Real Wine or Real Bread?

A new friend asked me, "Does your church serve real bread or real wine for Communion?" According to him, you can only get "real" bread (made with yeast) if you go to a church that serves grape juice. On the other hand, if you go to a church that serves real wine, then the bread is unleavened. I told him that at my two United Methodist churches we use real bread and grape juice. He said, jokingly, that he would join any church that has both "real" elements.

Unleavened bread in wafer form

In the UMC we will serve either kind of bread -- leavened (made with yeast) or unleavened (see photo). But the choice is not inconsequential, and there is a quite a history bound up in the difference. We're not sure when they started doing things differently, but certainly by the 11th century the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Catholic) churches were using different kinds of bread in Communion. The Eastern churches used (and still use) leavened bread, while the Western churches preferred unleavened bread. The Catholics have said that Paul warned believers to stay away from yeast (see 1 Corinthians 5:7), while the Orthodox have claimed that Paul said to use a loaf of "real" bread (1 Corinthians 11:23).

Each side also views Jesus' institution the Last Supper differently. Matthew, Mark, and Luke wrote that Jesus celebrated the Passover with the disciples in the upper room on the night before he was crucified. He would have certainly used unleavened bread on that occasion. However, the Orthodox churches emphasize the account from the gospel of John, which states that Jesus and the disciples had this meal before Passover, probably using leavened bread. This difference in communion bread did not cause the big split between these church traditions. (I wrote previously about other differences that keep the churches separated.) But these different practices remain to this day, each side feeling like their way is the right way.

In some places in the world, bread (with yeast or not) and grape juice is hard to come by. So churches tap into local traditions and use the staples available to them, such as rice, sweet potatoes, and different kinds of fermented drink. Some people shared with me that they have celebrated communion with elements as "contextualized" as chocolate or pizza and Coca-Cola. (I wonder if that's going a bit too far in the effort to be relevant.) How is the risen Christ represented in your Communion celebrations?