October 6, 2024, World Communion Sunday
Ephesians 3:14-19
Introduction
Flour. Water. Oil. Salt. An egg. And a little bit of yeast. That’s it. Nothing fancy or terribly complicated or elaborate. And yet when you mix these together, let the combination sit a while, and then bake it, you get bread. Soft, warm, delicious, down-home-feeling bread.
Are there differences in recipes? Of course. Add different amounts of the ingredients, use variations on the ingredients—bread flour/rye flour/semolina flour; regular salt/sea salt/pink Himalayan salt; olive oil/canola oil/sesame oil (maybe for a little zing!), or use completely different ingredients—make it gluten free or vegan; different herbs and spices; add a sweet element—brown sugar or molasses; bake a cheese bread or fruit bread or cinnamon raisin bread—the possibilities are endless. Each new and different element added to the dough changes the bread—makes it look different, smell different, taste different. The ingredients can change the way you treat the dough—how long you knead it, or if you even need to knead it all! How long you let it rise, how many times you let it rise, how long you bake it. Bread can be incredibly simple or wonderfully complex.
For thousands and thousands of years—30,000 years, according to scholar—the simple recipe for bread, in one form or another, has been a basic staple of every civilization in the world: French baguette. Italian ciabatta. Irish soda bread. Naan from India. Chapati from Congo. Israel’s challah. Mexican tortillas. Sesame flatbread from Mongolia. Sourdough from San Francisco. Cornbread, buttermilk biscuits, and hushpuppies from southern states. Bread roll and bagels from New York. Fruitcakes from Grandma.
And no matter where you are in the world, someone at a shop around the corner is baking fresh, local bread, and they would all be more than happy to share it with you—and not just the bread itself but the story of the bread; how the recipe was passed down from generation to generation; how no one’s bread tastes quite as good as theirs; how the family has been built up around this bread, what this bread means to not only the family but the village, the province, the country.
Breads of the world are more than just a recipe. Breads of the world are stories and history, heritage and traditions. Ingredients tell the story of country and even pantry of origin of who made it. Technique tells the story of care and wisdom—kneading just enough, letting it rest and rise just enough. Even how the bread is served, and what accompanies it, tells a story. Butter or jam? Some sort of savory spread? Olives and cheese, perhaps? Dunked in broth or a rich, hearty stew? Fresh fruit and vegetables? Sugar and cinnamon? Meat and cheese? The stories that go along with bread are as varied as the ingredients—as simple and as complex as the lives behind the recipes.
And I bring all of this to you on this World Communion Sunday because today is about bread. But today is more so about stories: The story of Jesus, the stories of his followers—the Disciples, Paul, and others—the stories of God’s children, and the story of the fullness of God.
Move 1
Bread plays a significant role in our story of faith— significance we see come out through numerous biblical stories. Stories like…
The Passover Meal and its unleavened bread—established when Moses led the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt—because there wasn’t time before their escape to let the bread rise. Or the stories of bread brought by an angel to the prophet Elijah in the desert after his escape from Queen Jezebel and King Ahab. David was on a simple mission to deliver loaves of bread to his brothers when he found the Israelite army cowering from the giant Goliath. The miracle when Jesus turned five loaves and two fish into a meal for 5000 men as well as women and children.
And then there’s the strange and mysterious, yet sacred final meal, Jesus had with his friends. The Disciples were still riding the wave of jubilation from when they had entered Jerusalem in a hail of cloaks and palm branches and shouted praises. But when Passover arrived the jubilation turned to confusion, fear, and heartache.
Jesus and the Disciples gather in an upper room, and they break bread together—something they’d done before after traveling with Jesus for three years. But then Jesus takes the sacredness of that sacred meal even further when he took a loaf of bread and after giving thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And in those seemingly simple words, Jesus created community, that night and for centuries to come. Community we honor and celebrate every time we gather together at our Lord’s table.
Rev. Asher O’Callaghan, program director for Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, said, “When you take the body of Christ every week with people, you BECOME the body of Christ with them. Every week… every month… once or twice a year… it doesn’t matter…the power of the act, the sacrament is the same. When we take the body of Christ together time and time again—some of us for decades together—when we sit down with each other amidst this broken bread and are reminded of our own brokenness, as individuals and as a community; when we are fed and nourished by the grace of God even in the face of that brokenness; we are changed. Changed into those who now have a shared story, a shared bond that lasts forever and can never be broken.”
