Taking the Supper in a Worthy Way

Go ahead and open your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 11:17 this morning.

As you are turning there, you might have noticed that we switched things up a bit recently.

At Northstar, we typically observe the Lord’s Supper, which is also called Communion, on the final Sunday of every month.

We didn’t in June, but if you notice the front of the stage this morning, we are going to celebrate it together today.

Why the change? Because this morning, the passage we are looking at deals specifically with how we should approach the Lord’s Supper as a congregation.

As with other parts of 1 Corinthians, our situations may be different than what they were dealing with, but the Bible still has vital principles we can draw out for where we are today.

In fact, this morning’s passage may surprise you! I realized while studying for this message that I have read it and at times taught it out of context.

You, like me, may be surprised by what you find in the passage today.

Let’s set the stage.

Over the last few months, we have been walking through this letter that Paul wrote to the church at Corinth.

As we have seen, the Corinthian church had a lot of issues.

They were divided, selfish, and trying to sort out what it looked like to follow Jesus in a world that didn’t.

We just began a section of the text where Paul is addressing problems that plagued the church when they got together for worship.

Last week, Jeff dealt with some Corinthians who were coming to church to draw attention to themselves in different ways instead of coming together to worship and honor Jesus.

We are going to pick up that same theme again this morning as we address how the church gathered to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

They were making it something it shouldn’t have been, and it had disastrous consequences.

Let’s pick up in verse 17 and read through verse 22…

These verses help us see:

1) The problem.

Paul comes out swinging in this section.

In the last one, Paul commended the Corinthians for their faithfulness in a few areas before he dives into correcting them.

When it came to the Lord’s Supper, though, they were completely off base.

As we will see over the next several chapters we walk through in 1 Corinthians, some really not great things happened when they got together for worship.

Not only were there the authority issues we talked about last week, they were completely distorting the picture of the Lord’s Supper.

Look back at verse 18…

Paul had heard that something was up in Corinth, but surely not this bad, right?

Just like in chapter 1, Paul indicates that there were divisions in the church.

However, the earlier divisions seemed to focus on personalities. People were dividing based off what teacher they liked best or who led them to Christ and things like that.

This time, the division seems to be along socio-economic lines. In other words, this division was between the rich and the poor in the church in Corinth—the “haves” and “have-nots.”

Verse 19 is a little tricky to figure out, and honestly, commentators disagree on exactly what Paul is saying.

Paul clearly isn’t saying that division is something we should strive for in church.

Some suggest he was being sarcastic, saying that at least the divisions let them recognize who was special and who wasn’t at church—they knew who were the cool kids that got to sit at the cool table in the lunch room.

Others think Paul is setting up what he is going to say in the end of this section about how some people are going to be disciplined by God.

If he is hinting at what he will say at the end, these divisions are actually a taste of what is to come, and the rich better make sure they aren’t setting themselves aside to be judged.

Either way, Paul moves on to describe the problem in verses 20-22.

They said they were coming together to eat the Lord’s Supper, but instead, some people were getting drunk while others didn’t get anything to eat.

How did that happen?

Given how we take the Lord’s Supper and do our worship services, this seems kinda weird, so let’s talk about some key realities of life at the time this was written.

The church didn’t have buildings back then, so they would often meet in large homes owned by wealthy believers.

One of the beautiful realities of the gospel, though, is that the wealthy are not the only ones who can come to Christ—in fact, wealth actually makes it harder for someone to see their need for Jesus.

Jesus’s death on the cross and resurrection made it possible for anyone to come into a relationship with him and be a part of the church, including the poorer classes that society overlooked.

That is still true today, by the way.

Going off what we know of Roman culture, scholars think the problem went something like this:

In those days, the poor may not have owned their own homes. They would often have to work later in the day and couldn’t get to someone’s house as early as some of the nobility could.

Many of the wealthier homes had a small dining room where the elites could sit and enjoy a meal that was separate from others.

When they were supposed to be getting together for the Lord’s Supper, the elites would get to the house first since they didn’t work as late. They would fill that nice dining space and have plenty of time to eat and drink.

Those of lower station would arrive late and find the dining room filled and the food largely gone.

The wealthy were focused more on eating their own meals than they were on making sure everyone had equal opportunity to participate in the Lord’s Supper.

The result was that the rich got drunk, the poor got shamed, and no one was able to properly remember what Christ did for them by remembering that his body was broken and his blood was shed for them.

That’s why Paul said in verse 20 that they weren’t getting together for the Lord’s Supper; they were getting together to party with their friends.

They seemed to care more about Roman social protocols than they did about commemorating the death of Christ together, so they missed the entire point of the Lord’s Supper, as Paul was about to explain.

Before we move on to talk about what the Lord’s Supper was actually about, let’s stop for a minute and do some reflection.

Northstar is a large church, and as a large church, we have a number of different groups here.

There are individuals from different national and ethnic backgrounds, different educational backgrounds, different ages, different life experiences.

You aren’t going to be equally as close to everyone here, but let’s stop and think just a minute: is there a group of people you distance yourself from at church?

Do you have more material resources than some here and you quietly look down on those with less?

Maybe you have less than some and you resent those who have more.

Perhaps for you, your bias falls along racial or ethnic or language lines—If you are honest, you don’t mind going a little out of your way to avoid “them,” whoever “them” may be. You would be completely fine if they stopped coming here and went somewhere else.

That’s the heart of the issue Paul is calling the church at Corinth to task for.

Given the chance, you would gladly exclude people the same way they did, just so long as you and your people got taken care of.

That is not okay! As we go through the rest of the passage, I want us to make sure we allow the Holy Spirit to help us feel the weight of Paul’s words because he could just as easily be speaking to us!

Paul starts addressing the issue in verse 22—If you are wealthy enough to have a house, don’t you have your own food you can eat?

