I love that one of the biggest ways that Jesus talks about himself in scripture is to talk about himself as bread. As food. I can't think of a better way to capture something that is so basic, so necessary, so nourishing, so pleasing, so common, and so beautiful.

We send our children off to school with peanut butter and jelly smooshed between common, square pieces of Wonderbread. We pause when we pass the doorway of a bakery (or Jimmy John's, which advertises "free smells")to inhale the pleasing scent of yeasty bread baking in a hot oven. We feed the stale ends of hot dog buns to ducks at the park, and we all wish to be as perfect and picturesque as a Frenchman, riding home from market with a baguette nestled into his bike basket. We tear it up to make stuffing, bake sweet muffins and breads to celebrate birthdays and holidays, we add vegetables and fruits to it, we knead loaves or are jealous of those who have the time to bake.

A seminary professor, talking about the elements used in communion, made the case that we use bread and wine because they are "staple food" and "festive drink." In this way, Jesus comes to us in something fundamental - bread - and in something special - wine.

It's hard not to hear Jesus talking about himself as the "bread of life" without skipping forward to that Last Supper, when he again declared that the bread was his body, and to think of him every time we break bread together.

This is why both Word and Sacrament are at the heart of our worship: we are hungry, and these things feed us. And more than that, they send us out. The table is a launch pad for us, and the bread of life that we feast on together is the very Christ whose hands and feet we become for our world.

On this theme, here's a "sending song," of sorts, that also pushes us to see the bread of life as that which sends us out as ambassadors of grace into the world. It's Derek Webb's song, "Take to the World" from his album She Must and Shall Go Free.



Take to the World
by Derek Webb

Go in peace to love and to serve
And let your ears ring long with what you have heard
And may the bread on your tongue leave a trail of crumbs
To lead the hungry back to the place that you are from

And take to the world this love hope and faith
Take to the world this rare relentless grace
And like the three in one
Know you must become what you want to save
'Cause that's still the way
He takes to the world

Go and go far take light deep in the dark
Believe what's true, use it as all, even you
May the bread on your tongue leave a trail of crumbs
To lead the hungry back to the place you are from