Many of us recognize this passage of scripture. It comes right out of our experience of worship. After the bread is consecrated, the priest elevates the bread, breaks it, and the community responds, “Therefore let us keep the feast…” It reveals a fundamental movement in our spiritual lives: We are blessed. We are broken. We commune. We feast. I had never noticed until now that the original context for this sacred wisdom is the Apostle Paul’s painful, and yet hopeful, message to the struggling Christian community he birthed in ancient Corinth. Paul, like a stern parent, is calling them out for being complacent about a very visible incident of incest that was occurring within their spiritual family that threatened to divide them and even destroy them. He is at his wit’s end. Haven’t we all been in this place, unable to stop something that we know is destructive within ourselves or those we love?
I am reminded of the words of Martin Luther King Jr. that I have written beneath my computer screen, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Paul passionately loves his flock, and because of that love he boldly speaks out. He knows his community is broken. He knows that communion and joyful feasting cannot yet come because those who are acting out such selfishness and destruction are not the least bit interested in taking responsibility for their actions. He tells the Corinthians to clean house. But more importantly, he tells them to look to Jesus who sacrificed his life for all and has called them, and us, to become “the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” This is special bread that is able to nourish us during our forty days of Lent. During this season of repentance may we hold up the truth about the state of our own soul and the soul of our families, intimate relationships, workplaces, schools, and faith community and still hold onto the promise of joyful Easter feasting that is to come.
— Steve Best
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