Communion

This is My Body and Blood: Communion

Week of February 18, 2018

1 Corinthians 10:16-17, 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

Connect

We are entering a 5 week series that will take us through the close of this set of Connect Groups.  The series, This is My Body and Blood, focuses on 5 different vantage points of Holy Communion.  The 5 weeks are:

            -Communion   

            -Eucharist

            -The Lord’s Supper

            -Mass

            -This Holy Mystery

Most likely, these are just different titles for the same thing to most people.  We are going to look at what each word points to, connect it with Scripture, and tie it to a certain phrase and practice of our communion liturgy.  In this first week, Communion, the phrase is “make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world.”  Communion means “one with”, so we are focusing on what it means that we are made one with Christ and one with each other in communion.

As your groups gather, invite them to share answers to this prompt:

Describe your most memorable experience of communion.

Pray

Last year during Lent, we actually had a week on each of the measures and their accompanying questions (you may remember a mirror in the front of worship each week?) 

As you share and pray together, I invite you to see where your group would like to focus for the final 5 weeks.  Perhaps you pick one measure to focus on in each of the last 5 weeks, so that you go through all of them.  Perhaps the measure of Trusting or Passionate is one that your group needs to answer all through the Lenten season.  Make sure that whether in smaller groups or as a whole, that your group has time to truly pray for one another.

Reflect

Together, read 1 Corinthians 10:16-17

Ask: What does Paul think happens when we share in communion? 

            *What do you think happens when we share in communion?  Is it that serious?

One way that communion has been described is this: “We become what we eat.”  If this is the body and blood of Christ, what does that say about what we are becoming as we consume it?

Together, read 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul is often addressing the problems of division in the church at Corinth. 

Ask: What seem to be the problems going on at Corinth?  Why does Paul feel the need to share the words of institution (when Jesus instituted communion with his disciples on Maundy Thursday) and how do they provide basis for his argument?

Ask: How does understanding Communion as unifying us with Christ and with each other change the way that you practice and understand communion?