Do you think so little of the group of people God assembled and called the church?

Are you willing to humiliate those who have less than you do?

Is that what Jesus told us to do?

You can read the frustration in Paul’s tone.

Why?

Because what they were doing and calling “the Lord’s Supper” was a mockery of what God called us to do.

We make a similar mockery when we harbor the same kinds of divisions in our own hearts when it comes to those with whom we worship.

Jesus laid out a clear pattern for how we are to take the supper, and that’s what we look at next.

2) The pattern.

Pick up in verse 23–26

Paul’s wording in verse 23 doesn’t mean heard this directly from Jesus. Instead, it implies he taught the Corinthians a tradition that could be traced straight back to Jesus himself.

Although the method of taking the supper has varied throughout history, the core pattern goes all the way back to the Upper Room where Jesus celebrated one final meal with his disciples before he was arrested and crucified.

If you have been in church for a while, you have likely heard these words a million times.

Listen to them again… (verses 23–24)

You know what is interesting? English doesn’t have a proper plural form of the word “you”—y’all is about as good as it gets.

When Jesus said that his body was for “you,” that is plural in Greek. His body was broken for “y’all”—for us.

There is no distinction, no division. Jeff quoted this verse last week, but remember:

Galatians 3:28 CSB

There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male and female; since you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Christ’s body wasn’t broken for the rich or for the poor or for the brown or the white or the educated or the tradesman—it was broken for all of us because regardless of anything else we are or have, we all stand condemned in our sin and cannot save ourselves.

His body was broken for all of us, to be the sacrifice for sin who can save anyone who comes to him, and so we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together because we were lost together, we have been saved together, and we will walk with him together.

The church at Corinth forgot that.

They had divided themselves as though he only died for the elites, and in doing so they completely missed the point.

He goes on to echo this same pattern with the cup in verse 25.

Some seem to think this implies that the church may have actually used this pattern to make it where they took the bread, ate a full meal together, and finished by drinking the cup.

If that’s the case, it is possible that they were making it through that whole meal before the poor got there and they weren’t even getting a chance to take the full supper because of the behavior of elites.

That’s not the Supper because they were excluding people they looked down on, not remembering that we all were lost, we all have been saved, and we all have one Lord we follow.

Why do we take the Lord’s Supper? Look at verse 26.

Again, the “you” here is plural.

When y’all, when we, eat the bread and drink the cup together, you are looking back at what Jesus accomplished and proclaiming the good news that his body was broken and his blood was shed as a sacrifice for our sins, and because of that sacrifice, we can now be right with God by trusting what Jesus has done.

Not only that, but every time we do this, we are looking forward to the fact that Jesus is one day coming again!

We may have different ideas about when and how, but when we figuratively gather around the table for the Lord’s Supper, we are reminding ourselves that we will one day celebrate in an even greater way when we are in his presence forever, surrounded by all those who have trusted in Christ throughout history.

That’s what we are doing this morning as we take the supper—we are gathering together, regardless of our backgrounds or our social status or history or anything else. We are taking a small piece of bread that reminds us of the body that was broken for us, and a small cup of juice that reminds us of Jesus’s blood that was shed for us.

As we eat and drink in this place, together with others whom Jesus has saved, we look back at his death and look forward to his return.

We are joining with the church across the globe who today has and will take Communion together. It will look different in different places, but we together proclaim his death until he comes.

That’s the pattern Jesus outlined, which was light years away from the way the church at Corinth was behaving.

To wrap it all up, Paul gives us…

3) The solution.

Pick up in verse 27-34.

This is the part of the passage I have gotten wrong before.

I have used these verses to encourage people to examine their own hearts before they take the supper to see if there is anything they need to confess as they reflect on the body and blood of Christ.

I still believe that is a great exercise, but I realized this week that isn’t exactly what Paul is telling the church at Corinth to do.

Remember, the problem was that they were creating divisions and shaming the poor and thereby totally missing the point of the Supper.

If that’s the case, then what is the “unworthy manner” Paul talks about?

It is specifically taking the Supper with a heart that fosters division within the church family and demonstrates disdain for the people of God assembled as the church.

Look at how seriously God takes this (verses 23-30).

Those who don’t judge the divisiveness in their own hearts are being judged by God.

In Corinth, some were sick or had died because of their behavior.

God disciplined them, even by taking some of them home to be with him so they wouldn’t do any more damage to themselves or to his church.

So, what were they supposed to do, and what about us? Pick up in verses 33-34 again.

When we come together, whether it is to take the supper or for a regular church service, welcome one another.

Show each other the love, the hospitality, the grace, the joy that Jesus has shown you.

He tells them to eat before they come if they need help controlling their appetites so everyone can enjoy the Supper together.

How practical is that?

So, what are we supposed to do?

I think we start by asking the Holy Spirit to show where I might be fostering division in your own heart and in the church.

Follow that up with the question: What do you need to do to get out of your comfortable patterns and engage more with your brothers and sisters in Christ who don’t sound or look like you or have the same experiences you do?

What would it look like for you to love the “them” that comes to mind?

After all, his body was broken and his blood was shed for them, just like it was for you.

That is why we are here to observe the Lord’s supper together.

This morning, we are coming to the table.

We come from different backgrounds, with different amounts in our bank account, different colors of our skin, different in so many different ways.

But in these moments, we come together to take bread from the same trays, to take cups of juice together, and as one body in Christ, we proclaim his death until he comes.

Here’s how we are going to do that…

As you prepare your heart to take the elements of the Lord’s Supper, thank God for saving you and ask him to show you if there is anyone you have not been thinking about, talking about, or acting in a loving way toward in your church family.

Remind yourself that his body was broken for them just like it was for you, and commit to taking whatever steps you need to take to make it right.