This Weeks Sermon : Give us this Day our Aish.

Sermon: Give us this Day our Aish.

Let us glean from our reading this morning on the subject of “bread” by quoting from a man born in the Middle East, now deceased, who has brought into the English language for us a sense of the importance of bread to the ancient as well as some modern Semitic minds. He says:
“As the son of a Syrian family I was brought up to think of bread as possessing a mystic sacred significance. I never would step on a piece of bread fallen in the road, but would pick it up, press it to my lips for reverence, and place it in a wall or on some other place where it would not be trodden upon. What always seemed to me to be one of the noblest traditions of my people was their reverence to the “aish”{I-ish} or bread and literally “the life-giver”). While breaking bread together we would not rise to salute an arriving guest, whatever the social rank. Whether spoken or not, our excuse for not rising and engaging in the cordial (Near East) salutation before the meal was ended, was our reverence for the food (hir-metal-‘aish). We could, however, and always did, invite the newcomer most urgently to partake of the repast…The ‘aish was something more than mere matter. Inasmuch as it sustained life, it was God’s own life made
tangible for his child, man, to feed up on. The Most High Himself fed our hunger. Does not the psalmist say, “Thou openest thine hand, and satisfieth the desire of every living thing.”                                                                                 (From The Syrian Christ by Abraham Rihbany, published 1916.)

Everything these Semites did, they did in the name of God. In the name of God, they would plant the seed. As they harvested, they would thank God for the harvest. As they ground the grain, the name of their God would be on their lips. When the wife kneaded and baked the bread, blessings would pour forth from her mouth. Is it any wonder then, that when Jesus taught his disciples how to pray, He began with “Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed by thy Name. Give us this day our daily bread…”?

Imagine, the most famous prayer, perhaps in the entire world-and after calling on his and our Father, Jesus prayed for “our daily bread.” Truly, the traditions of many of these modern tribes who claim their traditions go back to the Biblical period is clearly reflected in Jesus’ own words. A Semitic poet wrote:
Back of the loaf is the snowy flour;
Back of the flour, the mill,
Back of the mill is the wheat and the sower,
and the sun,
and the Father’s will.

When we see the word “bread” in our Bibles, we must also bear in mind that the word was used to speak of food in general, not just baked wheat or barley. We hear, even in America --“I earned my bread today!”-- a figure of speech meaning one worked hard for their earnings or livelihood that day.

I know that I have shared this story before, but considering that it is Mother’s Day and we are studying bread it only seems appropriate. This memory is one that will live with me always, and that is of the Saturday morning when I would arise as a lad, to the warmth and the smell of freshly baked bread. It was not only are main stay for that week, but represented also the love of my mother, who’s hand lovingly kneaded the doe of water, floor, and yeast.

Sometime this week, you will make a trip to the grocery store to get a loaf of bread. It will be readily available on the shelf, and there will be quite a variety from which to choose.   You will pay little attention to the price, not realizing that the packaging that the bread is wrapped in, actually costs more than the wheat that is in the bread. All in all, you will think it a very uneventful trip, but you will be so wrong. For bread is so much more than simply carbohydrates and protein.

It is quite difficult for me, as an American, to understand the importance of just bread, unless I really think about bread, and all the inter-related components of its grown, its harvest, its transportation, its production, and final its consumption.   We really need to study, and learn, of the plight of others and how just a simple thing like a loaf of bread, can be a life saving comity.

Ruth Ann and I have just completed a month of investigating the emergency needs of our fellow Ashtabulans .   We have gone into the soup kitchens not only to investigate, but also to work. We have seen first-hand the faces of desperation, and the joy that a simple slice of bread and a bowl of soap can have to one who is hungry.   Yet, we are a nation blessed with resources and riches beyond measure. Never the less, when there is no “staff of life” there is suffering and famine.   A simple loaf of bread: something, which you and I do not give a second thought about, in certain parts of the world, it means life itself.

The word bread in the Bible, is used in a wide sense, often occurring as our "food," as in the petition "Give us this day our daily bread." The best bread was made from wheat, called "flour" or "meal" or barley, a coarser bread, which was the staple of the biblical diet, so much so that the phrase “staff of life” (Lev 26:26; Ezek 5:16; 14:13) implies that bread enables one to walk.   In strictness, it denotes baked food, especially loaves.

