Ray Anglesea shares the next installment of his sabbatical experiences
One
of the joys of holidaying in France is the early morning walk, to the boulangierie, the bread shop to collect
baguettes - a wand or baton of long crusty bread, made from wheat flour, water,
yeast, and common salt. As part of the
traditional continental breakfast in France, slices of baguette are spread with
butter and jam and dunked in bowls of coffee or hot chocolate. Delicious!
Although
baguettes are closely connected to France they are today made around the world.
In France, not all long loaves are baguettes; for example, a short, almost
rugby ball shaped loaf is a batard (literally,
bastard), or a "torpedo loaf" in English. Another tubular shaped loaf is known as a flute. Flûtes closely resemble baguettes
and weigh more or less than these, depending on the region. A thinner loaf is
called a ficelle (string). A short baguette is sometimes known as a baton
(stick), or even referred to using the English translation French stick.
At
the boulangerie I also buy
croissants; buttery flaky viennoiserie pastry named for its well-known crescent
shape. Croissants and other viennoiserie
are made of a layered yeast yeast-leavened dough. The dough is layered with
butter, rolled and folded several times in succession, then rolled into a
sheet, in a technique called laminating. The process results in a layered,
flaky texture, similar to a puff pastry. Crescent-shaped food breads have been
made since the Middle Ages, and crescent-shaped cakes possibly since antiquity.
The
morning lectionary readings around the pool on Sunday 27 July (7th
Sunday after Pentecost) were the many kingdom parables found in the gospel of Matthew,
chapter 13:31-33, 44-52 - yeast
being one of them. Jesus suggests that the Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that
is mixed in with bread. It is what makes the wine and beer, it makes the dough
to rise to make the bread. It is the tiny insignificant catalyst for our basic
commodities and the formation of our communities; it is the leaven in the lump;
the difference between bread and dough; juice and wine, refreshment and celebration.
Yeast is the ingredient that turns the passive into active; the flat into
flavoursome; the ordinary into the extraordinary.
When
Jesus talks about the Kingdom of God as yeast – and our ministers too – he is
not advocating the concentrate in a jar: yeast for the sake of yeast. No, in
Jesus imagination, we are invited to get lost. To loose ourselves into
something bigger. But not pointlessly. Rather, in “dying” to our context, we
activate it. We become the catalyst that brings flavour, strength, depth,
potency and growth. Without yeast, there is no loaf, just dough. Literally we
die to ourselves for growth: we are what makes bread for the world.
John Paul Lederach, Professor of International Peace building at
the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, offers a rich meditation on our calling
to be yeast. Consider this. The most common ingredients for making bread are
water, flour, salt, sugar and yeast. Of these, yeast is the smallest in
quantity, but the only one that makes a substantial change to all the other
ingredients. Lederach says you only need a few people to change a lot of
things. Quality changes quantity. Size does not matter very much. It is quality
that counts, not quantity. Small things then make a difference. Tiny spores of
yeast change the mass. So yeast, to be useful needs to move from its incubation
and be mixed into the process – out of the church buildings into ever day life.
Yeast reminds us that God can do some
very promising things with the apparently negligible. This is where God sees potential
and hope.
We can be the yeast that is kneaded in to make the bread, that
we may all become one. But we must let God set the pace, the bread rises in
time; the wine matures only when it is ready.
A few years
ago I was privileged to visit Somewhere Else,
the Liverpool Bread Church to meet the founder of the project, the Revd Dr
Barbara Glasson, a Methodist minister. Somewhere
Else
in Liverpool's City Centre is a response to the belief that there is a
life-giving message in this gospel story. The “church” gathers as a faith
community around the making and sharing of bread. While the bread was rising, the conversation would
turn to the important issues of life, shared in the warm kitchen. People would
read from the Bible, pray for one another. They became companions (= cum
panis, with bread). Bread
reaches across cultural and social divides enabling those who knead and shape
it to explore their experience. A constant flow of visitors to this community
has ensured that ripples from the 'bread church" are reaching ever further
and wider, locally, nationally and internationally. All are encouraged to bake
two loaves: one for themselves and one to share as they feel led. Dr
Gleeson stated:
“Making bread has taught us so much – the process of
baking mirrors so much in life: the pummelling and proving is about how we
engage with one another, the waiting for the dough to rise is about how we give
each other time. Churches generally are a bit obsessed with numbers and
outcomes. But the bread makes us wait … it needs to rest, to rise. In the
waiting time the smell of the bread triggers memories and facilitates story so
that people quite naturally talk to each other. And every loaf we make is
different. Bread is a sign to the world.
Ray Anglesea
Sabbatical Blog 10:
Le Pain, France
August
2014
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