Beginning to Flourish - Week Five
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February 16, 2025
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Gardener and Baker — the Bread of Life
This week we are going to think about the Bread of Life. Bread is hugely important throughout history and across the world, in various forms. It is both an everyday staple and a special symbol of sustenance itself. Just as bread is worked and proved and animated — so are we. So bread is a metaphor. Bread is a story. But bread is also of course — food.
SEEDS TO SOW: This week consider how you can support individuals and organisations that work to alleviate hunger and scarcity — both locally and internationally.
Read John 6: 25-59
The Bread of Life.
It is with bittersweetness that we link this Bread of Life to the last supper to come in Holy Week when love will be stripped bare on the cross.
Q: What words leap out to you in this reading?
Q: What are you drawn to think about more?
Jesus’ choice of bread and wine as the symbols he wished to be remembered by are rich in meaning to explore. Both need time to mature and grow into something that looks completely different from what is planted.
Q: Have you ever tried making bread, if so how did it go?
Q: As well as taking time to mature and develop — what are other things that human beings and loaves of bread have in common?
Read Romans 8: 6-11
The active agent within.
The most common yeast generally associated with winemaking is Saccharomyces cerevisiae which is also used in bread making. The way Paul describes the Holy Spirit could be likened to spiritual yeast working in the background bringing life and vitality to the human heart. Yeast disrupts and agitates the dough — making it rise!
When we feel discontent and uneasy with the status quo — that is the Holy Spirit working through us, enlivening us to bring about change in our communities and culture.
Q: What do you feel discontent about in the life of the church and the world today?
Read 1 Kings 17: 7-16
You can never get enough of fresh bread!
Q: How could we use fresh bread this week to show God’s generosity and compassion?
Lent Transformations Week 5
The Transforming Bread
Our Creator God has created a creative humanity able to create amazing things: from a loaf of bread to an oil painting, from a tall tower to a cosy woolly scarf! Each day this week take a short amount of time to "make something". Interpret "make" however you like — make a loaf of bread or make a picture, make a start sewing or knitting something and work on it every day. Perhaps your making is "making time for someone" or "making a difference in your neighbourhood".
Get creative — the key is to make something (or make something happen) that wouldn’t otherwise).
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