"Discerning the Body"
A Meditation for Communion by the Rev. Dr. Hilary J. Barrett
Preached at Pleasantville United Church of Christ, October 4, 2009
1 Corinthians 11:17-29 & Mark 14:22-26
“For all who eat and drink without discerning the body,
eat and drink judgment against themselves.”
1 Corinthians 11:29

Mark’s gospel tells us that on a Thursday night in the city of Jerusalem Jesus gathered with his disciples for one final meal and to celebrate the Passover with them.  His disciples didn’t seem to know that it was their last supper together, but the scriptural record gives every indication that Jesus knew it.  And so, as he sat at the table with those who had been closest to him during those last three years of his earthly ministry, Jesus approached this meal differently than he had all the others.

As they were eating, he took a loaf of unleavened bread – a whole loaf – and after blessing it he broke it.  But instead of saying the traditional blessing:  

“Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu melech ha-alom
ha-motzi lechem min ha-aretz.”

“Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the universe,
who brings forth bread from the earth.”

Jesus said instead:

“Take; this is my body.”

And then he took a cup of wine – one of the four cups of wine which are blessed and consumed during the Passover Seder – and he gave thanks.

Baruch atah Adonai eloheinu melech ha-alom
bor-ay peri ha-gafen.

Blessed are You, O Lord our God, Ruler of the universe,
creator of the fruit of the vine.

But then he said:

“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many.”

Jesus really knew how to get peoples’ attention.  The Passover Seder was then and is now the holiest meal in the Jewish calendar.  It remembers the Jewish peoples’ flight from Egypt.  It retells their liberation from bondage.  It recalls the protection that God showed them when the Angel of Death passed over their houses during that final awful plague, sparing their first-born children.  It’s the holiest meal of the year and everyone knew by heart how it was supposed to go.  But then Jesus decided to change the words.  He decided to reinterpret the meal for his disciples.

The unleavened bread, which they ate to remind them of their hasty departure from Egypt, now was to remind them of their Master’s body.

The cup which they drank to celebrate their redemption from slavery, now was to remind them of their Teacher’s blood.

Jesus was calling his disciples to a new meal.  It was a meal that still celebrated how God’s redeeming love sets people free from bondage.  But this time, the meal was not designed to recall God’s saving act thousands of years ago in the Exodus from Egypt; this time the meal was designed to show how God’s redeeming love was poured out in Jesus Christ.

The bread which we eat is the communion of the body of Christ.
The cup that we bless is the communion of the blood of Christ.

A little more than twenty years after Jesus and his disciples gathered for that final meal in the upper room, the Apostle Paul would find it necessary to write a letter to Christians living in a cosmopolitan coastal city called Corinth.  The purpose of Paul’s letter was to remind the Corinthian congregation of how the Lord’s Supper should be properly celebrated.  Word had reached Paul that this holiest meal among Christians was being desecrated and Paul was outraged. 

The Corinthian church was made up of people from very different walks of life – the wealthy and the poor were gathered together in one congregation.  Everywhere else in the Roman Empire, these different groups of people would have been highly segregated, but the church was a radical experiment; a place where the distinctions and divisions of the Empire fell away.  When Paul heard that the Corinthian church was not living out their unity as Christ’ body, he was outraged:

Regarding this next item, I'm not at all pleased. I am getting the picture that when you meet together it brings out your worst side instead of your best!  First, I get this report on your divisiveness, competing with and criticizing each other.  I'm reluctant to believe it, but there it is.  The best that can be said for it is that the testing process will bring truth into the open and confirm it.

And then I find that you bring your divisions to worship—you come together, and instead of eating the Lord's Supper, you bring in a lot of food from the outside and make pigs of yourselves.  Some are left out, and go home hungry.  Others have to be carried out, too drunk to walk.  I can't believe it!  Don't you have your own homes to eat and drink in?  Why would you stoop to desecrating God's church?  Why would you actually shame God's poor?  I never would have believed you would stoop to this.  And I'm not going to stand by and say nothing.

Paul is correcting a community that has lost its way.  They’re so busy arguing with one another, they no longer perceive themselves as one body.  And they bring the divisions among them into the heart of worship.  Instead of the Lord’s Supper celebrating their unity, it’s become a reflection of their dividedness.  The rich bring food and drink to feast upon, while the poor receive nothing and go home hungry.  And this goes against everything that the Church is called to be about.

It’s in this context that Paul writes his first letter to the Corinthians, where in chapter 12, we receive some of Paul’s most powerful teaching about the nature of the Church:

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.  For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”

“Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.”

It has been almost two thousand years since Jesus met with his disciples in that upper room and Paul pleaded with the church at Corinth not to lose sight of their oneness in Christ.  Today, everything we do in the sacrament of communion has one purpose: that we might discern the Body in the midst of the sacrament. 

We tell the story to remind ourselves of the Upper Room.

We break one loaf and pour one cup to remind us of our unity in Christ, and to remember that Christ’s body and blood was given for us.

We take care to serve one another, passing the plate to our neighbor before we, ourselves, are served.  Our Elders serve the congregation; our Pastors serve our Elders before serving one another.

Instead of eating the bread and drinking the cup as soon as we receive it, we make a point of consuming the elements together.  And we do this because we are one body.  We have learned from the mistakes of the church in Corinth and we want to protect our unity in the Spirit.

Protecting the Body extends to the elements themselves: here at Pleasantville, we consume not bread and wine, but bread and grape juice.  In that way, the table is open to all people; no one’s sobriety is put at risk; no member of the Body is put in jeopardy.

When we gather at this table, we seek to discern the body of Christ not only in the bread which is the communion of Christ’s body, and the cup which is the communion of Christ’s blood, but also in the very manner in which we encounter one another.  We are the body of Christ, and we are called to deepen our awareness of that truth every time we come to the Table.

Today is World Communion Sunday, and on this day, discerning the Body takes on an even deeper and broader dimension.  Today, we are invited to remember that as members of one body, we are connected with Christians all across the globe – just as Christians everywhere are coming to the Table today so that they might remember their oneness in Christ with us.

As we come to the Table, let us remember our sisters and brothers in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Islands who have suffered terrible losses as the result of last week’s Typhoon and this week’s tsunami.  The United Church of Christ has already sent assistance to these communities from One Great Hour of Sharing funds.  You may make additional contributions to these relief efforts by going to our website and following the links to the United Church of Christ website.

Discerning the body of Christ is a spiritual practice that deepens the hearts of those who love the Lord.  We encounter the Risen Christ here in the celebration of this meal.  But we also encounter Him wherever two or three are gathered together in His.  And so we come to this table, eager to meet our Lord; and eager to join with believers both near and those across the globe; and eager to sit and sup with the communion of saints who are now and always will remain part of the Body of Christ.

May God bless this worldwide communion of the Church.  Amen.