Jesus Christ: The One Bread that makes Us One

I Corinthians 10:16-17

16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. 

In I Cor. 10, Paul is discussing a conflict that was deeply dividing the church in Corinth in Ancient Greece. In the midst of that conversation, he includes the two verses that are the passage today.

Paul references Communion, the Last Supper, the Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper – all names for the same action of bread broken and cup passed. His argument has two steps.

Step One – when we individually eat the bread at Communion and when we drink from the cup at Communion we are sharing with Christ – we are in a mystical way linked into Jesus Christ. We are in Christ, we have unity with Jesus, we fellowship with him. Again, all phrases that describe the same mystical/spiritual experience of being made one with Jesus Christ as we eat and drink. That is the argument laid out in the questions asked in vs. 16. 

Step Two – the bread and the cup are celebrated at an event at which other people are also present, other followers of Jesus. These people are also eating the bread and drinking of the cup – they are mystically being united to Jesus just as we are. So, they and we are linked to one another by sharing in this one bread and this one cup – by sharing in Jesus Christ. Jesus is a single loaf and all who share in that loaf are not only made one with Jesus they are made one with one another.

The unity of the Christian community – of Christians – is found not in making structures and plans, not in working out statements of common purpose – the unity of Christians is found in the fact that we share together in the One Bread that is Jesus Christ. Jesus, the One Bread, makes all of his followers one. Unity is to be found in no other way.     

PRAYER:

Lord God, we try to create unity by human plans and ingenuity, but we fail again and again. Teach us the simple unity of being made one in your Son, Jesus Christ, the one bread. In Jesus’ name. Amen.