Benediction

“Give us this day our daily bread.”
-Matthew 6:11

“Just as we can play beautiful music only when the strings on the violin are in proper tension, so we can grow only when we are stretched from what we are to what we can be. There is no growth without tension.”
-J. Grant Howard

Like many, I suppose, I have been a student of the sourdough surge. I was perhaps on the cusp of mastery before I gave it up altogether. While I never did quite attain to the mark of making beautiful bread, I did find the task somewhat therapeutic. The rotation of the fermentation process—stretch and fold, ferment, shape, proof—seemed cathartic, a metaphor of meditation thrust upon a too-busy world, a benediction beckoning us to come and rest from the crazy and chaotic.

From Latin roots bene, meaning “well” and diction, meaning “to speak,” a benediction is a spoken blessing. A liturgical pastor would speak out a benediction prior to dismissing his congregation. It is Numbers 6:24-26 in action:

“The Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” 

When I kneaded bread, it became a benediction in action, a ceremonial attitude of gratitude. It was my blessing to bestow on others when giving a loaf to my neighbor, a sacrifice of thanksgiving as I offered the freshly sliced loaf to my family. It was a Biblical blessing. In Leviticus 7:11-12, we read that the Israelites offered their bread to the Lord as a thanks offering.

“These are the regulations for the fellowship offering anyone may present to the Lord: If they offer it as an expression of thankfulness, then along with this thank offering they are to offer thick loaves made without yeast and brushed with oil, and thick loaves of the finest flour well-kneaded and with oil mixed in.”

The connection to the “passing of the peace,” another ceremonial practice in many churches, is the “hello and how are you doing” along with a smile and a handshake. It is an opportunity to speak blessing to others and make a flesh connection with another. It is pressing pause on the kneading circumstances of life and stepping into a rhythm of rest to check in on a fellow human being. And just like the unforced rhythm of life practices help us go against the grain of angst, so does kneading those whole grains provide the cathartic practice of offering something whole and hale, breaking bread together in fellowship. Just as bread needs a rest cycle, so do we all from the angst of trying circumstances. Like dough, we are stretched and tested in these seasons of life, as James 1:2-3 indicates:

“Count it all joy when you fall into various trials,
knowing that the testing (proofing) of your faith produces patience.” 

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while…
you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith…
though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”
-1 Peter 1:6-7

"The labor of the baking was the hardest part of her hospitality.
To many it is easy to give what they have, but the offering of weariness and pain is never easy. They are indeed a true salt to salt sacrifices withal."
-George MacDonald

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
-John 6:35