Communion

~I Corinthians 11.17-34

This passage is familiar to anyone who was raised in a traditional church. Christ giving his life, his physical body and blood, for the salvation of mankind is the foundation of Christianity. This giving is symbolically remembered to this day. How? By the sacrament of Communion: we are privileged to take in the bread of his body and the wine of his blood. This is how he shows his profound love and sacrifice. The symbolic eating and drinking is how we receive it.

Ron Sider in his 1977 Christian Century article "Sharing the Wealth: The Church as Biblical Model for Public Policy" further expounds these verses:

"In Christ there is one new person, one new body of believers. When the brothers and sisters share the one bread and the common cup in the Lord’s Supper, they symbolize and actualize their participation in the one body of Christ. That is why the class divisions at Corinth so horrified Paul. Wealthy Christians, apparently, were feasting at the eucharistic celebrations while poor believers went hungry. Paul angrily denied that they were eating the Lord’s body and blood because they did not discern his body (vv. 27-29). By this Paul meant that they failed to realize that their membership in the one body of Christ was infinitely more important than the class or ethnic differences which divided them. One brings judgment on oneself if one does not perceive that eucharistic fellowship with Christ is totally incompatible with living a practical denial of that unity of all believers in his body. As long as one Christian anywhere in the world is hungry, the eucharistic celebration of all Christians everywhere is incomplete."

(As I side note, I do wonder why Paul refers to eating the bread and drinking the cup. Why not eating the dish and drinking the cup, or even better, eating the bread and drinking the wine?)