To make "leavened bread" the flour was mixed with water, kneaded on a small kneading trough, with leaven added. These kneading troughs may have been mere pieces of leather, such as those used by the Arabs, although the expression "bound up in the clothes" (Ex 12:34) favors the idea of a wooden bowl.   The leavened dough was allowed time to rise (Matt 13:33; Luke 13:21), sometimes a whole night. When the time for making bread was short the leaven was omitted, and unleavened cakes were baked, as is customary among the Arabs (Gen 18:6; 19:3; Ex 12:39; 1 Sam 28:24). Such cakes were called in Hebrew massa, or "sweetness."

Thin, round cakes made of unleavened dough were baked on heated sand or flat stones (1 Kings 19:6), by hot ashes or coals put on them "ash-cakes."   Such cakes are still the common bread of the Bedouin and poorer people of the Middle East. The outside is, of course, black as coal, but tastes good.

When the dough was ready for baking, it was divided into round cakes (literally, "circles of bread," Ex 29:23; Judges 8:5; 1 Sam 10:3; etc.), not unlike flat stones in shape and appearance (Matt 7:9; cf. 4:3), about a span in diameter and a finger's breadth in thickness. The baking was generally done by the wife (Gen 18:6), daughter (2 Sam 13:8), or a female servant (1 Sam 8:13).   As a trade, baking was carried on by men (Hos 7:4-6), often congregating, according to Eastern custom, in one quarter (Neh 3:11; 12:38, of the town called "Tower of Furnaces"; Jer 37:21, or "bakers' street").

The thin cakes were not cut, but broken, hence the expression usual in Scripture of "breaking bread" to signify taking a meal (Lam 4:4; Matt 14:19; 15:36).   From our Lord's breaking bread at the institution of the Eucharist, the expression "breaking of" or "to break bread," in the NT is used for the Lord's Supper (Matt 26:26) and for the agape, or love, feast (Acts 2:46).

"Bread of Life" pre-figures Christ as the supplier of true spiritual nourishment (John 6:48-51). He is the bread of heaven, and God's Word, like bread, is the spiritual staff of life (Matt 4:4).

It is only as we comprehend that situation, that we can really begin to understand the importance of bread -- not only now -- but also in the time of Jesus.   Let us stop and just think for a moment, how so many significant theological events in the Bible revolve around the subject of bread.
• The most important event in the Old Testament of course, was the Exodus event--the trip from Egypt to the Promised Land.
• But, what caused the Hebrews to be in Egypt in the first place?   It was for want of bread you will recall. The wheat crop had failed due to draught, and the Hebrews had migrated to the land of the Pharaoh because there was a surplus in storage there. It was bread, or the lack of it, that initiated this whole chain of events.
• Later, when the Jews were on their way to the Promised Land, and they were facing starvation in the bleak wilderness, God rained down bread from heaven, as it was called, in the form of manna.
• The manna came every day of the forty years of desert wandering until they crossed the Jordan into the promised land. It was free and fell right there on the bushes and vegetation around them. But merely believing that God had given them the manna did not feed them. They had to gather it, and eat it.
• When Jesus began his ministry, he went into the dessert where he was tempted.   As the hot sun braced down upon him, he looked out with sweaty eyes at the round white rocks, and we are told that they took on the appearance of loaves of bread. When Jesus responds to Satan while being tempted in the desert, Jesus spurned that temptation because, he said, “Man does not live by bread alone,” he is really saying “by food alone.” Thus, Satan was tempting Jesus to give bread to the people and end the suffering of world hunger.
• From the earliest times, bread was a part of all religious ritual of the ancient Near East, requiring sacrifices, which included bread.   Even for the Hebrews, bread was one of the things, designated suitable for sacrificed to the LORD in the book of Leviticus and legislation directed that twelve loaves (the “Shew Bread” or “Bread of the Presence”) be always placed on the altar in the Jerusalem temple’s Holy of Holies.
• The grain sacrifices each harvest, to thank God for the crop and the life that it represented.
• One day Jesus was praying by the roadside when the disciples walked up and saw him. They were so impressed by the fervency of his prayer that they implored him: Master, teach us how to pray. It was in the midst of the Master’s prayer that he reminds us of the importance of the staff of life. He prayed: Give us this day our daily bread. It is the nourishment that sustains life.   Jesus said in John 6:35, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry."
• Bread also represents the physical body of Christ. At the Last Supper , Jesus broke bread, gave it to his disciples and said, "This is my body given for you…" (Luke 22:19 NIV).

