Breath and Bread: Providence and Presumption
October 6, 2024 World Communion Sunday
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Genesis 2:4-7 John 6:25-35
“Breath and Bread: Providence and Presumption”
Douglas T. King
Words on bread. An excerpt from Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Mason and Dixon, “In fact, far from the Ogre or Troll his son makes him out to be, Charles Sr. is a wistful and spiritual person. He believes that bread is alive,-- that the yeast Animalcula may unite in a single purposeful individual,-- that each Loaf is so organized, with the crust, for example, serving as skin or Carapace,-- the small cavities within exhibiting a strange complexity, their pale Walls, to appearance smooth, proving, upon magnification, to be made up of even smaller bubbles, and, one may presume, so forth, down to the Limits of the Invisible. The Loaf, the indispensible point of convergence upon every British table, the solid British Quartern Loaf, is mostly, like the Soul, Emptiness. (He whispered to his son,)
‘Wait till you've had the dough in your hands, Charlie,’ when they could yet talk without restraint, ‘and feel how warm, like flesh, how it gives off heat. And if you set a loaf aside, in a dark, quiet place, it will grow.’ ‘Is it alive?’ Young Mason had not wish'd to ask. ‘Yes…’”
What allows bread to be alive, to breathe, is the yeast, that during fermentation, produces carbon dioxide which creates air bubbles. Peter Reinhart, a lay brother in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Anne Peaccock’s favorite bread author writes this, “Once dough has fermented it has, in a sense, passed through its awakening and has been reborn as a new creature, ready to grow and become what it is ultimately going to be.” (Reinhart, p. 27)
Wikipedia writes this about bread, “Bread was central to the formation of early human societies. From the Fertile Crescent, where wheat was domesticated, cultivation spread north and west, to Europe and North Africa, and east toward East Asia. This in turn led to the formation of towns, which curtailed nomadic lifestyles, and gave rise to more and more sophisticated forms of societal organization.
Words on breath. The creation of sufficient oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere allowed for a leap forward in the evolutionary process as aerobic life forms were able to produce 16 times more energy than their ancestors who solely had carbon dioxide. James Nestor writes this, “Aerobic life forms used this to evolve, to leave the sludge-covered rocks behind and grow larger and more complex. They crawled up to land, dove deep into the sea, and flew into the air. They became plants, trees, birds, bees, and the earliest of mammals.” (Nestor, p.9)
In our first scripture reading this morning we heard of the divine, after forming man from the dust, breathing into him to give him life. And in our second scripture reading we heard of Jesus speaking of the manna/bread given to the people in the wilderness and to his own identity as “the bread of life.”
Breath and bread. Breath and bread. There is an emptiness to both of them. Breath comes and goes as a mostly unnoticed functioning of our bodies, inhaling and exhaling an invisible and nearly weightless gas. And bread, while being celebrated in all its glory with our breads around the world coffee hour today, is often an overlooked staple of our diet.
Breath and bread. Breath and bread. But interestingly, both of these things have been critical to the movement of evolution both biologically and societally. The ability to process the available air led to a leap in the complexity of life which ultimately led to the creation of humanity. The ability to bake bread allowed for hunter gatherers to settle in one place and the stability allowed for the evolution of culture which allowed for the development of advanced religious rituals.
Breath and bread. Breath and bread. We often miss how the common elements of our existence are so immensely critical for our survival and subsequent growth. And we often forget who provides the common elements of our existence.
It has been suggested that Yahweh, the name for God we find in the Old Testament is actually onomatopoetic for our very act of breathing. “Yah” is the sound we make as we breathe in. “Weh” is the sound we make as we breathe out. A multitude of mystics believe that every time we breath in it is God who breathes that breath directly into us. There is not a single breath we take that is not dependent upon the providential care of the divine. And yet we do it all day, every day, often without a thought.
Today, with all of our fancy, delightful breads we celebrate the gift of bread. But bread does not always get lifted up in such fashion. When I was growing up the main bread in the house was that multicolored wrapper that contained Wonder Bread. It was merely a mechanism by which to eat sandwich meat or a filler to be added to meatloaf. But bread sustained us.
After being liberated from Egypt the Israelites wandered in the wilderness. They were hungry and complaining that they had no food to eat. And God rained down manna, a bread-like flaky substance for them to eat every day, every day for the forty years of their journeying. The root of the term in Hebrew for flaky, actually translates as “to reveal.” Manna was a concrete revelation of God’s providential care. The manna needed to be collected every day except the sabbath to remind the people that they were dependent upon God’s care each and every day. Jesus, as the bread of life, is our daily reminder that the divine has stepped into our very mortality and made a home in the midst of where we live.
