Bread of life, life of bread

I was racking my brains to decide what to preach on on Low Sunday, which seems to fall to me almost every year. I was determined not to preach yet again on ‘Doubting’ Thomas, which I had done several times. Then I came across an article on how to make sourdough bread, which caught my imagination. You can read it here. What appealed to me was the cluster of metaphors that could be applied to the life of faith, especially in the week after the celebration of the Resurrection. The connection between bread and the life of the Christian community is obvious, but this specific kind of bread invites one to develop the possibilities of the other metaphors. The empty tomb is our starter, the living, breathing, continually regenerating mass of dough is analogous to the spiritual body of the risen Lord in the world, the Church. The fact that the same starter can be used indefinitely, however much new material is added, can express how our faith both rests on foundations of great antiquity and is ‘new every morning’. And bread by its nature connotes all that is wholesome, kindly, and companionable, full of rich blessings.