Scripture
17 Now in giving these instructions I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse. 18 For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. 19 For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you. 20 Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord's Supper. 21 For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you.
23 For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24 and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, "Take, eat;[a] this is My body which is broken[b] for you; do this in remembrance of Me." 25 In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me."
26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes.
27 Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood[c] of the Lord. 28 But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner[d] eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord's[e] body. 30 For this reason many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. 31 For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world.
33 Therefore, my brethren, when you come together to eat, wait for one another. 34 But if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home, lest you come together for judgment. And the rest I will set in order when I come.
Sermon
The Corinthian church is an interesting church. You have to look no further than the Corinthians to know that the early church had just as many struggles, just as many problems, and just as many difficulties to face as the world does today.
The Corinthian church has arguments over how to worship, about which former pastor was the best pastor they should like the best, about how to deal with the church leader that was sleeping with his father's wife, they were suing each other right and left, they were soliciting prostitutes openly. The church was in fact, a mess. And Paul, in his letter, was trying to teach the Corinthian people how to get their church on the right track.
This Sunday, we are going to start a short series of First Sunday sermons that will focus on the Lord's Supper, and we will go into depth about what it means. We will continue this sermons series during First Sundays in September, October, and November. We are starting this sermon series with the I Corinthians passage. Many scholars believe that First Corinthians was the first written account of the Lord's Supper that we have, because most scholars believe the epistle of I Corinthians predates the writing of the gospels.
So, we are looking in on the Corinthian church, and as I said earlier, things do not look so pretty. Even in their worship services. Even in the way that they conduct the Lord's supper. The apostle Paul reports division (v.18), grandstanding (v. 19). They are having what they might call a "love feast" and what we might call a "potluck" as a part of their communion service. One person is "getting drunk". Another person is not even getting a bite to eat. (v. 19-20). In other words, the well-liked and popular people in the church are getting preferential treatment. The poor and the rejected in the world are being treated the same way in the church. Not good. This situation is NOT GOOD.
The apostle Paul scolds the people. He is sarcastic in verse 19. He comes right out and says "I will not praise you" in verse 22. In verses 27-34 he reminds them that they need to come to communion correctly as a church or they are going to be judged by God accordingly, both in this life and in the life to come. And in verse 23-26, he re-teaches the Corinthians on how communion should be done, and re-focuses them on what communion is all about.
You see the problem with Corinthian church is that they thought that the church should look just a like a newly religious version of the world. And they were wrong. Oh so wrong. And their approach to communion shows this as much as anything.
To understand what is going on with the Corinthian church we need to know a little bit about their culture, as well as the way that their church was organized.
First of all, it is important to know that on many worship occasions, the church in Corinth did not meet in church buildings. At least not very often. Most of the time the churches met in homes of patrons, or members that had the wealth and thus the property to host such meetings. Sometimes they would get access to larger meeting areas as well, but there was no such thing as a church building in the early church. You just had to work with whatever resources you could use. Often this meant that most church activities took place in homes. These homes would have larger social areas and courtyards in them. Then they would have these dining rooms where at most 15 people could fit in them. The built this way because this construction helped facilitate the non-religious and sometimes idolatrous association meetings of their culture and time.
These association meetings evolved through a process, but the time of Paul and the Corinthian church they looked a little like this. There would be this meeting men who were in some sort of trade. Say a plumbers union. And the big wigs of the unions would be in the room that was closest to the host. In fact, seating in the dining room would be organized so that the 15 or so people with the most status would be in the smaller formal dining room. They would have the best food and wine. But in order to show their generosity and love for community they would invite others, maybe low wage workers for them or even slaves that were associated with their work. And they would be out in the courtyard. The people that were wealthy politicians and businessmen, well respected leaders would get the good food, and the other people that came would get the leftovers.
Then at the end of the meal, the common people would have a brief encounter with the host, and then be dismissed. The "inner circle" would retire to a continuing "after party" that often included all the guys going to somewhere else in the house or the property, participating in some activity together for their mutual enjoyment. For the brainy guys this might mean having some special philosopher as a guest to speak to them. For the average crowd, in might mean 10-15 guys going to the basement and playing pool after everyone else left. For the average crowd, in might mean 10-15 guys going to the basement and playing pool after everyone else left. For the rowdy guys, this could mean some illicit entertainment from local women of poor reputation while they got drunk.
Furthermore, the unequal treatment of the guests at these parties became legendary. The well-regarded people would get the best treatment. The guest out in the courtyard would get poorer treatment. Nasty food. And sometimes they would go away feeling snubbed.
