Bread
So I’ve been learning to bake this year, and in my experimentation I found to my great joy that bread is incredible when the 5tsp or so or butter is substituted for ½ cup of Bacon grease. Further proof of the idea that everything is better when you add bacon.
The whole baking experience has had me thinking about the Lord’s supper. What with all of the biblical references to bread and leavening that are beginning to make more and more sense now. I wondered if it might be a neat ministry to provide churches with fresh baked steamy loafs to use for communion on Sunday instead of the seemingly expensive store-bought loafs most churches now use, and when I made the bacon bread, I thought about how cool it would be to use that in the sacrament. I could just see the words of the invitation
“At this church we believe that the sprit of Christ is spiritually present within the bread and the cup, we also believe that the body of Christ is delicious so we made it with bacon! Any and all who have accepted Christ as their savior are invited to come forward and eat of this loaf and drink of this cup…”
Unfortunately I think this would probably offend some vegetarians who now wouldn’t partake, so most churches probably wouldn’t be interested. Which is okay, In fact after thinking about it for a bit I’m pretty sure the loaf is vegan as well. They probably don’t use eggs and use oil instead of butter… And that got me thinking…
Should Jesus’ body be vegetarian? Because if so I think it takes us down a slippery slope. If Jesus needs to be made without animal byproducts doesn’t it follow that he should also be low-carb, low-fat, sugar free, gluten free, fair-trade, organic and processed in a bakery that doesn’t contain peanuts? Because that sounds like some really horrible boring bread.
The question goes deeper than the bread of course. When we present Jesus the man at our churches, just what sort of Jesus are we allowed to present? Must we actually offer fourth an unaffiliated, politically uninterested, non-denominational Jesus. Does Jesus need to be depicted as androgynous, independent of ethnic origin and cultural influence, existing without socioeconomic status and secular opinion?
Might that just possibly create an object of worship as safe and bland as a horrible communion wafer?
But otherwise we run a risk that is not to be scoffed at. That if we don’t, we create a quorum of people who will have no choice but to leave Jesus on the alter.
Thoughts?