On this day when our attention is drawn to the Lord’s Table we are reminded of just how holy and sacred the sacrament truly is. But the Lord’s Table, in the midst of all of its holiness and sacredness is also something much more common. It is symbolic of not solely that Last Supper when Jesus gathered with his disciples, or the table in Emmaus when the resurrected Christ revealed himself, or the heavenly banquet. It is also symbolic of our kitchen tables. It is a reminder that we are fed by God’s hand each and every day.
Breath and bread. Breath and bread. Our very existence is sacramental, is imbued with the sacred. Our Catholic friends believe in transubstantiation, that the bread and the wine are completely transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ. And that is a powerful and faithful way to understand the sacrament. We believe in consubstantiation, that Christ is present in the midst of us receiving the bread and the juice. This reminds us that God is present whenever we receive sustenance; that God is present every time we gather and break bread and are fed.
We tend to make the presumption that the simple and common elements of our life, the air we breathe and the bread we eat are far from being holy and sacred. In actuality, they are perhaps the most holy of things. It is by these everyday necessities that God provides us with life, sustains us, allows us to grow and evolve. And in recognizing this reality we can begin to learn that we are enveloped in the divine’s loving care. In all of the moments of our lives we are surrounded by the holy.
On this day, Christians around the globe gather at table and there are countless loaves being broken, and innumerable ewers being poured. Each and every one a holy act recognizing God in our midst. And the same is true for every breath we take and every meal in which we partake. These are holy acts allowing us to recognize how immanently present God is in the midst of our daily living, gifting us with providential care. In a creation imbued with the presence of God, the holy is found in the most common of things. In a world where the divine took human form in Jesus Christ, there is no place the divine is not present. And when we discern the presence of this holiness we are awakened, reborn, ready to grow into whom we are ultimately going to be.
Breath and Bread. Breath and bread.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Nestor, James, Breath, Riverhead Books, New York, 2020.
Pynchon, Thomas, Mason and Dixon, Henry Holt and Co.,
New York, 1997.
Reinhart, Peter, Bread Upon the Waters, Perseus Books,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000.
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
Genesis 2:4-7 John 6:25-35
“Breath and Bread: Providence and Presumption”
Douglas T. King
Words on bread. An excerpt from Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Mason and Dixon, “In fact, far from the Ogre or Troll his son makes him out to be, Charles Sr. is a wistful and spiritual person. He believes that bread is alive,-- that the yeast Animalcula may unite in a single purposeful individual,-- that each Loaf is so organized, with the crust, for example, serving as skin or Carapace,-- the small cavities within exhibiting a strange complexity, their pale Walls, to appearance smooth, proving, upon magnification, to be made up of even smaller bubbles, and, one may presume, so forth, down to the Limits of the Invisible. The Loaf, the indispensible point of convergence upon every British table, the solid British Quartern Loaf, is mostly, like the Soul, Emptiness. (He whispered to his son,)
‘Wait till you've had the dough in your hands, Charlie,’ when they could yet talk without restraint, ‘and feel how warm, like flesh, how it gives off heat. And if you set a loaf aside, in a dark, quiet place, it will grow.’ ‘Is it alive?’ Young Mason had not wish'd to ask. ‘Yes…’”
What allows bread to be alive, to breathe, is the yeast, that during fermentation, produces carbon dioxide which creates air bubbles. Peter Reinhart, a lay brother in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Anne Peaccock’s favorite bread author writes this, “Once dough has fermented it has, in a sense, passed through its awakening and has been reborn as a new creature, ready to grow and become what it is ultimately going to be.” (Reinhart, p. 27)
Wikipedia writes this about bread, “Bread was central to the formation of early human societies. From the Fertile Crescent, where wheat was domesticated, cultivation spread north and west, to Europe and North Africa, and east toward East Asia. This in turn led to the formation of towns, which curtailed nomadic lifestyles, and gave rise to more and more sophisticated forms of societal organization.
Words on breath. The creation of sufficient oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere allowed for a leap forward in the evolutionary process as aerobic life forms were able to produce 16 times more energy than their ancestors who solely had carbon dioxide. James Nestor writes this, “Aerobic life forms used this to evolve, to leave the sludge-covered rocks behind and grow larger and more complex. They crawled up to land, dove deep into the sea, and flew into the air. They became plants, trees, birds, bees, and the earliest of mammals.” (Nestor, p.9)
In our first scripture reading this morning we heard of the divine, after forming man from the dust, breathing into him to give him life. And in our second scripture reading we heard of Jesus speaking of the manna/bread given to the people in the wilderness and to his own identity as “the bread of life.”