A writer around the time of Paul writes this about what these association meals were like…listen…this is pretty funny….at least I find it amusing
Since I am asked to dinner…why is not the same dinner served to me as you? You take oysters fattened in the Lucrine lake, I suck a muscle through a hole in the shell; you get mushrooms, I take hog funguses; you tackle turbot, but I brill. Golden with fat, a turtledove gorges you with its bloated rump; there is before me a magpie that has died in its cage. Why do I dine without you although, Ponticus, I am dining with you? Let us eat the same fare.
The Lord's Supper service was a special worship service for the Corinthians. Everything centered around a meal, like a potluck or a wedding reception, and then at the end of the meal, after enjoying one another's company, they would have the communion service.
To outsiders, that may want to persecute them, this Lord's Supper service would have looked just like an association meeting. On the surface this was a good thing. At times in the early church, people wanted to persecute or kill Christians. This way they did not draw attention to themselves.
But the love feast and communion service was to be different, because it was to reflect the message of Jesus, and the kind of world God was trying to use followers of Jesus to make. It was supposed to reflect a community of love. Like the self-sacrificial love that Jesus offered through his death on the cross. It was supposed to reflect a family of equals. Where the slave and the free man, the woman and the man, the Greek and the Jew, the rich and the poor, persons of every race and family background, where they all had equal status and equal footing because they were all children of God.
Unfortunately, the Corinthians were abusing the Lord's Supper by using it to carry on the same unfairness, the same inequality, the same bad habits as the worldly association meetings.
The wealthy and powerful people were getting the nicest seats and the best food. And they were eating before everyone else. And then the average and low-status and low-income members of the church were left standing out in the courtyard and getting the leftovers. Then they would pass out the communion elements, but the "in crowd" would have the communion wine and bread first, and then the rest of us would get the leftovers.
Then as the service came to an end, the most well connected members of the church would go to after party, and some of them would even get drunk. And some of those in the back row of the crowd outside in the courtyard would go away hungry and thirsty.
This makes Paul angry. Because their celebration of the body and blood of Christ betrays the kind of life Jesus lived, the death Jesus died, and the mission of the church he birthed through his death and resurrection. Jesus died so that we, the Corinthians, Christians around the world, Christians of yesterday and today, and believers here in Fowler Colorado and at Fowler First Baptist would live in way where we would create a community that would reflect the new way of living and loving one another than the world. Where we were brothers and sisters in Christ, and equals and partners in kingdom work, no matter what other roles we had in our everyday lives. The Corinthian's behavior was not reflecting this truth of the gospel.
So Paul sets out to remind them what the Lord's Supper was all about, and how to do it properly.
First of all, Paul focuses us clearly on Christ's work on the cross. His body was broken for me and for you. His blood was shed for me and for you. He died for each of us so that we may all live for Him. We don't come to Christ with one of us more in need of a savior than the other. No. We all come to Christ as sinners. We all come to Christ in need of a Savior.
We don't come to church to find social connections. We don't come to church to raise our standing in the community. No. We join the followers of Christ because EACH of US has sinned, EACH of us has fallen equally short, AND EACH of us is in need of a SAVIOR. And EACH person who partakes of the Lord's Supper proclaims not that they are a somebody in the world, but that they were heading the WRONG WAY until they accepted Christ and became children of God. Children of the king. Our focus should be first and foremost on Him.
But it should also give consideration for the kind of church family, the kind of community he came to create. A church family where each of us has a role to play, and none of us stands above one another as better than the rest of us. A church family where each person is valued. Not where one person is treated like a king, and another person is treated like a nuisance.
This is the reason we do the Lord's Supper the way we do. We pass the elements to one another, and in that way each of us serves one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. Each of us eats together, just as Paul commanded, so that we reflect our mutual commitment to follow Jesus together as a body of believers.
We come to this table, and we say that it is open to anyone who has chosen to follow Christ. If you are a believer in Jesus, you can share communion with us as a brother or sister in Christ.
Five times the apostle Paul tells the Corinthians to come together in these 18 verses. He tells us that when we take communion together we proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Of course this means that we continue to remind one another of Christ's great sacrifice on the cross. He died for us, so that we can spend eternity with Him. We must never forget this.
But what we often miss is that we are proclaiming this truth together. We are proclaiming to live together following the way Jesus went to the cross. Giving up our rights. Giving up our power. Giving up our desire to take from others and put ourselves above others. And we proclaim that we believe that Christ showed us a way of equality and justice, of service, of compassion, of grace. In a world where everyone tries to impress others, to gain status and wealth, we stand together worshipping a God who endured the shame of the cross, who gave his all for us, so that we could live for Him.
We come not as pastor, or deacon, as a member for 80 years or one year. We do not come as poor or rich. We come to the table as brothers and sisters. As equals in God's eyes. Standing together. Serving together. Loving each other through thick and thin. Not because of the kind of people that we are. Oh no. We would make it all about us. But because of the kind of people Jesus is making each of us, and the kind of people he is knitting us together to be as a church.
Amen.
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