1 Corinthians 11:23-26
The rhythm of hospitality is one that we find throughout our faith. We are always invited to receive before we are invited to give. For example, we believe that we receive God’s grace before we give grace of ourselves, that we receive God’s love before we ourselves love, and the list continues. This rhythm of hospitality is also found in storytelling. Usually when we tell a story, we have first received something of that story. This receiving takes many forms: sometimes we are able to find ourselves in the story, sometimes the way the character develops inspires us, or the description of the setting sparks imagination. Stories impact us, even in small ways, and then we carry them with us. Even our own life stories influence us in some way, which inspires us to share those moments.
The Passover meal was – and still is – a crucial practice in the Jewish faith and a beautiful example of the hospitable rhythms of storytelling. The people of Israel received freedom and the faithfulness of God in fulfilled promises, and this story continues to be retold – re-given and re-received – every year. The deep and meaningful imagery of this meal invites the participants back into the story of the Exodus with all its complexity: the hurriedness, the anxious anticipation, the excitement, the unknowns, the tears, the exhaustion from hard labor, the remembrance of the promises made to ancestors. It’s a time of remembering both hardship and freedom, both despair and hope, both uncertainty and fulfilled promises. It invites everyone to remember and to receive God’s faithfulness as the story is told – whether it’s the first time you’re participating or the hundredth.
As Jesus and his disciples participated in this meal together, they were invited into the complexity of this story, which may have felt particularly pertinent to their current reality under the Roman government. The longing for true freedom and the fullness of God’s salvation hadn’t (and still hasn’t) gone away. For those practicing the Jewish faith, every aspect of this meal would have been very familiar. They would have known the order of the meal, the symbolism of each item, and the recited prayers and liturgy by heart. As Paul tells us, something surprising happens, though. At some point during the meal, Jesus breaks the script and tells the story in a different way.
Jesus takes the unleavened bread, the bread of affliction, representing the hurried nature of preparation before the Exodus. Jesus gives thanks for it, he breaks it, and he re-traditions it. Jesus says that, now, this bread is the symbol of his body that is given for us. Jesus then does the same with one of the cups, symbols of Israel’s covenant with God and the sacrifices within it. But now, this cup is the symbol of Jesus’s blood that seals the new covenant. By shifting the significance of the bread and cup, Jesus reframes the story. The bread of affliction is now found in the broken body of Christ, who suffered and died. The cup of the covenant, the pathway for salvation and transformation, is now found in the blood from this broken body. God in human flesh becomes the carrier of human affliction, the source of salvation, and the responsible party for the continuation of the covenant.
The Lord’s Supper is a re-traditioning of the Passover meal, but the undertones are the same. When we participate in this sacred meal, we are invited to remember and to receive God’s grace, God’s love, God’s faithfulness, God’s transformation. We remember both our desperate need and God’s grace, both the weight of God’s death and the hope of God’s resurrection life, both the heaviness of current realities and the confidence in God’s faithfulness. Even as we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (v. 26), we are filled with hope. God’s suffering and death reminds us that we are not alone, even in death and in the deepest grief. The broken body of Christ reminds us that our human bodies are good and meaningful, even when broken. The resurrection of Christ reminds us that death is not the end, even when it seems to surround us. In this way, the Story stays the same. God remains faithful, the freedom of new creation continues to spread, the light of hope continues to shine, and God continues to invite the entire world into that Story, the Good News. We have received, and now we are invited to give.