A Loaf of Bread

 

My wife got a bit cross with me the other day for buying a bread more expensive than our usual.  Apparently, there are now 200 different sorts of bread available in the UK.  Well, I purchased one that didn’t cost the usual £1.20, but £2.20.  Trouble is my wife is a maths teacher so she can quickly shame me by working out the cost of each slice!  Rather takes away the fun.

Well, it got me interested to do a bit of research into bread and I learnt that 99.8% of us eat it, that’s no less than 11 million loaves baked every day in Britain.  Typically, every individual eats 60 loaves a year, and of that 50% will be consumed in sandwiches.

In Jesus’ time most bread was wholegrain – not the refined white bread we often have today, and the Jewish law allowed for 10% of a loaf to be gritty!  Archaeologists often discover that people’s teeth from this period have been ground down because of the bread they ate!

The poor had the cheapest form of bread which is Barley bread – as featured in the story of the Feeding of the 5000.

I have a small rock at home that I often bring out in Lent which I think looks remarkably like a bread roll – it wouldn’t do your teeth any good at all as it’s 100% grit!

 It’s a rock that reminds me of Jesus time in the desert, during his temptations which we remember during these days of Lent, when our Lord refused to turn the stones into bread just to satisfy his own hunger.

 Interesting that, because later on at the Feeding of the 5000 that’s exactly what he did with the 5 loaves of barley – so what’s the difference?

 Well, in the wilderness Jesus would have been using his powers just to serve himself and at the Feeding of the 5000 he was using them to serve others.

I think he was teaching us a great lesson there, that serving God is essentially about serving others, being generous with our time and helpful to others with our talents.

During these days of Lent, we recall that Jesus once said he did not come to be served but to serve.  And we give thanks for all those who serve us with their generosity, love and kindness everyday.