Breath and bread. Breath and bread. There is an emptiness to both of them. Breath comes and goes as a mostly unnoticed functioning of our bodies, inhaling and exhaling an invisible and nearly weightless gas. And bread, while being celebrated in all its glory with our breads around the world coffee hour today, is often an overlooked staple of our diet.
Breath and bread. Breath and bread. But interestingly, both of these things have been critical to the movement of evolution both biologically and societally. The ability to process the available air led to a leap in the complexity of life which ultimately led to the creation of humanity. The ability to bake bread allowed for hunter gatherers to settle in one place and the stability allowed for the evolution of culture which allowed for the development of advanced religious rituals.
Breath and bread. Breath and bread. We often miss how the common elements of our existence are so immensely critical for our survival and subsequent growth. And we often forget who provides the common elements of our existence.
It has been suggested that Yahweh, the name for God we find in the Old Testament is actually onomatopoetic for our very act of breathing. “Yah” is the sound we make as we breathe in. “Weh” is the sound we make as we breathe out. A multitude of mystics believe that every time we breath in it is God who breathes that breath directly into us. There is not a single breath we take that is not dependent upon the providential care of the divine. And yet we do it all day, every day, often without a thought.
Today, with all of our fancy, delightful breads we celebrate the gift of bread. But bread does not always get lifted up in such fashion. When I was growing up the main bread in the house was that multicolored wrapper that contained Wonder Bread. It was merely a mechanism by which to eat sandwich meat or a filler to be added to meatloaf. But bread sustained us.
After being liberated from Egypt the Israelites wandered in the wilderness. They were hungry and complaining that they had no food to eat. And God rained down manna, a bread-like flaky substance for them to eat every day, every day for the forty years of their journeying. The root of the term in Hebrew for flaky, actually translates as “to reveal.” Manna was a concrete revelation of God’s providential care. The manna needed to be collected every day except the sabbath to remind the people that they were dependent upon God’s care each and every day. Jesus, as the bread of life, is our daily reminder that the divine has stepped into our very mortality and made a home in the midst of where we live.
On this day when our attention is drawn to the Lord’s Table we are reminded of just how holy and sacred the sacrament truly is. But the Lord’s Table, in the midst of all of its holiness and sacredness is also something much more common. It is symbolic of not solely that Last Supper when Jesus gathered with his disciples, or the table in Emmaus when the resurrected Christ revealed himself, or the heavenly banquet. It is also symbolic of our kitchen tables. It is a reminder that we are fed by God’s hand each and every day.
Breath and bread. Breath and bread. Our very existence is sacramental, is imbued with the sacred. Our Catholic friends believe in transubstantiation, that the bread and the wine are completely transformed into the actual body and blood of Christ. And that is a powerful and faithful way to understand the sacrament. We believe in consubstantiation, that Christ is present in the midst of us receiving the bread and the juice. This reminds us that God is present whenever we receive sustenance; that God is present every time we gather and break bread and are fed.
We tend to make the presumption that the simple and common elements of our life, the air we breathe and the bread we eat are far from being holy and sacred. In actuality, they are perhaps the most holy of things. It is by these everyday necessities that God provides us with life, sustains us, allows us to grow and evolve. And in recognizing this reality we can begin to learn that we are enveloped in the divine’s loving care. In all of the moments of our lives we are surrounded by the holy.
On this day, Christians around the globe gather at table and there are countless loaves being broken, and innumerable ewers being poured. Each and every one a holy act recognizing God in our midst. And the same is true for every breath we take and every meal in which we partake. These are holy acts allowing us to recognize how immanently present God is in the midst of our daily living, gifting us with providential care. In a creation imbued with the presence of God, the holy is found in the most common of things. In a world where the divine took human form in Jesus Christ, there is no place the divine is not present. And when we discern the presence of this holiness we are awakened, reborn, ready to grow into whom we are ultimately going to be.
Breath and Bread. Breath and bread.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Nestor, James, Breath, Riverhead Books, New York, 2020.
Pynchon, Thomas, Mason and Dixon, Henry Holt and Co.,
New York, 1997.
Reinhart, Peter, Bread Upon the Waters, Perseus Books,
Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2000.
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