Often, our communion bread for Thursday eucharist is home-baked by Theo school students. In this service of word, music, readings and communion, our bakers will describe their spiritual and theological approach to providing this most sacred element to our worship life.
Thursday, February 9, 2011
Craig Chapel, Drew University
Spirituality of Bread Baking
Prelude Prelude in G Major J.S. Bach
*Call to Worship:
ONE: This bread which we will break is the new manna in the desert. It nourishes and sustains us on our journey. This bread of life will be ours to bless, break and share. Let us pray to the Creator:
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: When we are led into the desert, and our spirits wither like grass
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: When the fire of love dies down within us,
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: When we forget your promise, God,
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: When we are tempted to turn our faces and look away from brothers and sisters in need
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: When we drift from this table of fellowship
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread.
ONE: This bread symbolizes the hope and the help that is always available to children of God.
ALL: Give us this day our daily bread. Amen.
*Opening Prayer
Gracious and loving God, we come before you this day to honor and praise you, and to remember the ways in which you are present in our lives. Like a baker that kneads sticky dough into smooth loaves, you blend this community together, each one of our unique gifts an artisanal ingredient. Let us be bread, blessed by your Word, that we may go out and feed the world. Amen.
*Hymn of Praise
O magnify the Lord, for God is worthy to be praised!
Hosanna, blessed be the rock,
Blessed be the rock of my salvation! (repeat)
Scripture:
Exodus 16:14-15 When the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a fine flaky substance, as fine as frost on the ground. When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat."
Reflection: Jessica and Sandy Stenstrom [baking together]
Scripture:
Matthew 13:33 The kin-dom of heaven is like yeast, that a woman took and mixed in with the measures of flour until all of it was leavened.
Reflection: Theresa Ellis [sourdough]
Sung Scripture: Light of the World from the musical “Godspell”
Matthew 5:13 You are the salt of the earth.
Reflection: Amanda Rohrs-Dodge [ingredients and method of breakmaking]
Scripture:
Acts 2:46 Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts...
Reflection: Betty Gannon [the mess]
Sung Scripture: Taste and See FWS 2267
Psalm 34:8 O taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him.
Reflection: Shannon Sullivan
Jesus should taste good. I am not confident of too much else we can say of Jesus, but I know that Jesus tastes good. That is part of why I feel compelled to bake bread for communion in the first place--- I wanted to make some good Jesus. Taste is not often a sense that we experience in worship; more often we are assaulted by flat pita bread or stale cubed bread convenient to serve to the congregation without getting too messy. But we are a people who believe that God is in bodies, bodies with taste buds. We follow this guy who was accused of being a glutton for all the partying and eating he did (Matthew 5, Luke 6), and yet we walk up to the communion table very solemnly and come away from the table bored.
When you bake bread, you feel the stickiness of the dough turn smooth under your kneading fingers, the air slowly becomes heavier with the smell of baked bread, and when you take the bread out of the oven and gloss the browned and warm bread with butter that melts as it touches the crust, it is a full sensory experience, and it just makes me hungry describing it. But making bread makes me feel so alive, so in tune with my senses, that I can't just walk up to the table solemnly, and to leave the table bored would feel like blasphemy. No, I want to remember at the table using all my senses that the Lord is good. I want to taste and see that the Lord is good. And my prayer for you today in this community is that you do.
Communion
Invitation
Christ our Lord, the Bread of Life, calls all who love him to his table, inviting us to never be hungry. As people who seek to live in the abundance of Christ’s love, let us confess those times we have fallen short and remain hungry.
Confession and Pardon
Merciful God,
we confess that we have not lived into the abundance you provide for us.
We have failed to feed our neighbors,
and we often deny our own spiritual hunger.
We close our ears to the sounds of rumbling tummies,
and instead live out of fear of scarcity.
Forgive us, we pray.
Free us from our fear so that we may truly live in joyful abundance
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Taste and see that the Lord is good!
In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven.
In the name of Jesus Christ, you are forgiven!
Glory to God! Amen.
The Passing of the Peace
Choir Anthem Truly Yours Zelman/Miller
The Great Thanksgiving:
The Lord be with you.
And also with you.
Lift up your hearts.
We lift them up to the Lord.
Let us give thanks to the Lord our God.
It is right to give our thanks and praise.
We praise you, Master Artisan, who from the very beginning created new things with your hands. You shaped humanity from the dust of the earth, and breathed into us the warm breath of life. When Pharaoh enslaved your people in Egypt, you brought them out of slavery and into the desert. You provided them with manna covering the surface of the wilderness, a fine, flaky substance that sustained your people as they journeyed to the Promised Land. The exodus is remembered through the breaking of unleavened bread, and together with all your people we remember these works and praise your name.
Sanctus FWS 2257b
Just as you fed your people in the wilderness, so too your Son fed thousands by the sea of Galilee, and promises that all who come to him will never hunger or thirst, for he is the bread of life.
Some found this teaching difficult and turned away, shutting their minds to the vision of a world where none are hungry or thirsty. For some it was easier to wash their hands of his teaching, and so they gave him up.
At his last supper with his friends, Jesus took everyday bread, formed by human hands, blessed it, broke it, and shared it with all around the table, saying “Taste, and see.”
When supper was over he took the cup, ordinary grapes crushed by ordinary people, blessed it, and shared it with all around the table, saying, “Take, and drink. As often as you do this, remember me.”
And so we remember these mighty, yet ordinary life-giving acts in Jesus Christ, and we offer ourselves, ordinary people capable of extraordinary things in union with Christ’s offering for us, as we proclaim the mystery of our faith:
Memorial Acclamation FWS 2257c
Pour out your Spirit on us gathered here, and on these gifts of bread and wine.
By your Spirit, knead us together as one bread, one body in Christ, that we may be bread for the world, making Christ known to one another in the simple act of breaking bread together until Christ comes and we feast at his heavenly table.
Through your Son, the Bread of Life, with your Holy Spirit among us today, all honor and glory is yours, Master Artisan, loving and sustaining God, now and forever. Amen.
The Lord’s Prayer W&S 3071
Breaking the Bread
Giving of the Bread and Cup
Songs during Communion
Let Us Be Bread
One Bread, One Body
Benediction
Closing Song We Are Called FWS 2172
Worship Notes:
Call to worship adapted from Bread Breaking Prayers at http://emmauscommunity.net/
Opening Prayer and Communion Liturgy by Amanda Rohrs-Dodge and Shannon Sullivan, 2012.
Many thanks to all who have shared in the ministry of baking bread.
Video of the service after the jump.
The following videos are by Daewoung Jo and can be found through Drew Worship's Facebook page.
Part 1
Part 2 including my refection
Part 3 communion
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