The Word Abused . . .

Crumbs on the Platter

We all have experienced it often, those of us who break bread regularly with the saints. As often as not the “one loaf” that is passed before us is not a loaf at all, but a plate full of crumbs. The matzo (and don’t you think the Church of Christ should have its own matzo factory?) is often baked with little lines running through it, crisscrossed, so that very small squares can be pinched off. These are sometimes separated before serving, which leaves scores of tiny squares in the platter. This makes it easy for each participant to take his tiny portion, but one is left to wonder what happened to the scriptural notion of “breaking bread.”

When the matzo is boxed up as thin wafers, unsegmented, which is the usual way, somebody at the table will smash them into smithereens before they are passed among the believers. Each of us, therefore, looks down upon, not “the loaf” that the apostle speaks of in scripture, but crumbs on a platter. Since Jesus speaks of “take and eat,” I try to ferret out a crumb of such a size to be eaten. But some are left to practice what the Roman Catholics prefer —let the wafer dissolve in the mouth —since they can’t possibly eat a tiny crumb. I recall one occasion when the sister sitting next to me reached into the platter with her long, manicured nails and came up with a mere slither of a crumb, a piece that most of us could not have garnered without a pair of tweezers, or her finger nails.

This is to abuse, through negligence, the beautiful symbol of the Lord’s Supper. What of Paul’s statement in 1 Co. 10:17: “Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the same loaf.” He also says: “The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (verse 16)

One body, one loaf. The symbol is evident enough. The Supper is a testimonial to the oneness of the believers.

In gathering around one loaf they are pledging themselves to be but one body. This is why the Supper is such an impressive expression of unity and fellowship. When this unity did not exist the apostle would say, “It is not the Lord’s supper that you eat” (1 Co. 11:20). It is when a believer chooses to remain sectarian, even while breaking the bread that is a symbol of the unity he should preserve, that he brings judgment upon himself. He who eats and drinks eats and drinks judgment on himself if he does not discern the Body” (1 Co. 11:29). I have used the New English Bible here because it properly uses the capital B for Body, which shows that the apostle is not referring to the bread, but to the Body, the church. If I fail to discern the oneness of the Body, and go right on with a sectarian Supper in which I include only my crowd, I not only do not really take the Supper, but I am bringing damnation on myself.

So, maybe our crumbs on the platter are appropriate after all, for we allow ourselves to be divided and separated into sects, refusing to share life in the Son together. The crumbs seem to be as numerous as all our sects, so perhaps we are doing it right after all! That would have been appropriate for the Corinthians, crumbs!

Before I go further I must confess to being anti-matzo. Matzo is by definition “a flat, thin unleavened bread eaten by Jews during the Passover.” There is no reason for us to make the Lord’s Supper Jewish in this sense, buying their bread and following their custom. We should encourage our sisters to bake bread especially for the occasion, one loaf appropriate to the size of the congregation. Or simply place a loaf on the table right off the grocer’s shelf, Manor’s or Mrs. Baird’s would be fine, unsliced! There is no instruction in scripture that it must be unleavened, though we always have it that way, as if we presumed it was required. Matthew tells us that “Jesus took bread,” which was unleavened only because that’s all they had in the house during Passover. It does not say that he chose unleavened bread. When ever we take bread, the ordinary bread that we have in our homes, we are doing as he did.

But if unleavened bread has more symbolic value to us (though there is no reason why it should), let the sisters prepare such bread, as they often do in many of our rural churches and, interestingly enough, in our freer congregations that seek a break from traditionalism.

We probably should not use a cloth to cover the table, for we then cover the meaning that the Supper is to convey by its very presence. It ought to be that as one takes his place in the assembly his eyes will soon fall upon the cup and the loaf on the bare table before him. One loaf, not two or three or more, should be on the table. Paul makes it clear: “Because there is one loaf. . .” As we look upon that one loaf we are reminded not only of Jesus’ body, given for us, but of the unity that the loaf represents. If we prefer to cover the table with a cloth, then the saints should see, clearly visible, the one loaf, when the cloth is removed, This is why I would prefer leavened bread, for it makes for a more imposing symbol, rich and round and full of life as the Body of Christ should be.

The brother who presides (the Christian Churches appropriately have elders serving the Supper as a rule, especially the one who presides —should hold the one loaf aloft before the congregation, speaking of what it means to us —“The bread which we break, is it not a communion with the body of Christ” (1 Co. 10:16) —and he should then bless it and break it (Mt. 26:26), which symbolizes the sacrifice Jesus made for our oneness as brothers. If the assembly is not too large, the two pieces of the loaf can be passed among them. If the assembly is larger, the loaf should be larger, and if need be, it might be broken into several large portions, and passed.

We should eat of the loaf, that is the description we have in the scriptures. I would like to be able to break a portion from the loaf at least one-fourth the size of a candy bar, so that I can really eat it, and spend enough time doing so as to think about what I’m doing. We are to break and eat bread together, not pick up crumbs and let them dissolve in our mouths.

A few of our “far out” groups observe the Supper by passing large hunks of rather hard, crusty bread among them, without any plates, from one person’s hand to the next, each breaking a portion from it and eating it in the name of the Lord. I like that. We will restore some of the lost value of the Supper if we can each break from the loaf and eat, and then pass that same loaf into the hand of the brother beside us. Even in our larger churches I can see one long, imposing loaf, perhaps the curvaceous, crusty French bread, gracing the Lord’s table, especially baked for the occasion if necessary. Once blessed and broken, it could be distributed in such a manner that the occasion would have some semblance of “breaking bread together.”

Well, by now I suppose some of you think I have completely lost my mind. You had just as soon go your matzo way and continue assembling with the saints each week to pick up crumbs. And, yes, keep on believing that it has to be unleavened bread. I can only ask that you think about it. When Paul looked in on Corinth and found them divided, is it not significant that he would say, “Because there is one loaf, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the same loaf.”

So that you might see that I am somewhat in line with some of the best thinking of the Restoration Movement in this regard, I will close with a quotation from Alexander Campbell’s Christian System, p. 268.

“Proposition 3 - On the Lord’s table there is of necessity but one loaf.

The necessity is not that of a positive law enjoining one loaf and only one, as the ritual of Moses enjoined twelve loaves. But it is a necessity arising from the meaning of the Institution as explained by the Apostles. As there is but one literal body, and but one mystical or figurative body having many members; so there must be but one loaf . . . ‘Because there is one loaf,’ says Paul, ‘we must consider the whole congregation as one body.’ Here the Apostle reasons from what is more plain to what is less plain; from what was established to what was not so fully established in the minds of the Corinthians. There was no dispute about the one loaf; therefore, there ought to be none but the one body. This mode of reasoning makes it as certain as a positive law; because that which an Apostle reasons from must be an established fact or an established principle . . . It was, then, an established institution that there is but one loaf.” —the Editor

In how many of our congregations is one loaf taken, blessed, broken, and given? That is the New Testament pattern just as much as baptism was and is by immersion. Today our people stress the concept of unleaven bread more than the action involved. —John Mills, at North American Christian Convention, 1975