Every time we break bread together… Every time we pass that bread to one another… Every time we share in the holy feast together… we go deeper into the story as those who are part of the story too. And every time we do we find again the fullness of God.
Move 2
Every time we step into a different community, it looks, feels, and is experienced differently from our own community—and we are forever changed by the experience because in doing so we have made connections to other stories—connecting our story with others. And when we all bring our own stories to the Lord’s table… We bring all the pieces of who we are—the pieces we love and put on display for all the world to see; along with the pieces we try to hide in the deepest parts of our being, as well as everything in between.
And what happens then is the Lord’s table is enshrouded in stories. Stories of those who have come before. Stories of those who are here now. Stories of our experiences at other tables. Stories of the table’s impact and transformational power.
All of these stories are woven into the stories of post-Resurrection meals as a biblical witness of the past. All of these stories are woven into the stories of Christ in our midst in the present. And all of these stories are woven into the stories of the anticipated future feast for which we wait.
The fullness of communion comes for those who understand that at the moment of this meal, all stories are connected to one another, and all stories are connected to Christ. When we come to our Lord’s table, we come to the Story of the bread of life. Before we break bread together, we recount the Story—from creation and the fall; through the Exodus and the law; from the warnings of the prophets to the coming of the Savior.
Some of the most sacred stories I’ve heard from others in terms of their own experiences center around the Story of the bread of Life. Which is what the Apostle Paul was praying would transform the church in Ephesus—that the fullness of God would become part of their story.
Conclusion
I know this has not been a typical World Communion Sunday sermon—or a typical sermon of any kind. But I wanted to intentionally emphasize the incredibly simple and wonderfully complex realities of bread and stories because it made better sense than saying, again, “Today we gather with Christians around the world at our Lord’s table.” True as that may be, it doesn’t bring me to, or fill me with, the fullness of God.
And yet… like the different ingredients in bread, we each bring our own different, individual element, flavor, contributions, our different gifts that make this community what it is. Some of us are sweet. Some of us are a little bit spicy. Some of us are the flour that forms the solid base. Some of us are the leavening agent that makes everything rise-up. Some of us are the binding agent that hold everything together.
All of it comes together in community, right here, creating our own little slice of the body of Christ as best as we know how. And when we take the body of Christ and embrace how it connects us to all—then this sacred meal leads us, empowers us, inspires us to share in, as Paul says, “the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that we are filled entirely with the fullness of God.”
When we take the body of Christ together, with the followers of Jesus around the world—on days like World Communion Sunday—this sacred meal draws us all together with one another, and we get to know, to experience, to share in “the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge so that we are filled entirely with the fullness of God.”
And I don’t know about you… But because of the way the world is today, I need, more than ever to be filled with the fullness of God that comes when I remember that my story, and your story, and everyone’s story, is connected—whether we know it or not—to the story, God’s story—a story that we know how it will end—with God’s glory being revealed and a new creation birthed. And that truth gives me hope today…and hope for tomorrow. And that hope fills me with the fullness of God.
I hope this truth fills you too with the fullness of God. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer, October 6, 2024, World Communion Sunday
God of new life, in a wearisome world, we gather in solidarity with the faithful around the world, breaking bread with all in the body of Christ, remembering though we have different languages, cultures and traditions; though we have different ways of worship, praying and praising; we are all knit together through the life, death and resurrection of your Son.
And in doing so, we can push past the weariness, knowing there is more that unites us than divides us.
Holy God, in a world which floods our souls with weariness, the communion table becomes a place where we are reminded your fullness is the way through the weariness.
The communion table reminds us your Son faced the worst of the worst, and found your fullness of new life.
The communion table reminds us that though death may come, death never gets the last word—because of your fullness.
But as we remember such—guide us in your fullness to let go of the need for guarantees and certainties, and instead embrace the moment now, knowing that no matter what comes tomorrow we already belong to you.
So remind us we will not find a way through our weariness in our apathy or through our quarreling. We will not find a way through our weariness with an attitude of opposition or with hate. We will not find a way through our weariness in our well nursed grudges or passive aggressive judgements.
Rather what will show us the way through is your fullness, revealed through your son, who showed us that our stories are all part of you our Creator’s story. And your story is filled with grace and forgiveness and love—everything we need to be emptied of weariness and filled with your fullness.
We ask for you to hear the prayers of our hearts, as we add them to the prayers of the world this day, lifted to you in this time of Holy Silence.
All this we pray in the name of Christ Jesus, the bread of life, who taught us to pray saying, “Our…”