Breadapalooza!

By The Rt Rev’d Jennifer A. Reddall, sixth bishop of Arizona

I think we are now in week four (or five? I have lost track) of “breadapalooza,” the summer season during the Lectionary Year B where we hear stories about bread in the gospel for six weeks in a row. 

Like many preachers, I am constantly looking for new illustrations to make potent the image of Jesus as the Bread of Life, to keep our sermons varied enough that we don’t simply preach the same thing six weeks in a row—though at some level, repetition is exactly what we are called to do. Gospel: Jesus is the bread of life. Liturgical Action: eat the bread of life. Repeat at least weekly. 

But I do like Sister Delores Dufner’s hymn text below*, and its recognition of the cyclical process of wheat crushed for bread, bread broken for life, life lovingly offered to death, death leading to life. 

And it tugs at my soul that we are not able to provide that living bread every Sunday at every one of our churches—a number of our rural congregations are without consistent priestly leadership right now, and it strikes me that these weeks with these gospels must be particularly challenging in those contexts. Yes, we do sometimes offer communion from the reserved sacrament… but it’s not the same.  I yearn to find priests who are able and willing to serve in every congregation in the diocese, so that this most precious bread of life may be available to all.

O wheat, whose crushing was for bread,
O bread, whose breaking is for life,
O life, your seeming end is seed,
A seed for wheat, our bread and life.

O life whose crushing was for love,
O love whose spending was to death,
O death, your mourning is our joy,
Full joy and birth to lasting life.

Delores Dufner, OSB, Wonder Love and Praise #760