The Gift of Bread

Although I will be preaching from Ephesians the next few Sunday the gospel lessons from John will be all about food (feeding of the five thousand) and variations on Jesus as the bread of life. This got me thinking about a bakery we visited on our way to and from the Gaspe Peninsula. In the town of Le Bic, population a mere three thousand, we found the Boulangerie Folles Farine. The bread there was extraordinary, everything from the "staff of life" regular loaves to the specialty items.

We were intrigued by one offering that it took two of the young women on staff to explain to unilingual anglophones. It contained apricots, hazelnuts, raisins and maple syrup. Divine. On our return trip we purchased croissants and a muffin with coconut, citrus and ginger. Did I mention divine? We thought it remarkable that a town a tenth the size of Bowmanville would have such a wonderful bakery.

Bread is everywhere in the bible and it is essential to one of our two sacraments in the Protestant church. As I have mentioned before, my wife Ruth had a small baking business for several years and delights to find a good bakery. She makes the communion bread for our congregation, as she has done for fifteen years or so.

There is a lovely bread poem by David Adam

Be gentle when you touch bread.

Let it not lie, uncared for,

Unwanted.

So often bread is taken for granted.

There is such beauty in bread—

Beauty of surf and soil,

Beauty of patient toil.

Wind and rain have caressed it,

We have often blessed it.

Be gentle when you touch bread.