...who baked the bread?

Who Baked the Bread?

Katherine Dale Makus

Who baked the bread

That Jesus blessed

And broke, and shared

That Passover supper, when he said,

"This is my body

Broken for you"?

Who made the wine,

When he passed the cup,

Saying, "This is my blood,

The blood of the covenant,

Shed for you and for many.

The fruit of the vine

I shall not taste again

Until I taste it new

In the Kingdom of God"?

Who made the wine?

Was it a woman who tended the vine,

Pressed the grapes, and made the wine;

Who planted the field, threshed the wheat,

And baked the bread for others to eat?

And afterwards, did a woman come

To clear the cup; to mop,

Perhaps, a single careless drop

Of wine, of God's blood shed;

To gather every scattered crumb

Of broken body, broken bread?

Did a woman, coming to clean the room,

Find grace in the fragments left behind,

As women, later, would come to find

An angel and an empty tomb?

Source: Daughters of Sarah (Mar-Apr 1988)

...un-scorned

From Olivet they followed among the joyful crowd,

the victor palm branch waving, with singing clear and loud.

The Lord of earth and heaven rode on in lowly state,

nor scorned that little children should on his bidding wait.

---Jennette Threlfall, 1873

It is always a heartwarming picture when Jesus and children get together. My little Bible, given to me June 26, 1968 by “Mother and Daddy”, is covered in a suh-weet colored depiction of Jesus blessing the little children. Everyone from tots to tweens is gathered 'round Jesus, shepherded by two lovely, young-looking mom-type ladies. Just looking at it now makes me warm inside. Jesus valued children.

And why not? Our society claims to value its children, perhaps more than almost anyone else. We spend hundreds of millions of dollars feeding, clothing, entertaining, educating, doctoring, bracing, and equipping our children. There are exceptions, and there are glaring holes in our protection of children as a society, and we bear the open wounds of our failures with each new disaster. But with our words, and in our best moments, “the children are our future” (with thanks to Whitney Houston).

But this attitude toward children is a modern development. In Jesus’ time, children were disregarded, valued only for the worth of their labor or future labor to their families. They were insignificant, and having a religious leader elevate them by his attention was actually embarrassing for Jesus’ disciples. I wonder, if this story were to take place in modern times, who would the children be? What group or groups of people are disregarded and marginalized in today’s society? Who is left out of the caring circle by us, Jesus’ disciples? Whose presence would Jesus scorn not? Whose presence should we, Jesus’ disciples, scorn not?

...whom heavens cannot contain

Surely in temples made with hands, God the Most High is not dwelling;

high above earth his temple stands, all earthly temples excelling.

Yet he whom heavens cannot contain chose in his people’s hearts to reign,

built in our bodies his temple.

---Nicolai F.S. Grundtvig, 1837

When my kiddos were small, I was astounded at how awful their jokes were. Anybody else? Show of hands? I mean, I was hilarious. I just kind of assumed they would at least be able to string together a few one-liners. But, yeah. Nothing. In the years since, two things have happened. One, thank heaven, they’ve gotten a lot funnier. And two, I’ve realized that successful joke-telling is a higher order thinking skill—babies aren’t just born with the perfect punch line (not just my babies, either—nobody’s kids are any good at jokes for at least a couple of years!).

One of the simplest-sounding jokes, and the hardest to catch the mechanics of, is the knock-knock joke. One of my kids’ favorite ‘knock-knock jokes’ went something like this: “Knock knock.” “Who’s there?” “Hahahaha, got you! It’s nobody!” See? It was hard to be me for a while there.

Just like in my kids’ non-joke, the ‘temple made with hands’ of this week’s hymn text would have its knock go unanswered. As majestic, as monumental, as awe-inspiring as some of these temples are, God has not chosen to take any of them for a dwelling-place. So expansive the heavens cannot contain God, the Creator of the cosmos has chosen instead the hearts of God’s people for a place of abiding.

So, truly, God is in the world, in the hearts of the beloved. God is in our busy-ness and in our leisure, in our serving and in our growing. And, when two or three are met together, in temples made of hands, God is in the temple, in the midst of the people as they worship.

Knock knock…

...held like sea water

O the deep, deep love of Jesus, vast, unmeasured, boundless, free,

rolling as a mighty ocean in its fullness over me!

Underneath me, all around me is the current of his love,

leading onward, leading homeward to that glorious rest above.

---Samuel Trevor Francis, 1898

Many of us are familiar with President John Kennedy’s quote concerning his deep passion for the sea – “We are tied to the ocean. And when we go back to the sea – whether it is to sail or to watch it – we are going back from whence we came.” Kennedy was famously at home in the frigid waters of his beloved Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, where in times of health and illness the water seemed life-giving and restorative.

The man I saw most in love with the sea was my father. Each summer we would camp (you read that right --- camping at the beach in the summer!) for a week or so, in the heat and humidity. And I would watch my professor father with the perpetual farmer tan float for hours on his back in the briny Gulf water, not paddling, not kicking, not moving at all. He’d tell my brother and me, “This salty water will hold you up. You just have to relax and lie back.” It was a matter of trust, and giving up the need to control the water that supported you.

You know, I never got as good at it as my dad; I never could float for hours, relaxed and committed to the water’s ability to hold me. But for a minute or two, here and there, it sometimes worked. I sometimes let go. And when I trusted that the sea was more capable than I, more powerful than I, more boundless than I’d ever be to meet my need to be held up --- for that moment, I was free.

Oh, to trust that I would be held up like that.

...complex and simple

Jesus calls us o’er the tumult of our life’s wild restless sea:

day by day his sweet voice soundeth, saying “Christian, follow me!”

---Cecil F. Alexander, 1852

It had been one of those weeks. In one of those months. In one of those seasons. In one of those years. Never quite getting well. Never quite getting the ‘to do’ list ‘to done’. Never quite getting caught up. Never quite feeling ready for…whatever comes next. Never quite feeling worthy of the trust placed in me, or the tasks required of me.

And then I stop. I breathe out, and in. And I notice how myopic my vision has grown, how inward-focused my hearing. With my focus drawn to my inner chaos, my shortcomings, my insufficiency--my attention must by definition be focused on…me.

And so I stop. I breathe out, and in. And I lift my gaze. And I focus my hearing. Out, in. There it is. The gentle leading, the focusing guidance. Follow me. Just that. Out, in. Complex and simple. Follow me. Lift the gaze. Focus the hearing. Out, in.

Follow me.