Perhaps this is a custom only shared by a distinct subset of Protestant churches, all of which happen to be the ones I have attended, but I am led to wonder: why is the Body of Christ always crusty, white bread? It is usually dry, and tough, and in most situations I cannot swallow it down until I have received the thimble-full of Blood to aid in this most difficult of sacraments.
Is it not traditional that the bread used in Passover — and thus the bread Jesus himself would've used — is unleavened? So why, when we Christians ignore this particular specification, do we content ourselves with the tedium of white, European-style crusty breads? Perhaps the Body is equally and appropriately represented by a rosemary-parmesan ciabatta loaf, or a corn tortilla, or (for those Southerners amongst my readers) a buttermilk biscuit. Surely the Son of God embodies all aspects of the human experience, and the bread chosen to represent his Body should have a more complex flavor profile.
I should perhaps not even mention the implication inherent in using white bread to represent the Body of God.
I know this is two years too late, but I only recently found your blog and decided to look back at your old posts. I wish you had been around when I was preparing communion. We either had matza or homemade wheat bread from a recipe from the monastery in Conyers. It was always a rewarding experience to bake the bread that would be used in The Lord's Supper.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment, Aunt Dena! I haven't had the opportunity to work in a normal church setting like you have, but during my internship here at Marquand Chapel at the Divinity School, we made a point of getting members of the community involved with our Eucharist services by asking them to bake bread. It meant our bread was different every week, and it often reflected the personality of the person who baked it. It felt much more like participating in a community meal when I knew someone in the community had made the bread. And it was especially nice when the baker was conscious of persons with allergies! From time to time someone would bake gluten-free bread, which meant that the members of our community who usually had to subsist on the cardboard-like, pre-packaged gluten-free wafers could share the same (flavorful!) bread everyone else ate. It was theologically beautiful.
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