Becoming Bread

The young man stands on the far side of the river, waiting within a waiting crowd, eyes fixed on his cousin as he leads one person after another from east to west through the ancient waters. Who could not hear the echoes of Joshua and Elisha as the prophet leads the people through the brackish water to inhabit the land in a renewed and renewing response to the way of the Liberator. (No wonder it draws hostility from the temple and the court.) Joshua led a nation through this water to a land in which – they promised – they would follow the way of the Liberator. Elijah and Elisha crossed out of the land, and Elisha returned alone, both of them part of a long struggle against prophets of other gods who made shiny promises to that nation, to that people. 

 And now the young man watches as his cousin takes his turn in the witness of the prophets. The shiny idolatrous things are on offer from the religious establishment, the temple (the cathedral). Temple and cathedral share a common temptation: to make peace with the prince, with Caesar, with the empire, with greed and idolatry and blinding ambition – peace that protects the temple (the cathedral) at the mere cost of its holy purpose. 

By the usual and dispiriting inversion, the king of this land has killed children in the name of power and fear, and the old plantation of pyramids and pharaohs has become a place where one of those children – the one who survived, the young man now watching his cousin – found safety. 

By the usual and dispiriting inversion, this temple of One who found home for the homeless now holds the archive of shame and indenture by which debt becomes landlessness becomes desperation, hunger, despair. This is neither the first nor the last time that a holy of holies has been ransacked to sustain privilege for some at the expense of many. (Is all this what the young man will be remembering when, later, he shouts, “Den of thieves!”?) 

In the face of all this, the young man’s cousin performs baptism as guerilla theatre, with an eye to history. The repentance is a turning and re-turning – away from the corruption and pretence of the religious leaders, and towards the promise and the purpose of God for this land. Leaving the corruption of the land behind, then inhabiting the land anew in the ancient way of the Liberator. 

 The young man watches, and soon will join in re-imagining of the land of his birth as the homeland of justice, compassion and neighbour-care. What he anticipates with the crowds is the in-breaking power of a Spirit, holy, who breathes that homeland into being. Across the reed of this strange wilderness assembly, the Spirit breathes. And a song begins to take shape across that reed, answering its hunger, and its hope. “You are….” (Is all this what the young man will be remembering when he echoes Isaiah, “The spirit of the Lord is upon me”?) 

The young man presses through the crowd, not impatient, not aggressive, but determined to move past watching to joining. Some jostling and wriggling through to get to the river’s edge. A flash of recognitions. (The cousin says, “this is bigger than me.” The young man says, “this ‘bigger’ is how I am.”) And then “Yes” and “Yes”, and the strength of the cousin pulls the young man into the sluggish current, through the weeds and mud and murk. 

The young man’s feet cannot keep up with his cousin’s pace, and down he goes, and then up he comes and then… …And then it is not only the hands of his cousin who lift him, stumbling, as he makes the shore. Other Hands lift him, singing as They work – You are my child, my beloved. 

And just like that, the Spirit – who joins her Song to the young man’s longing, Spirit’s Bread to young man’s hunger – drives the young man into the wilderness. You are my child, my beloved. 

It is no easy blessing. The Hands that lifted him, gasping, into the land, no longer cradle gently. They push and fold and their hand-heel squeezes. The Song, though, doesn’t falter. You are my child, my beloved. 

Forty days, a quarantine with nothing but those Hands and that Song, and the young man is hungry, fainting-hungry. The memory of the blessing (was it a blessing – really?) becomes vague. After forty days, the stones – wind-rounded, sand-polished – begin to look disturbingly like bread. “A little finesse and…?” The new voice has conviction and pragmatism on its side. There they are. There you are. They could be bread. You could be satisfied. Make them what you want, what you hunger for. By some mystery he resists. Stones are stones. Something whispers something about how the Holy has spoken the stones, and will speak bread in due course. Do not be afraid. Sand in his eye, he blinks, and the stones look like stones again. (Is it remembering this moment that the young man says, later, “Consider the lilies”?) 

There’s a rest from the pushing and folding and hand-heel squeezing. The Spirit breathes across the reed of the young man’s patience and the song continues. You are my child, my beloved. Good. 

And then... he can picture it: Applause as he leaps from the temple. Soft landing from audacious leap. Destiny, providence, the adrenaline rush of risk and reward, the careening climax as Hands reach down from the sky to cradle his audacious Self and then… The song fades, its intimate resonance drowned out by the roar of the crowd. (Is it remembering this moment that the young man says, later, “Woe to you, when all speak well of you.”?) 

A lizard brushes his ankle, reminds him of earth, mortality, boundary. Lizard and messiah share the dust, and something like Wind blows his hair across his scalp. The Song returns, my beloved. 

Lizard scurries. Legs give way to hunger and exhaustion as he sprawls backwards, as the dust envelops him. He can’t find the power to stand on his own two feet. Where will he find the power to continue? What will sustain the godly haunting? 

He knows power. He has seen Herod, living on rented power. He caught a glimpse once, of Herod’s landlord, Pilate. He knows that power, the single-minded power of chariot-legion-sword-cross. If he had such power, (he is asked) would he? Could he? He couldn’t, not without the idolatry that trades purpose for power. If he had power like that, the young man… (It is remembering this moment that he says, later, “My kingdom is not from this world.”) 

Something like lightning pitches him backwards into the scrub. And Hands soft as pillows lift him close to something like the warmth of a beating sun. The Song is so close and deep it rises through is body, through skin and bone and muscle, to his own beating heart: You are my child, my beloved. 

His mother’s courage strengthened and softened her to make this child her work. By such courage he now chooses to take upthe work of the eternal Holy. He limps out of the desert, into a life whose power is compassion, whose status is servant, whose fullness is to become bread. “What do you want me to do for you?” he asks. “Who do you say that I am?” 

Bartimaeus says, “Let me see again”, sees, and takes up himself the work of becoming bread. Matthew loses count, then counts halfway to one, and takes up himself the work of becoming bread. 

A foreign woman sees the light of healing through him, begs that light for her daughter, breaks his heart, and shares with him the work of becoming bread. 

Weak-willed overeager Simon becomes Rock-Peter, fails, takes his lumps of grace at the last breakfast (Do you love me? Feed my sheep), and takes up himself the work of becoming bread. 

Saul muttering murder becomes Paul breathing grace and takes up himself the work of becoming bread. (“And the greatest of these is love.”) 

Slave-shipper Newton is (slowly) amazed by grace, and in the end turns slave ship to ark and takes up himself the work of becoming bread. 

Diminutive Teresa meets the dying in the city, sees sisters, sees brothers, cradles the crushed, and takes up herself the work of becoming bread. 

Jesus leaves the stones be. They are stones for the Holy’s holy reason. Hungry Jesus takes up himself the work of becoming bread. Hands kneading, loaf rising, baker singing. Hungry fed. Hungry people – all kinds of hunger. Bread – all kinds of bread. Pierced Hands will be and break the bread. The mystery is not that bread becomes Body, but that Body becomes bread. 

This mystery set in motion when Hands first lifted. This mystery of One who takes up the work of becoming bread. This mystery kneaded by choosing and compassion, by suffering love, by naked bruised abandonment. This mystery, cradled by Hands that draw this child from the womb, place this child in the tomb, whose same Hands lift this child from death to life. This mystery, becoming our bread. This mystery who calls to us, drenches us, lifts us, drives us, tests us, cradles us, this Baker-Who-Sings, who sings to us: You are my child, my beloved.