Thanksgiving Dinner is The Eucharist

When you come together, then, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. For at the meal, each one eats his own supper. So one person is hungry while another gets drunk! Don’t you have homes in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What should I say to you? Should I praise you? I do not praise you in this matter!

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, and said, “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, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

-1 Corinthians 11:20-26

Thanksgiving Dinner is The Eucharist

“The Eucharist”, means, “The Thanksgiving”.

The definition of the word Eucharist is "thanksgiving".

It is the same word for saying grace,

Giving thanks, before meals.

Communion is not a funeral,

But a participating in celebration and thankfulness.

It is not about remembrance or memorializing.

Jesus said “do this in remembrance”.

What is the this?

The ‘this’ is Jesus working today,

In people's lives together,

Saving them and discipling them,

To be his disciples.

The Eucharist = The Thanksgiving.

Christ’s life is celebrated,

In a meal,

With laughter and tears,

Sharing our lives in his life.

The “table” is the table at your house,

In your “upper room”.

Not a special table, on a stage, or an alter.

The table is the place between us,

Where we experience the presence of Christ.

That is Holy Communion, The Lord’s Supper.

The Eucharist is the Thanksgiving dinner.

The message in the Eucharist, The Thanksgiving,

Is that God comes to your house,

To your table,

Into your world, 

Into this world.

“Do this in remembrance of me”.

Jesus Christ is a living presence.

When the church has communion,

And ‘remembers’ him;

We remember as an encounter.

Jesus is not a distant memory.

Jesus is alive and present to us today.

The question is not how he is present,

But what his presence will do to us.

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I learned much of this from Robert Stamps, who holds a Doctorate in Eucharistic Theology