RESOURCING THE CHURCH FOR ECUMENICAL MINISTRy A ...

Understanding the Lord’s Supper
for Our Vision and Work
for Christian Unity Today
Reflections on 1 Corinthians 11:17-33
Amy Gopp
Rev. Amy Gopp currently serves as the Executive Director
for Week of Compassion, the relief, refugee and development
ministry fund of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
How do we break bread with those who have no
bread? How do we work toward Christian
unity while excluding the poor? We do so, of course,
without realizing it, or without intending to—but we
do it. I am concerned with the divisiveness of
economics and the ensuing marginalization of
people. Through the lenses I look out of, namely,
those of Week of Compassion, responding to
natural and human-created disasters and the often
chronic issues of hunger, poverty, homelessness,
displacement, disease and a lack of education, I see
a church that prides herself on gathering at the
Communion Table, but I don’t see us acknowledging
or struggling with issues of wealth and
poverty and economic division.
How do we break bread
with those who have no bread?
I’m not sure we even notice who is not at the Table.
How are we to be unified then? Can we honestly
enjoy a meal knowing that so many go hungry?
Christian unity includes feeding the hungry—
literally and symbolically—at the Lord’s Table. But
it must not stop there. The acts of offering food to
the hungry and communion to the poor is, in and
of itself, also building up the church!
Understanding the Lord’s Supper for our vision
and work for Christian unity today, in my estimation,
looks more closely at who is still not at the
Table and confessing how that absence stunts the
growth of our church and the advancement of the
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Realm of God. Let us look back for a moment at the
early church for insight:
Now in the following instructions I do not
commend you, because when you come
together it is not for the better but for the
worse. For, to begin with, when you come
together as a church, I hear that there are
divisions among you; and to some extent I
believe it. Indeed, there have to be factions
among you, for only so will it become clear
who among you are genuine. When you
come together, it is not really to eat the
Lord’s supper. For when the time comes to
eat, each of you goes ahead with your own
supper, and one goes hungry and another
becomes drunk. What! Do you not have
homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show
contempt for the church of God and
humiliate those who have nothing? What
should I say to you? Should I commend you?
In this matter I do not commend you! (1 Cor
11:17-22, NRSV)
The rest of this pericope we know so well that we
think we know it all too well. (1 Cor.11:23-33)
For I received from the Lord what I also
handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the
night when he was betrayed took a loaf of
bread, and when he had given thanks, he
broke it and said, “This is my body that is for
you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the
same way he took the cup also, after supper,
saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my
blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in
remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat
this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim
the Lord’s death until he comes.