A Concord Pastor Comments: NIGHT PRAYER: Friday 4/21

This is a piece I wrote 52 years ago and which I usually post on Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. This year I'm posting it earlier, in anticipation of this Sunday's gospel which finds two disciples on the road to Emmaus, on the day Jesus rose from the dead. Along the way, the risen Jesus joins them but they don't recognize him - until at day's end he stops to eat with him and they recognize him in the breaking of bread...

I wrote this when I was in the seminary and a good friend asked me what I believed about the Eucharist. I knew he wasn't looking for a text book answer but rather for what was in my heart. I wrote this prayer/poem in response to his question. I know that this helped me articulate my faith in the Eucharist and I believe it helped my friend, too. Let this be the food for our prayer this evening...

Image source

BREAKING BREAD

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat,
but if it dies, it bears much fruit...

You have to listen with all of you
to hear the white-green shoot
pushing, rubbing, scraping up through
cool, moist earth: wheat being born...

It's a comforting sound when, finally,
you hear it and you know the growing sound
isn't out there, in the field
but in your frailty, your brokenness,
in you...

Then fear comes over you:
you'll be torn inside, again, until it hurts
and this may be the time
when growing leaves behind
the one you think you are,
harvesting the one
you were made to be...

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat,
but if it dies, it bears much fruit...

You don't have to listen so closely
to hear the wind shuffle its way
through fields of wheat
so you have to look very carefully
to see it's not the wind after all, but simply
wheat brushing against wheat,
wheat supporting wheat,
wheat enjoying wheat,
wheat embracing wheat...

The rustling becomes a symphony
of meeting, knowing, touching, growing:
wheat reaching out to wheat
not with fear, not with flushed face,
but only with the need to touch.
And the sound of reaching
is strong, enveloping, alive!

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat,
but if it dies, it bears much fruit...

Grinding grains of wheat: harsh,
breaking, crushing sounds,
a not soft noise - hard.
And now you don't want to hear
wheat being crushed:
it just doesn't look like wheat anymore
and maybe the explosion in you
wasn't a matter of life but...

water is cool
and now it is all around you:
bubbling and swirling
in flour ground of wheat
and now you're not surprised to know
you're listening to blood filling your veins,
flowing all through you - life...

And just before the fire consumed us, too,
we found bread: one beautiful brown loaf
of wheat, wind and water
all rising to life in bread...

Then came One who broke the bread
and was broken for us, like a loaf,
and we heard in the cracking and tearing of the crust
the Word of life grown, ground and given
for all who share
in the breaking of the bread...

Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains just a grain of wheat,
but if it dies, it bears much fruit...

Protect me, Lord, while I'm awake

and watch over me while I sleep

that awake, I might keep watch with you

and asleep, rest in your peace...

Amen.