "the staff of bread," | 2:13 | |
| the staff of bread occurs, | 2:18 | |
| it means the bread supply, | 2:22 | |
| the necessary food for the undergirding of daily life. | 2:25 | |
| In similar vein Jonathan Swift, the Irish Anglican, | 2:32 | |
| either invented or popularized the phrase | 2:37 | |
| bread is the staff of life. | 2:41 | |
| Bread is a generic term for that | 2:46 | |
| which sustains the physical life of man, | 2:49 | |
| for that without which spiritual life would not be possible | 2:54 | |
| on this earth. | 3:02 | |
| Jesus knew how basic bread was for existence, | 3:04 | |
| how symbolic it was of family wellbeing, | 3:10 | |
| or what man (indistinct), | 3:14 | |
| if his son asks him for a loaf will give him a stone? | 3:16 | |
| We take bread so for granted, | 3:24 | |
| the sliced, wrapped hygienic loaf in daily abundance | 3:29 | |
| on the chain store shelves. | 3:35 | |
| So much of it tasting like compacted saw dust. | 3:38 | |
| But think of the flavor of homemade bread. | 3:44 | |
| Do you remember that Rupert Brooke listed it | 3:50 | |
| among the everyday items of accustomed living | 3:52 | |
| which made him rejoice? | 3:57 | |
| These I have loved: | 3:59 | |
| White plates and cups, clean-gleaming, | 4:02 | |
| Ringed with blue lines; and feathery, faery dust; | 4:07 | |
| Wet roofs, beneath the lamp-light; the strong crust | 4:14 | |
| Of friendly bread. | 4:22 | |
| The strong crust of friendly bread. | 4:24 | |
| Or let us go to the opposite extreme, | 4:29 | |
| let us listen to a person who needs bread, | 4:31 | |
| who lacks bread, who is frustrated by her inability | 4:35 | |
| to make enough money to buy bread. | 4:41 | |
| Two awful lines occur in Thomas Hood's tragic poem. | 4:46 | |
| "The Song of the Shirt," the story of a seamstress, | 4:51 | |
| trying to earn a living during the fearful days | 4:58 | |
| of England's industrial revolution in the 19th century. | 5:01 | |
| "Oh, God! that bread should be so dear, | 5:06 | |
| And flesh and blood so cheap!" | 5:13 | |
| Lest we reify religion in our misguided attempts | 5:20 | |
| to think of it as spiritual, | 5:25 | |
| it's well for us to remember that Jesus fed the 5,000 | 5:27 | |
| as well as preaching to them. | 5:33 | |
| Christianity is a sacramental religion. | 5:36 | |
| That means that the spiritual is found only in the material. | 5:40 | |
| To believe other eyes is heresy. | 5:48 | |
| Bread is first of all the staff of life, | 5:53 | |
| utterly basic from the continuing life of man. | 5:56 | |
| Because our Lord was a devoutly religious man, | 6:03 | |
| he knew that bread is to be thought of as more | 6:08 | |
| than the staff of life. | 6:11 | |
| When his disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, | 6:14 | |
| he gave them an outline prayer. | 6:19 | |
| We shall repeat it shortly with the choir leading us. | 6:22 | |
| We call it The Lord's Prayer. | 6:28 | |
| And notice one petition in it: | 6:32 | |
| Give us this day, our daily bread. | 6:34 | |
| Give us each day our daily bread. | 6:39 | |
| For Jesus the staff of life was the gift of God, | 6:44 | |
| that which is essential to life, God provides. | 6:53 | |
| One of the Psalmists caught this | 6:58 | |
| in his prayer of gratitude for creation and preservation, | 6:59 | |
| Thou doest cause the grass to grow for the cattle, | 7:03 | |
| and plants for man to cultivate: | 7:08 | |
| that he may bring forth food from the earth; | 7:11 | |
| and wine to gladden the heart of man, | 7:14 | |
| oil to make his face shine, | 7:18 | |
| and bread to strengthen man's heart. | 7:21 | |
| Do you know what man's response should be to this? | 7:27 | |
| The Hebrew returned some of the bread to God. | 7:31 | |
| It was known as the bread of the presence, | 7:38 | |
| or the show bread: 12 loaves of fine flour | 7:43 | |
| set upon the altar in rows of six, | 7:50 | |
| and changed every Sabbath. | 7:53 | |
| That was the creatures thank offering to the creator | 7:57 | |
| who is the provider, | 8:02 | |
| the one in whom life depends For sustenance. | 8:05 | |
| We respond more simply. | 8:10 | |
| We say Grace before meals. | 8:13 | |
| That is our acknowledgement that the staff of life | 8:19 | |
| is the gift of God. | 8:25 | |
| But there's one more import of bread. | 8:30 | |
| And we remember it particularly at this service. | 8:32 | |
| Jesus took bread, the staff of life, | 8:38 | |
| and because it was the gift of God, he gave thanks | 8:44 | |
| probably using the old Jewish prayer, | 8:49 | |
| blessed are Thou O Lord God, King of the world | 8:52 | |
| who doest bring forth bread from the earth. | 8:58 | |
| And then he broke the bread | 9:05 | |
| and gave it to the disciples. | 9:08 | |
| All ate of the same loaf. | 9:12 | |
| This was symbolic of the fact of community. | 9:17 | |
| They were bound each to the others and all to him. | 9:23 | |
| Then Jesus said some words, | 9:30 | |
| which suggested that the loaf which he broke | 9:32 | |
| was symbolic of more than bread, more than community. | 9:36 | |
| "This is my body." | 9:44 | |
| As the bread was broken, so his body would be broken. | 9:52 | |
| As the bread was shared, | 10:00 | |
| so his life could be shared by them. | 10:03 | |
| How by loving him and the God who sent him | 10:07 | |
| and one another. | 10:17 | |
| By repeating the last supper, | 10:20 | |
| they would be recalled to what he said to who he was. | 10:24 | |
| They did repeat it. So do we. | 10:30 | |
| And the last supper has been transformed | 10:35 | |
| into the Lord's supper. | 10:40 | |
| The staff of life, the gift of God | 10:44 | |
| has become the remembered symbol of sacrificial love. | 10:49 | |
| And perhaps this morning, if we recall what the bread is, | 10:58 | |
| this chapel may become Bethlehem, the house of bread. | 11:04 | |
| Perhaps if we meditate on what Jesus said and did, | 11:13 | |
| this chapel may become another room | 11:19 | |
| with our Lord as the host of his table. | 11:24 | |
| Perhaps as we sang in the first hymn, | 11:31 | |
| the communion wafer will become for us the bread of heaven, | 11:36 | |
| which will feed us till we want no more. | 11:46 | |
| Let us pray. | 11:55 | |
| Almighty and everlasting God who does give seed to the sower | 11:56 | |
| and bread to the eater, we give Thee thanks | 12:02 | |
| for the table of the Thy son, | 12:08 | |
| spread for our benefit as we prepare ourselves | 12:10 | |
| to be his guests. | 12:17 | |
| Through him who called himself the bread of life, | 12:20 | |
| even the same Jesus Christ our Lord. | 12:25 | |
| Amen. | 12:31 | |
| (gentle pensive music) | 12:37 |
