Bread of Life

I love to make bread. I must confess that I cheat and use a bread-making machine, but the end product is wonderful. At first I was rather scientific in my production methods, carefully measuring out each ingredient. Now I feel more artistic, throwing in this, that and the other with a confidence which comes from experience. You set the machine to turn itself on during the night and then wake up to find the house infused with the smell of freshly baked bread.

Bread is powerful stuff. It represents the most basic of all food. Yet to break and share bread also has connotations of sharing, friendship, fellowship and communion. To break bread with others is to build relationships with them in a special way. When I was a curate, my Vicar used to hold an ecumenical breakfast once a month for the leaders of all the denominations in town. The town was designated as a Local Ecumenical Partnership, but somehow relationships had not really taken off as they might have done. The introduction of the breakfast changed all that and, as people broke bread together (and ate freshly laid eggs from the vicarage hens) friendships were born and the LEP took on energy and life.

It is no wonder that Jesus shared meals with others, often with his disciples, yet also often with people that otherwise respectable people would not be seen dead sharing food. On the night he was betrayed he shared in new last supper with his friends and he infused the breaking and sharing of bread with a profoundly deep meaning. When all this is over, he told them, meet together and do this in remembrance of me. Even then, his disciples cannot have comprehended what was to come. Jesus would die the shameful death of crucifixion, yet on the third day he rose from the grave to the new life of the resurrection. What had seemed a defeat was now a glorious victory and those disciples remembered the words of Jesus and began to meet as a new community, empowered by the Spirit, as they broke bread together.

Do this in remembrance of me. Today we still take bread and wine, give thanks over them, break the bread and share them. It brings the reality of a real body broken, and real blood out poured, into the present moment of our lives. It does so in a way that binds us together into a community, whose sense of identity is forged by the shared experience of being sinners for whom Christ has died, yet also inheritors of the new world of the resurrection life. The risen Christ is profoundly and vividly present in our midst as we share this sense of deep communion with him, and so also with one another. And if we cannot share such communion, because we no longer agree on whatever the contentious issue of the moment might be, then that only goes to show that we have forgotten our Lord’s command. It no longer is the shared experience of being drawn to the cross that defines us, for we have become as Pharisees, defining ourselves (and indeed others) by earthly values and perceptions, rather than seeing in one another fellow sinners for whom Christ’s body’s was broken.

Do this is remembrance of me. Did we understand Christ right? Did he just mean that we should gather in churches and engage in rituals with bread and wine? As I have already indicated, I think there is a real power in doing just that, particularly if we allow Christ to use that action to draw us into what we dare to call ‘The Body of Christ’, a body defined not by agreement with one another, but by a shared experience of being drawn into the saving action of God in Christ. Yet surely Jesus meant more than that. ‘Do this in remembrance of me’ also means that we are invited to take up our cross and follow Jesus in self-giving love for a broken world. To be the Body of Christ is to accept a vocation to be as bread, broken to feed a hungry world. At the Last Supper, Jesus also stooped to wash his disciples’ feet. What it means to give ourselves in service for a broken world must be reflected in how we represent Christ, as broken bread, as we too stoop in service and engage in the real lives of all to whom we are a neighbour.

Bread smells delicious and appetising. That might lead us to ask how we smell as a church. Does our common life have the enticing smell of something that is delicious, satisfying and life-giving? Recently I was talking in these terms to one person and he replied that what he smelled in the church today is decay. For many, in our present age, what is smelled in the church is corruption and moral decadence, as more and more examples of abuse surface. Many churches seem to define themselves in terms of what others deem to be misogyny or homophobia, which produces a smell that is more than unpleasant. It is deeply revolting. Whenever a church splits off by defining itself in terms of this belief or that, it no longer lives as a Church in which its members are defined by a shared vocation, to lose one’s life in self-giving service of others - in remembrance of Christ - for the sake of Christ - with the face of Christ - as the very bread of Christ, broken open to feed a hungry world. So the Church festers and decays, as we ignore the invitation to be the very bread of life that he came to give to the world. Yet there is hope. All over the world, in so many places and situation, whenever anyone gives of themselves, for the sake of Christ, and with the costliness of that same Divine love, then something of the Kingdom of God is revealed at that moment and smell of the Living Bread of Life fills the air.

Why do Christians Hate Homosexuals?

I was standing by the font, engaging in one of my favourite activities. We had 150 children in from the local school and we had constructed a whole morning for them to explore our vast church. As well as a number of interactive activities, each child would also get a tour of the church with one of us. We knew what we wanted to say, but we needed to be flexible enough to answer the many questions they would have. So my next tour was starting. Here, at the font, surrounded by fifteen eager young people, I would begin by asking what this thing was and why we used it. But already a hand was up. A nine year old girl really wanted to ask her question. Why, she asked, do Christians hate homosexuals? Those were her exact words and the question will forever be etched on my heart. I was shocked by it. This question expressed how this girl, and no doubt many young people, saw our message. I hope I answered the question well. I said that, when I was her age, people could be locked up for being gay, so some older people still had problems with homosexuality, yet here, in this church, we did not hate people and everyone was welcome.

