“Because there is one bread we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Corinthians 10:17). On the surface, the singleness of the bread seems to ground the unity of the body. And yet the one bread stands for the crucified body of Jesus Christ, the body that has refused to remain a self-enclosed singularity, but has opened itself up so that others can freely partake of it. The single personal will and the single impersonal principle or law-two variations of the transcendent “One”-enforce unity by suppressing and subsuming the difference; the crucified Messiah creates unity by giving his own self. Far from being the assertion of the one against many, the cross is the self-giving of the one for many. Unity here is not the result of “sacred violence” which obliterates the particularity of “bodies,” but a fruit of Christ's self-sacrifice, which breaks down the enmity between them. From a Pauline perspective, the wall that divides is not so much” the difference” as enmity (d. Ephesians 2:14)."
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (p. 47)
Miroslav Volf, Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (p. 47)
