Day 1 - Ash Wednesday
from Shelley Regan
Today marks the beginning of the season of Lent, a unique chance to alter the rhythms of our spiritual lives. On this day, Christians around the world gather to receive ashes and hear a reminder of their mortality: From dust you come and to dust you will return.
It's drawn from Genesis 3:19: "By the sweat of your brow you will eat your bread until you return to the ground. For from it you were taken. From dust you come and to dust you will return.”
Our Lenten series is based on a book by author, baker, and theologian Kendall Vanderslice. Kendall says she likes to dig her hands in flour as she reflects on this idea that we are dust. So, each year for the past several years, she has mixed up a sourdough starter on Ash Wednesday to help her remember her own mortality. Over the next three days, it's a reminder that flour comes back to life, and so do we if we make space for God.
"But," she reminds us, "dust and flour are not quite the same. As soon as water touches wheat, a series of transformations begins. Water activates enzymes inside the grain and begins to uncoil amino acids trapped inside. As these amino acids uncoil they form bonds with one another building up a protein network called gluten. Once water touches wheat, the flour can never go back to the way it was before. For wheat, its death to become flour is not going to be the end. We know it's just dormant, waiting patiently to bubble back to life. It's a mass of proteins and starches wound up tightly, ready to be released and transformed by water.”
From dust we come, and to dust we will return. Jesus, though he appeared in a human body like our own, did not just turn to dust. Like flour, Jesus offered himself to us as bread. The Bread that binds us together as the Body of Christ. The Bread through which Jesus draws us in and makes us more like him.
Most of us know Lent as a season to fast, giving something up to make more room for God. We spend 40 days facing our hungers in preparation for Easter and for the rest of our lives. Jesus began his ministry with a 40-day journey in the desert where he faced many temptations, hunger being one of the worst. 40 days without food! We’ve all experienced hunger, but not on that scale. There is another kind of hunger we are wrestling with this Lent. Our spiritual hunger. Jesus is the “Bread of Life.”
Lent can be a time to take on something new. Training our bodies for new life-giving rhythms. This Lent, we are exploring the sacredness of Bread, and the Gospel story woven through the process of baking. You can join us on this journey - by baking with us, or simply savoring bread in all it’s goodness. And yes, we think there are some pretty delicious gluten free options out there. In fact, to be as inclusive as we can we are offering gluten free communion wafers throughout this season. And our Ash Wednesday Communion bread was baked with love and is gluten-free, nut-free, dairy-free, soy-free, vegan.
Over these next six weeks, you might bake when you are able. Kendall suggests this pattern:
• Savor a loaf for yourself.
• Break a loaf with friends.
• Give a loaf away.
As Kendall says, "Remember, you are but flour, and flour teaches us that brokenness and death are not the end. We can be transformed individually and communally so that God can work through us to love, serve, and feed the world."
As we enter this season, take a moment, and do a quick spiritual assessment.
What do you feel hungry for? Maybe it is community? Maybe it’s closeness with God? How do you want to be transformed over these next 40 days? How do you want to love, serve, and feed for the transformation of the world?