World Communion Sunday 

October 1, 2006

NUCC

Deuteronomy 8:1-3

John 6:34-40

“Not By Bread Alone” (Matthew 4:4) by Norbert Beer

As we were making preparations for the visit of the Youth Choir of Münster, a few people remarked that they enjoy Münster cheese. Actually the cheese we know as Münster Cheese doesn’t come from our choir’s Münster. The cheese comes from a little town in France close to the southern German border. The Youth Choir comes from a city about the size of Madison in the northern part of Germany not far from the border with Holland.

When I think of our Münster I think of friendly people, a beautiful central city, bicycles, and bread. Good, solid, dense bread. The kind you have to chew. Not white “wonder bread” that melts in your mouth, but full tasting grainy bread, which is often best eaten with a knife and fork. Another feature of Münster bread is that there are many varieties of bread ---- at least 30 ---- Fünf Korn Brot, Vollkorn Brot, Roggen Brot, and Brötchen. One fine memory our family has of the half year we lived in Münster is our son Kurt going to the bakery across the street from our home to buy Brötchen for breakfast. He was the one who could say Brötchen properly.

Bread. The Bread of Life. For us bread is indeed the very “staff of life.” The word “bread” symbolizes for us all that is needed to sustain life. It is the basic food for us in so many parts of the world. It is basic to us in North America. It is basic to us in Europe. It was basic to the Middle East in which Jesus lived. In each part of the world bread is a bit different, just as we are different. Today we will be using different kinds of breads in our communion service to celebrate our diversity ---- that each of us is a special and unique person created by God.

Today we will also be celebrating our oneness. We will have the One Loaf on the altar to symbolize this oneness. We will be eating the bread all together at the same time and drinking the cup at the same time to symbolize our oneness. We will offer the same prayer which Jesus offered, the pray made part of the United Church of Christ motto: “That All May Be One.”

We pray that we may be one in the name of the one who spoke the words in our New Testament Lesson this morning: “I am the bread of life.” Today as we commune with one another we recognize the life-giving power of Jesus Christ, who gave up his life that we may have new life. In this world of violence and hatred, where death and danger are just as real in places like Weston, Wisconsin as Baghdad, Iraq we come in peace. We open our hands to receive the bread and the wine, praying that God may indeed be present in us, molding us and making us, filling us with a sense of peace ---- that we may become peace makers in this town and in this world.

Today we rejoice with young people from a far-away place having a name which is hard to pronounce. We rejoice with them in their music, which also becomes our music. We become one with one another as we become one with him who is the “Bread of Life.” Amen.