Friday, July 31, 2009

Read 1 Corinthians 11:27-34

For Paul the Lord's Supper is "communion" in a double sense. It is the most intimate sharing and participation with Christ, but that communion is also the sharing in and with other believers who are also "in Christ." The Lord's Supper is, therefore, both personal and communal. The Corinthians are a portrait of those have forgotten the communal nature of the Lord's Supper and have pursued their own interests, perhaps with their special friends, eaten their fill, gotten drunk, and treated their poorer brothers and sisters with disrespect, if not scorn. So Paul assails them in two ways: First, he says that it is not the Lord's Supper they eat; secondly, he warns them that without proper discernment - that is, without recognizing how they all belong equally to one another in Christ - they eat and drink judgment upon themselves.

Prayer
O God, you gave Elijah bread
to be the food that sustained him
on the journey to your holy mountain.
In Jesus you give us the living bread
for the life of the world,
our food for the journey to your kingdom.

Forgiving one another as you have forgiven us,
let us come to that banquet of life immortal
of which our table here is foretaste and pledge.

We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ,
the living bread, who has come down from heaven
for the life of the world,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
God for ever and ever.
Amen.