12 April 2009

Sweet Jesus

Posted by nate under: bread .

I often make the communion bread for our church and I really enjoy doing this.  Usually I make small round wheat loaf.  I think this reflects my view of Jesus for the most part – simple and good for you.  But since today is the first Sunday of Easter I thought I’d make a more celebratory loaf so I searched for Easter breads and sweet breads and found this recipe: http://bread.betterrecipes.com/easter-braid.html.  I left out the raisans and mace and didn’t glaze it.  As tasty as that sounded I thought it was probably enough of a theological leap to through in the lemon zest.  So tonight as we gathered around the table we broke the bread.  Our’s is a chuch with an open table – meaning all are welcome to take part in the bread and wine/body and blood.  And generally if there is bread left over after church it is consumed at the weekly pot luck.  So the kids that come up to the table, like my 2 year old daughter Elsa, apparently don’t realize the difference in the meal as part of the service and the potluck after the meal.  I say apparently because Elsa kept sneaking back up to the table and grabbing more bread.  And more bread.  And more bread.  My wife Jodi was busy with serving communion, and I was playing guitar and I don’t think we realized it right away.  (As I’m writing this I realize I haven’t really ever blogged about the church we go to – it’s called Humble Walk, Jodi is the pastor and I often help lead singing – there’s your context for this story – if you want to know more about the church you should come and see - sunday nights at 4:30, potluck at 5:30ish – randolph and w. 7th in the Pilney building in St. Paul MN.  There, I’ve blogged about our church.  Done.)  Anyway, this story just got long and boring, sooorrrrrry.  So we sang accapella, I picked up Elsa, she put up a fight, but it all worked out.

Point of the story?  Passive reader:  huh.  long boring story.  Practical reader:  Don’t make the bread too good, or people will get all 1 Cor. 11 on you.  Emergent Theologian Reader:  What is the difference between the meal during the service and the meal after the service?  Should the two become one?  Let’s deconstruct it!  Better yet, Betray It!  And rather than ‘Emergent Theologian Reader’, could you please refer to us as “an (un)named group struggling to understand this god thing in a time of highly valued skepticism and doubt using literary means in the context of a pre/post variant model of (on)going antiquity?”

Justin, why’d you have to turn me on to Rollins?  That dude’s too smart for his own (brit)ches.  And I thank you.

2 Comments so far...

Justin Rimbo Says:

13 April 2009 at 8:08 am.

Ha.

Brie Says:

18 May 2009 at 2:05 pm.

Well, theologically speaking, the early church communed with a whole meal, as opposed to part of a meal….hmmm maybe i should run this idea across jodi’s desk and see if we could try this sometime. How’s that for tradition.

Leave a Reply

Browse

Calendar

April 2009
M T W T F S S
« Mar   May »
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
27282930  

Categories

Links