What Does This Look Like?

DEVOTION

1 CORINTHIANS

WHAT DOES THIS LOOK LIKE

1 Cor 10:14-17

14 Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. 15 I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 16 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? 17 Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.

NIV

It seems that all giving attention to idols is one of the biggest problems those in Corinth had. But of course we do not worship idols, we worship Christ. It is possible we could make material gain, personal gain, recognition and a whole host of things into idols of sorts if we are not careful, but still we do not bow down and worship them. What we really see here is the celebration of what we refer to as the last supper. It is a holy event, to be kept sacred and not made into a linger longer, bring your own covered dish, social event. Yet in some sense maybe we do not celebrate this event in the correct manner either. At some times we take of the bread and the cup and return to our seats and partake on our own schedule, at other times we take of the bread and cup and what till all are seated and then under the direction of someone we partake at the same time, but in either case are we partaking together? Are we not just sitting alone and praying alone, thinking about us alone, our failure, our sin, or our self-righteousness, and simply experience some kind of union with Christ, or maybe no union with Christ, but just another ritual all alone by ourselves. Are we really one body? As we break the bread and drink of the cup do we partake as one body? Do we actually consider the others in our presence, joining together with them in this most solemn and joyous experience? From what we know, it would seem that Christ and his twelve lounged around some sort of table and actually broke and passed the bread to each other, as well as drank and passed the cup around, being together in every sense of the word. Of course that would not fly in our sterile craved sociality of today. Perhaps those who break up the crackers are even wearing plastic gloves and would not think to actually even touch the rims of the little plastic cups with bare hands. It seems we might have turned this communion with Christ and others, into something it was not supposed to be; maybe we have made it into some form of an idol.  It must be that we are supposed to be one body of Christ, so just exactly how does that look? What does this look like?