1 Corinthians 11:23-26
Maundy Thursday - Years A, B, C
As often as you remember Christ Jesus, you "proclaim" [give evidence in your living] resurrection - all that is after death.
Let us "remember" well. Let us "proclaim" well.
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2004/april2004.html
What are we remembering when we share bread and drink together?
We remember death, Jesus'. Might we also remember his calling us together? Might we remember all that led up to this invitation? As we look back, might we not also remember subsequent events? Or is this only about remembering death?
It is important to remember that in the phrase "my body that is for you," the word "for you" is not a substitutionary "instead of you." [note from NISB]
Remembrance is a way of recalling that includes the participants in the larger story. [note from NISB] So, what is the larger story of which you are a part?
http://www.kairoscomotion.org/lectionary/2005/march2005.html
Blood and dust are signs to us. Passover and Baptism are signs to us.
They are signs of needed and continual renewal of community.
We have been enslaved (blood). We have been apart (dust).
We journey together (Passover). We cleanse each other (Baptism).
In such we receive bounty and offer our lives to increase it for others.
In such we are revived with feasting and invite others to more feasting.
We neither cast a glance behind nor peer ahead. We don't need to justify this day by remembering slavery or anticipating resurrection. This day stands within and beyond any past liberation or future death. We simply are in this moment, in this moment, and that is enough.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2007_04_01_archive.html
Paul passed on what he received. The same is incumbent upon each of us. As generation is added to generation and experience to experience, what have you received? What have you passed on?
Are you proclaiming the building of community through common meals and common good? Are you threatening judgment on any who do so through an “unworthy” manner (meaning not approved by the received knowledge of those in power)?
Yes, examine yourself. Are you still connecting creedal purity with physical health? Are you still using portions of the scripture to shun baptized and communing members for whatever reason?
A common meal is not a formal ritual, it is a multi-valent experience of common life with all the messiness such brings. Feast well. Gather strength to helpfully deal with weakness, including your own.
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2012/04/1-corinthians-1123-32.html
Renewed verse:
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, remember you are strengthened to practice the Lord's last “command” until he comes: “Love one another, even betrayers as well as strangers, and widows and children.”
Note: This is another opportunity to remember that Maundy Thursday is about Foot Washing and Loving One Another, not Communion/Eucharist. We get distracted by tradition (ritual) as much as we might learn from it (service).
http://kcmlection.blogspot.com/2014/04/1-corinthians-1123-26-thursday.html