Loved and Shaped in the Supper

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Christians are accustomed to think that a worldview consists of the things that you think. What are your “views” about the world? What are your opinions about this and that?

I am afraid that this is a very truncated view of what it means to have a worldview. We need to develop this at length some other time, but a worldview consists of your dogma, your manner of life, your story, and your symbols. What do you believe? How do you treat your family and friends? Where do you understand your place in history to be? And what symbols and rituals do you honor?

This is a ritual in which we eat the body of Jesus Christ, who is alive this moment at the right hand of God, and in which we drink His blood, which is the cup of blessing, the cup of the new testament. Our worldview includes what we are eating and drinking here.

This is therefore part of who you are. You are not defined simply as a thinking machine who entertains certain thoughts in your bone box. You are defined, bounded, shaped, organized, and loved, as a member of this community, this church, this body. And you are loved in this way by what you eat and drink, and by the fact that we are eating and drinking (at the same moment) the same.

Many people have thought that they could join themselves (or separate themselves, for that matter) by thinking certain propositions in their head. What we think is certainly part of all this, but it is by no means the only part.

If a husband were to think the thought in his head that he “is now unmarried,” he remains married, despite what he thinks. Marriage is objective, as is membership in the body of Christ.

What we think will help define whether we are being faithful or unfaithful to our objective connections, but our objective connections remain. And they remain as part of our worldview. Another way of putting this is that we do not just have a worldview; a worldview has us. If you doubt it, consider the bread and wine.

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