St. Paul asks the church in Corinth, and subsequently us, their heirs: “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.” (1 Cor. 10.16-17).
This passage is a part of the larger section Dcn. Jonathan preached from in his sermon yesterday. I’ve been pondering these words the past day as I have juggled the birth of our newest child, a sleepless night on a plane, and spending a lot of time in airports and on airplanes seeing people behave around strangers in sudden and momentary communities formed in airline lounges and airplane cabins.
When we board a plane we become partakers in a community, a civitas, a polity. We become a kind of loaf. We are bound together, even if only for a time, for better or for worse. We communally share in the crying children, the grouches in row ##, the rolling of the cart down the aisle, the inclement weather.
When we wait in an airline lounge we likewise share in one loaf as partakers of a span of time. The anger that one guest displays towards the server impacts the manner in which that server treats my order. The generous tip thrown by the business class passenger as he drains his 3rd stiff martini before leaving likewise impacts the manner in which that server responds to the rest of us. “The rest of us” is the key phrase here. “I” have become a part of a body that remains behind when one of our members departs.
My family shares “one loaf” too. The lack of sleep I get from Ambrose waking up from a nightmare alters my speed in rising to respond to Penelope going to the bathroom, which likewise impacts my response to Moses who wants milk at 5 AM.
We belong to something, are partakers in something, which causes us to share and partake in the lives of each other.
If this is true in these small ways, airplanes, airports, families, how much more true is it of the Church? When we partake of the Bread and the Wine, when we eat and drink the death and resurrection of Christ it is not merely a private experience. It makes us “one loaf” with one another, “one cup” with one another. Each Sunday I renew my partaking in the lives of my brothers and sisters in the church. I eat and drink their lives as well as Christ’s, and they mine. They eat and drink my tiredness, my children’s attitudes, my marriage, my writing and study, my laugh, my wit, etc. And I, in coming to the Lord’s Table, partake in their lives: in their marriages, their familial strife, their cancer and flu, their trauma and burdens, etc.
Augustine, in a sermon, once indicated the sacraments and enjoined his hearers to “[b]e what you see; receive what you are.”
Amen. Let us receive not only Christ at his table, but also one another, for we are his Body.