Stale Bread revised 4/9/2013

Stale Bread

Revised April 9, 2013Recently I was in a service where the  people  took communion. When I ate of the “cracker” I found it tasted extremely stale. The thought Stale Bread came to my mind,  and I was reminded of a congregation who arrived for services one morning and found the sanctuary smelled divinely of “fresh baked bread” yet no physical bread was found. 

Another thing involving bread also was brought to my remembrance:  I was praying once  with some intercessors in an upstairs room during a worship service and we were crying out to God for “fresh bread.” When the guest preacher got up in the pulpit he told  the congregation that he had prepared a sermon for that service,but now that he was in the pulpit the Lord stirred something “fresh” up in him that he was going to share.

So I began to wonder about “stale bread.” The sermon in that
communion" service had been a powerful exhortation on the Sons of Issachar. And not wanting to be particularly critical I asked the Lord,, "What was stale? "

 And it was seemingly pointed out to me that He, the Lord,  hadn’t been able to say anything He wanted to say in the service. 

Yes, some of what the preacher said was  about what He wanted them to say, but what He would have said Himself was different. The forms and methods of the service didn’t allow for “fresh bread,” only day old bread: the way it was always done, the way it was expected. 

One of the things I remembered about that communion  service was that during a time of worship the song leader admitted that he felt a need to go on with the worship and at the same time  to go on with the expected order of worship. While that congregation/denomination doesn't have a “written order” like some churches, their unspoken and unwritten  “order” is perhaps as set and rigid as any listed in a bulletin!!


Manna was to be collected daily except on the Sabbath and then enough for the Sabbath could be collected on the 6^th day. Anything left over was to be destroyed or it would turn to worms. 
 
One of the interesting things about the “communion service” the Sunday morning involving Stale bread was that when the ladies who do the filling of the communion trays found that they had no juice and crackers for elements. So they sent someone out and they brought back “stale crackers”---leaven ones at that! Not that it ultimately makes any difference. 


 Our hearts must be prepared to receive Fresh Bread or else what we will dish up will be “stale bread”, day old bread, and often it has worms in it!! Did the crackers have worms in them? No. But one might say that  the order of service had a tons of worms in it. One lady said that something so powerful entered in through the service that it “took her breath away” and she initially shrunk back so shocked. Others reported that they were before the Lord in worship when instead of Him being acknowledged, the order of service went on to another function while people were still standing waiting upon the Lord. God had fresh bread for the congregation that morning, but so often it is more important to “have something” that we call “anything anyone can supply” rather than wait upon the Lord, putting aside our own abilities and understandings, and commune with Him in Spirit and in Truth.


Jesus is my bread and He’s new every morning and like others, we didn’t go away without feeding/communing at His feet. But there was something He had to give ALL those that day that they didn’t get because they were offered up “stale bread”.

But then, are the shepherds supposed to "feed the sheep" with what is dished up during the pulpit, during the sermon time, or will the Shepherd of the Sheep Himself feed His sheep who wait upon Him personally, intimately?  Is the "pastor" there to get people to feed from him or is he to direct the people to feed on Jesus, to eat His body and drink His blood?  How do we "break bread" so that people feed on Jesus instead of feeding at our feet and get "fresh bread" from heaven!

 

Meri Ford
renewedhope@peoplepc.com
516 Park Rd.
Winlock, WA 98596
360 520 4503