Bread and its presence take on new meaning in the New Testament in the sacrament of Eucharist. Sacraments are outward signs of inward grace, instituted by Christ for our sanctification. The Church’s sacraments continue the works, which Jesus had performed during his earthly life. Bread is an appropriate sign (as is wine) for the sacrament of Eucharist.
The juice of the berry or wine represents God's covenant in blood, poured out in payment for humanity’s sin. Jesus said in Luke 22:20, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you."   Believers partake of communion on a regular basis to remember Christ's sacrifice and all that he has done for us in his life, death and resurrection. The Lord's Supper is a time of self-examination and participation in the body of Christ.

The bread of the Eucharist is a divine gift. At the Last Supper, Jesus takes bread, offers it to his Father, breaks the bread and instructs his disciples to take and eat. Here Jesus is revealing to us that he gives himself up for us; under the sign of the bread, the Son of God is revealed as a sacrificial offering. That the sacrament is renewed at his instruction to us to “do this in memory of me” is made clear in the Gospel of Luke when the travelers on the road to Emmaus recognize Christ “in the breaking of the bread.”

Jesus taught us to pray using the words of the “Our Father.” The fourth line of the prayer is a familiar request: “Give us this day our daily bread.” Jesus’ Jewish listeners would have recognized this allusion to the Exodus story in which the Israelites were instructed to gather their daily allotment of manna in the wilderness.   To ask for our daily bread is recognition of God’s present beneficence to us.   Although the act of bread making we think is a human endeavor, but it is not.   It is God who provides the natural ingredients and the growing season in which they are produced. Our request for daily bread evokes the Eucharist and looks forward to the unending banquet in God’s coming kingdom.

All of the ingredients found in bread making; are used by Jesus in his parables. The imagery of each parable has a second meaning — a comparison between two things. Reflecting on the meanings of each ingredient, as they are found in the gospels gives the task of bread baking new significance. In this way, everyday things become sacramental.

For Christians, water is a powerful element packed with spiritual significance. Our baptism immediately comes to mind, and we think of Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River. Two of Jesus’ miracles involved water: Jesus changed water into wine and Jesus walked on water.   While making bread, we recall how Jesus thirsted while he hung on the cross and how water gushed from his side, when pierced by the lance. Finally, before he was laid in the tomb, the body of Jesus was washed with water

Jesus compares the kingdom of God to yeast in the parable of the woman who makes bread. What does this parable mean? St Ambrose explains, “The doctrine of Christ is fittingly called leaven, because the bread is Christ. The Apostle said, ‘For we being many, are one bread, one body’” (1 Cor 10:17).

Jesus says to his followers, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot” (Mt 5:13).    Through our deeds, we are to influence the world for good. If we fail in good works, we are as useless as flavorless salt.

Several sacraments employ the ritual of anointing with oil: Baptism, Confirmation, Ordination and Anointing of the Sick. While baking Easter bread, it is important to recall that Christ’s body was anointed before being laid in the tomb. We are also reminded of the five bridesmaids who, in the parables, let their lamps burn out and failed to bring a supply of oil with them. Oil reminds us to be diligent in the spiritual matters.

Jesus uses the image of a single grain of wheat to explain the purpose of his death: “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds” (Jn 12:24). Jesus uses this image of grain to describe the paradox of life emerging from death.   As with the planting of wheat, Jesus’ death is necessary in order to bring about new and abundant life. This is an especially poignant thought when adding flour to bread
Last, but not the least, in our study of bread and the Bible, it is the hands that work the doe, and form the loaves with pray, with love, and with dedication that today we also come to give glory. Happy Mother’s Day!

I hope and pray, that each of mother present will receive happy reminders of how much, their children appreciate you.   In an old Jewish proverb, it is expressed like this: “God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.”   We all need the staff of life, for our natural bodies, we also need the spiritual gifts from God, for our souls, but most especially we need the love, and nurturing of mothers for survival.     The Chinese say, “There is only one pretty child in the world, and every mother has it.”

Here is a bit of advice to fathers, on Mother's Day: Legally, a husband is the head of the house and a pedestrian has the right of way. Both are perfectly safe and within their rights as long as they do not try to confirm it!

But gentlemen, let me leave you with this last words of wisdom: “A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.” Amen. (Irish Proverb)