Cooking is something I enjoy doing. I also enjoy reading and re-reading cookery books, as well. Recently, while dipping into one of Claire MacDonald’s books I was struck how appropriate what she had written was to today’s readings. In particular, in relation to today’s Gospel reading; it is not as recipe but the introduction to a recipe for ‘Black olive, sun-dried tomato and garlic bread’ that I think is very apposite:

“I made this recipe first in the summer of 1992, making it up as I went along. Initially I tried baking it in oiled loaf tins… but I didn’t like the texture that resulted… then I discovered that in my enthusiasm I was using too much olive oil. This revelation came via the Chubb inspector of our fire extinguishers, who arrived one day as I was happily kneading away, and gazed long and thoughtfully at my bread making (sadly not at me!). Then unable to contain himself any longer, he rushed to the sink and washed his hands, and said ‘Here let me have a go.’ He took over kneading with the sure touch of an expert and told me that he had been a master baker till he was made redundant and got a job with Chubb. I learnt so much from him in twenty minutes! Amongst the tips was that the amount of olive oil I was using was too much for the flour, and my olive and garlic etc., bread has been better ever since!”

                                        From ‘Suppers’ by Claire MacDonald of Macdonald. Published by Corgi 1996   

Why I thought this was so apt for today was the way in which from something unexpected came something ordinary and how the ordinary everyday event of making bread for Claire MacDonald became something extraordinary. It can’t be everyone who is taught to make better bread by the fire extinguisher man! Nor is it common place to be told by a prophet that he is the ‘bread of life’!

Bread is an important staple in the diet of most of us and I have to admit the one food I would hate to do without. It has been the main source of nourishment for our forebears for millennia and will hopefully continue to be so for generations to come too.

Bread, ‘which earth has given and human hands have made’ – to quote our Eucharistic liturgy - sustains our physical bodies but as Jesus says in order to sustain the spiritual body you have to eat of the bread of eternal life. For it is the bread of heaven that contains life not the stuff made from cereal. Ordinary bread like the manna from heaven given to the Israelites in the wilderness stops the physical hunger we all experience but it is only by communion with the ‘bread of life’ -  Jesus himself, that the spiritual hunger can be sated.  

Through the Eucharist we are fed spiritually for as we receive the body of Christ we allow his spirit to permeate our whole being.

How often have you, like me, come to the Eucharist ‘out of sorts’ or at your ‘wits end’ and have left after receiving Holy Communion feeling restored, calmer, renewed and able to go on?

This is part of what the Eucharist is about, for in receiving Holy Communion we are strengthened and supported by Christ. Whether or not you believe that the bread and wine actually become the body and blood of Christ or that in someway they represent his body and blood is your choice, so long as you recognise that in receiving communion you come into an intimate relationship with Jesus.  

For some outside the Church when we speak of eating Christ’s body and blood it sounds somewhat cannibalistic. In fact this was something the early Christians were accused of but it is no more cannibalistic than to say to a loved one that we ‘want to eat them all up’. It is nothing gruesome but rather it is something very loving for it says that the one we want to ‘eat up’ is so loved by us that we want to be one with them. This is what Jesus wants for us, to be truly one with him; that’s why we have the ‘holy bread’ so that we can come into an intimate relationship with him. For those ‘eat his flesh’ abide in him and he in them.

To be one with Christ, one with our God, our Creator and Redeemer is more than any of us can truly hope for but to know that through Holy Communion this happens is mind blowing. Even more so when we remember that this gift is open to ALL God’s people without exception. As such the Eucharist should be something we hold dear and value beyond measure. It should also be the thing that enables and encourages us to do the things we feel we could never do on our own. 

Manna from heaven, a wholemeal or a Scottish plain loaf may sustain our physical bodies but otherwise it is dead. Eucharistic bread, the very essence of God not only nourishes us physically but also sustains us and builds us up spiritually as we live our lives in communion with the Christ of God. For in this ‘Holy Communion’ we receive LOVE - Jesus’ love. He was born out of love and died for love of us and in his Eucharistic body we are renewed in his love. It takes love and love with a passion to make good bread, as the Chubb man proved, and it is love as strong as Jesus’ that makes Eucharistic bread the truly life-giving nourishment it is.

As you come to communion this morning remember that in doing so you are allowing Christ to love you and to work his ways of love through you. As you return to the world outside this Church share God’s love with those who are seeking to be loved and spiritually fed and keep coming back to repeat the process.