I had my first theological revelation five minutes after being commissioned as a pastor.
It was no surprise.
The communion service was the first thing that followed the
commissioning and it has become a tradition for the new pastor to serve
communion. My co-pastor, Armel, and I
had carefully practiced who would take which parts of the service. For purely selfish reasons I had claimed the
role of breaking the bread based on all those years that women did the labor of
setting up communion without the right to officiate in the role of presiding at
the table. “We could bake the
bread but we couldn’t break the bread,” had become my mantra. So I had
no hesitancy or embarrassment in claiming the role for myself and to Armel’s
credit he was generous and let me have my pick of how I wanted to do things.
I wanted to be the one to break the bread.
Armel and I were commissioned on October 3rd; World
Communion Sunday. I knew there was a
yuppie bakery in town in the district they are revitalizing: Paris Bakery.
Who could resist a place called the Paris Bakery? True to its name they had great looking
bread. I ordered two of every loaf they
made and my only regret in the entire transaction is that I never took a photo
of the final work of art. I had a huge
basket laid out on a Guatemalan blanket with its richly colored stripes. Inside the basket lay sturdy round loaves of
rustic brown rye, light brown wheat, oblong tubes of sourdough, croissants,
tortillas, long bagettes sticking out majestically and sparkly sugar cookies
sprinkled in crevices with “Paris Bakery” stamped in them. It was a festival of bread.
When it came time to break the bread I had the privilege of
sifting through the basket before finally choosing an especially beautiful loaf
: a beautiful dark brown round loaf.
Then I held it aloft to show the congregation.
And then I got my theology lesson..
I had heard that sometimes the bread could be hard to tear
apart. Especially when dealing with a
freshly baked and soft and dense loaf of bread.
I’ve seen pastors twist and pull, grunt and groan, trying to get the
bread to yield to their will. There are
tricks pastors use to get around this problem.
They will score the loaf ahead of time or have someone do this for them;
a little shortcut. Sometimes the
preparation team will get especially zealous in their scoring and the bread
will almost fall apart at the slightest touch.
The goal it would seem is to have a loaf that tears in half
neatly like a sheet of paper.
Efficiently. Tidy. Effortlessly.
Fortunately for me, I had a mentor explain years ago what is
wrong with that theology.
And it was good because I had the misfortune of having one
of those loaves of bread at my first communion.
Fresh. Soft. Dense.
Excellent bread from a quality baker.
Great to eat. Not so easy to
break for communion. And, being a rookie,
in all my hustling and bustling around, I had forgotten to score the
bread. I never stood a chance. I started tearing. The bread wouldn’t budge. I dug my fingers in and made a hole to get a
better grip; I pulled harder. It still
wouldn’t budge. I twisted it and it
began to give a little.
I didn’t exactly work up a sweat or get out of breath but I
came close. I didn’t exactly bend down
and step on one end of the loaf, anchoring it to the ground while pulling
upwards with my hands; using my whole body but it felt like that might be
required before the process was done.
Gradually it tore a little but, by this time, it was hardly
a tear down the middle. More ripping and grunting, more mangling and I ended up
with two pieces, not exactly halves.
It wasn’t pretty.
And here is your theology lesson for the day: the breaking of the bread isn’t supposed to be easy because it represents the breaking of Christ’s body.
"This is my body, broken for you."
If breaking apart a loaf of bread to
represent Christ’s body on the cross was hard, I realized the crucifixion wasn’t
any walk in the park for Jesus, either. And
the more difficult it is for the pastor to break the bread the more vivid the
lesson.
The breaking of Jesus’ body was brutal. He had been stripped
of his robe. He had been whipped naked. They put thorns on his head. They had run a
sword into his side. With nails driven
through his feet and hands he couldn’t properly stand to take a full
breath. His body was mangled. He couldn’t
breathe. He was thirsty. It was bloody and sweaty work. His body was bruised and wounded. There was nothing tidy about it.
This is something God did for us. God became human and through Jesus
understands the pain of torture and death.
God understands that being a human is hard work.
There, in front of a sanctuary full of friends and family, I
received a theology lesson while everyone watched. Breaking bread is hard work. It’s not pretty or elegant. And it shouldn’t be. The crucifixion was hard.
I vowed that day that I will never be one of those preachers
who will score the bread so communion will go easily and look dignified. We can be dignified in our vestments and processions
and liturgy. We can be graceful in our
movements when we process in or light candles or sprinkle babies. But breaking Christ’s body was a brutal act
and He asked for us to remember.
I will try my best.