That was in 2010. Two years later I found myself encouraged by my bishop to take a mini-sabbatical between jobs. I did not have much time to arrange it, so I took the opportunity to follow some contacts my brother (Archdeacon of Northern Europe) gave me, both to meet Porvoo church leaders and to travel around Denmark, Sweden and Latvia. It so happened that the decision to allow couples of the same gender to marry in church had recently been taken in both the Church of Sweden and the Church of Denmark, so that was a particular topic of our conversation. I remember having coffee and cake with Peter, Bishop of Copenhagen. He, and indeed others, were insistent that, in the Lutheran Church, marriage is not seen as a sacrament. It is a gift of God in creation, but a practical matter, not encased in doctrine. It was, therefore, a relatively simple matter to move, with their society, to accept same-sex marriage in church. What was the reaction in Denmark? One of relief, he replied. People were so pleased that their church had not abandoned them.

Later on, I was visiting Lund (Sweden) having travelled along the famous 19k Øresund bridge. The bishop was not free to see me, but I spent a very enjoyable morning with her chaplain. A decision had had to be faced as to how the Church of Sweden would respond to the new legislation that allowed same-sex couples to marry in Sweden. Per shared with me the speech made by Bishop Antje Jackelén at that time. It was in Swedish, but he translated it for me. Marriage is a matter of protection against destructive expressions of sexuality; as such it can be just as important for gay couples to marry. Marriage is a God-given part of creation, but not a sacrament. The life of Christ is the key to unlocking scripture and interpreting it; we do not see scripture as declaring gay marriage to be impossible. We can live with difference over this issue; we must not elevate it to having significance greater than it deserves. Change can and does happen, such as in the case of circumcision or slavery. Perceptions change, as does our knowledge; the way we look at homosexuality today is very different from (say) 50 years ago. Should the Church be following society in this matter? Antje challenged her synod to have greater confidence in the message of the Gospel and to see that centuries of preaching about the value of individuals and our oneness in Christ has helped to shape society. In Christ there is no slave or free, no Greek or Gentile. We are one in Christ. A more compassionate, understanding and accepting attitude towards gay people might well be seen as the fruit of Christian teaching and not a departure from it.

I shared with Per my view that you can find many examples of people, who have been legally married, yet whose relationships are pitted by abuse and display no evidence of being sacramental. Yet deeply committed relationships can become sacramental. He accepted that idea. He also like my suggestion that the issue of same-sex relationships has become demonic in the Anglican Church. That is to say, it has been elevated to a position in which it becomes what defines us, rather than our communion being defined by our shared new life in Christ.

Neighbours in the Global Village

Back in 2013 we went on a cruise top the Baltic, a surprise present from my father at the end of his life. The highlight of the cruise was a visit to St. Petersburg, but on the way we stopped off at Kühlungsborn in what had been East Germany. We saw the sights and went on the railway. During a period of free time, we stopped for a coffee and found ourselves sitting with our guide. We chatted with her about what life had been like in the old days of communism. She told us how the young would often have learnt to drive at the age of eighteen, but would then have to put their name down to actually own a car. After about twelve years, at the age of around thirty, they could hope for their name to reach the top of the waiting list so that they became the proud owner of a Trabant car. We talked with her about how life had changed with the coming down of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. What was the key element that brought about this change? Her answer was simple. Television! None was allowed to watch western TV stations, but they all did. What could not be hidden was the standard of living and the life expectancies of western society, even if some of what was portrayed was the idealised stuff of TV drama. With that knowledge, the division between East and West could not be sustained indefinably. In the end that division collapsed and the rest, as they say, is history.

In our own day we are subjected to the distressing and horrific sight of children being forcibly taken from their parents at the border between the USA and Mexico. Nearer to home, during this past month, we have seen yet another boat of people, seeking new life in Europe and being refused the right to land in Italy. Immigration is a challenge for us in Europe and concern over immigrants is a significant factor in our decision to embrace Brexit and leave the European community. How can we cope with more people coming in? How can our infrastructure cope? We cannot afford to provide the level of health care for ‘our own’ people, so how can we possibly afford to include all these new people? In an age of ‘austerity’ these protestations become all the more understandable. 

What changes the situation is the rise of social media and the almost universal access to mobile data. We can witness the plight of those perishing in the Mediterranean, or children incarcerated in camps in America, or the starving in the Sudan, or the violence of so many wars. The list goes on and on and on. We can see these things in real time and in the highest resolution and clarity. Yet the opposite is true. Those we view on our news broadcasts can often see us and the kind of lifestyle we enjoy as the fifth largest economy on the planet. Social media does indeed radically shift the move to our being a global village. It leads me to question, not whether we can possibly help all the many who are fleeing (often for their lives) and seeking new life in Europe, but how we can ever hope to maintain the stark divisions of our world. I can see that my brothers and sisters in the Sudan are dying for lack of food, but they can not only see that I have more than enough to eat, but that much of my food goes to waste. There is no instant solution to this, but I have no reason to feel comfortable that the situation can continue for ever. It has been said, with some justification, that the Third World War will be fought over water and all that symbolises in terms the right to life. As parts of the planet move to becoming uninhabitable, because of global warming, how we sustain the lives of the whole of humanity, on this small rock of a planet, has become the challenge for us all to face.

This leads me to reflect on the prophecies of the Old Testament and the cry of God, spoken through the prophets, to the effect that none of our religious structures is worth a penny, if not accompanied by a justice that includes the poor and those on the margins of society. Social media leads me to discover the truth that every person is my neighbour in a much more immediate and challenging way that could have been the case in days gone by. If we face challenges in how we cope with the number of those seeking asylum and new life in our society, then putting up increasingly high barriers will not, in the end, be a solution that can be sustained.