We just finished our ninth youth In-Town trip. We started this trip in 2012, because we wanted to build our teens in their leadership skills, we wanted them to give back to their community, and we wanted to reach out to more children. One of the things we make sure we do every trip, is set up a large table in the Fellowship Hall and eat every meal together.
The reason why we do this is because we want a sense of that old time family dinner around the table. Growing up, my family tended to only have large meals together, like Christmas and Thanksgiving. With my own family now, we try very hard to eat around the table as often as we can. In our society now, the norm is not like it once was. More and more people eat around a TV, or even, just eat alone. It is becoming uncommon to eat around the table as a family.
So with the teens, we want to give them this family atmosphere when we eat, that so many people are missing out on.
And it’s this idea of sitting around a table eating a meal together, that brings us back to our study in 1st Corinthians; where we will be picking it back up in chapter 11, starting in verse 17.
As we get back into our study today, let’s recap where we are so far.
Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Church is written because of the divisions that were occurring within the fellowship of believers. The Corinthians were engaging in all sorts of sins that were leading to many fights and disunity. And so Paul writes this letter to bring about unity between the believers.
And the letter can really be cut into two parts: the first part is how the Church is to relate to each other. Leadership, dealing with sin between believers, being content, not fighting over non-essentials, and not using knowledge to belittle others, all have at their core, a focus on relationships between believers.
But last week we started into the second part of the letter. This second part deals with the corporate worship time that believers participate in as the Church; it’s their worship service. And so, we saw the first item on Paul’s list of things to tackle, the submission we all must do when it comes to how we act as Christians. When addressing this, Paul uses the created order from Genesis 2 as a basis for how Christians are to submit within the Church, and how that submission is for the Church’s benefit in general, the culture around it us as it moves further from God, and for the angels who are being given an example.
And so, we continue into this second part of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, as he continues writing to them about how we are to conduct ourselves in our worship time. So let’s dive into 1st Corinthians chapter 11, starting in verse 17.
17 In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. 18 In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. 19 No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. 20 So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, 21 for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. 22 Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!
So far within the letter, Paul has addressed both the things the Corinthians themselves have asked him to address and things that he himself has heard about the Corinthian believers. This seems to be one of those things that the Corinthians had been doing, that they didn’t think needed to be changed, but actually did. And it centers around the Lord’s Supper, or what we commonly refer to as Communion.
To understand Paul’s correction here, we must understand what was happening. First off, in the New Testament era Church, the Lord’s Supper or Communion, was usually held at the end of meal. This meal was called the Agape Feast, or Love Feast, and was similar to the modern church potluck. Now in the rich metropolis of Corinth, there were those who were more wealthy than others, this shouldn’t be a surprise. In the Corinthian society, those with wealth did not usually have to work as long as those without wealth. And so, when the church would gather for this feast, the wealthier Christians would arrive early. What seems to be happening, was the wealthier Christians were bringing really good food to the feast, and not waiting for the poorer believers to arrive before eating the food. And so, they would eat their full, and start getting drunk. This lead the feast to devolve into a social party of the elite, and caused the poor believers to be noticeably left out. The Church began to display a division of wealth between the haves and the have nots. And so, those that were the poorer believers were not being included in the feast and would actually go hungry because they came straight from their jobs to be with the Church.
Paul is then taking these wealthier Christians to task, because they are not fulfilling the fellowship that the meal and the Lord’s Supper was intended to bring.
And so Paul, in verse 23, gives us the intention of the Lord’s Supper.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
The Lord’s Supper, the Communion bread and drink is meant to be a time of realignment if you would. We are realigning ourselves to Christ, by remembering what he has done. It was us who sinned and fell short of God’s perfect standard. It was us, who could not get back to God no matter how much good we performed for him. And so, it was God the Son who descended to us, took on our flesh and became wholly like us except without sin. And It was the Son that went to the cross, as a substitute for us. Then, God the Father, took all the eternal consequences of sin and laid them onto the Son. And with the Son’s sacrifice we have a pathway back to a right relationship with God. The bread therefore, represents the breaking of the Son’s body, instead of our bodies being broken. The cup represents the blood of the Son poured out for us, instead of our blood bing poured out. And every time we come together to share in communion, we recognize, as both individuals and as the Church whole, that we who have accepted Christ share in this amazing gift, until the day the Son returns. In the Lord’s Supper, in Communion, we get ourselves back to alignment with the reality of what God has done through the Son’s actions for us.
And so, in light of this reality, Paul calls the Church to examination starting verse 27.
27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. 29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. 31 But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. 32 Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.
33 So then, my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together. 34 Anyone who is hungry should eat something at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment.
You and I are to examine ourselves at the Communion table. We are to seek God in the bread and the cup, that we are not taking it with a desire for self, but with the desire for sin to be eradicated in our own lives. And when we do this, we honor Jesus who died for us, because we seek his will and not our own; we seek his life and not ours.
And then, when we all seek the will and life of God himself, we come together in unity at the Lord’s table, as his Church.
Yet, even though Paul called the Corinthians, and in turn the rest of the Church, to not defile the Lord’s Supper by creating divisions within the body, it didn’t sink in. Over three hundred years later, in 397 AD, the Church held an council that again spoke to this same issue. The ruling of the council was that the Agape Feast, would no longer be observed, because it continued to divide the Church along economic lines.
And if we think that this has ceased to be a problem, in years past, I was told that the teens shouldn’t be a part of our potlucks because they didn’t bring anything. I was then told on another occasion, that we shouldn’t invite anyone unless they were willing to bring something. But you know what, we’ve never had a potluck where their wasn’t enough food, even with the appetites of teenagers.
So today, we are going to have two applications, and since we’re talking about our worship and fellowship time together, you won’t be able to do this on your own this week. Right now, we are going to take Communion, as we do, it is a time of self examination before God. There are several tables set up around the room to do this at. As we take communion on our own, our focus needs to be on seeking God to cleanses us from any division that our sin would have us cultivate.
Then tonight, we are going to have our potluck, our own Agape Feast. Usually when we eat this feast, we make sure our adults are first in line. Tonight, we’re going to change that, and allow the least of these, our teens and children to eat first. Then, after we all have eaten together, we will partake in Communion once again, as a Church in fellowship as the early Church did after they’re feast. In doing this, we’re going to seek to participate in the Lord’s Supper as it was intended, as servants of one another, lifting up others rather than ourselves.
Let us be the people that God has called us to, who worship him in submission, seeking the betterment of those around us, so others might know the God who submitted himself to the cross, for the sins of the world. Amen.
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