Sermon: Ninth Sunday After Pentecost

The Very Rev. William Thomas Deneke, rector

I am the bread of life.

These words of Jesus are familiar. We read them, say them, and sing them. In the Eucharist we even say “the bread of heaven”. What is interesting about this bread of salvation is that it does not always come to us in planned or predictable ways. The bread and wine of the Eucharist feed our souls every Sunday. But sometimes food for the soul, and even communion, come to us like manna from heaven, unexpectedly, and as a pure, unearned gift of grace.

This morning I want to share with you a story about how I encountered the bread of heaven unexpectedly. Several years ago, I traveled to Russia for a month long summer sabbatical with a friend who was a Lutheran college professor. We went first to St. Petersburg where we engaged in study at the St. Petersburg Theological Seminary. From there we flew to Biysk, a city in Southern Siberia, to meet a family we had both befriended on a previous Russian trip.

During our stay in Siberia, our host family took us on an excursion to a village south of Biysk in an area near the Altai Mountains (not far from the Chinese and Mongolian border). We went there to visit the newly restored Church of the Icon of the Kazan Mother of God. While touring the inside of the church, we met two young Russian Orthodox priests serving the church, and a Russian woman named Antonina, who was an active lay leader.

The priests and Antonia told us that sometime after the Bolshevik Revolution, the holy icons had been ripped from the Iconostasis and used on the street in front of the church as paving. The building was then turned into a storage place for chemical fertilizers to be used by the local collective farms.

A few courageous villagers carried off some of icons, which had been thrown into the street and hid them in their homes. Though they were now in somewhat poor condition, five or six of these icons were back in the newly restored church.

During the conversation, Antonina also shared that she had the honor of baking the large, round loaves of communion bread used each Sunday during the Eucharist.

Since it was lunchtime, Antonina invited us, all four adults and two children, whom she had never met before, to come home with her for lunch.

To turn down such an invitation would have been considered quite rude in Russian culture, so we accepted her kind offer. We walked a quarter of a mile through the streets of the village and over the fields to her "izba" (log house). While we became acquainted with her husband and son, Antonina busied herself in her "summer kitchen" located across the garden from the house. In preparation for our meal, Antonina's husband took us outside to wash our hands at the family's cleverly constructed "sink". Next to the basin hung the family towel, which was offered, to each one of us to dry our hands. We later learned that this act of offering the family towel was considered an honor according to Russian custom.

In less than 20 minutes, Antonina set out a magnificent luncheon table for her guests. Lunch consisted of a first course of fresh, uncooked garden vegetables, followed by a "borsch" of vegetables into which she lobbed huge spoonfuls of fresh sour cream. This was topped off by some kind of ground beef served with huge slices of bread covered in fresh butter.

Antonina did not serve just any bread to her guests. She brought to the table the large round loaf of bread that she had baked for communion. As she proudly held up the bread for all to see, I could not help thinking about the Eucharistic act of consecrating the bread. As she broke and passed around the bread, accompanied by cups of tea, I sat there in amazement.

What struck me was the parabolic power of a simple act of hospitality transformed into an authentic form of communion. While orthodox women are permitted to bake the bread of communion, they are not permitted to serve it. Neither are "strangers" -- the non-orthodox -- permitted to receive the bread of communion. This dominant patriarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church had been turned upside down when Antonina welcomed strangers to table fellowship and served as the "celebrant" of this simple "communion".

In our tradition, bread broken at communion is offered to each communicant with the words, "the body of Christ, the bread of heaven". This bread lovingly baked, broken and served by Antonina was nothing less than manna, or bread of heaven. Such an act of hospitality surely gives us a glimpse of the One who is the Bread of Life.

This story suggests that we can encounter communion and food for the soul in unexpected forms, along unfamiliar paths and with people who differ from us in every way imaginable. Come to think of it, this seems to be the way of Jesus portrayed over and over again in the gospels.

By the simple act of breaking bread with those in whom he came in contact, Jesus demonstrated an all inclusive, non-hierarchical divine hospitality that crossed all barriers of nationality, class, gender, race and creed. Perhaps, this story of a Siberian family's hospitality can serve as a reminder of the love of Christ that knows no boundaries. Perhaps it can remind us that food for the soul can be discovered in the most unlikely places, offered by those who seem to have the least to give.

Let us pray: Gracious God, grant us the wisdom to recognize the need to nourish our souls as well as our bodies. Enable us to perceive food for the soul even in unexpected places and to have the grace to accept gifts from those who may seem to have the least to give. Lead us daily to embrace your hospitality and grow in neighborliness so that we may be nourished and transformed through the Bread of life. Amen.