A Loving Community

Good Morning. I am glad that we are gathered together today. It is always good to be gathered in the house of the Lord.

I am so thankful for the time of rest and being able to get away for my birthday last week. Thank you for all the birthday wishes.

As many of you know I have been on a healthy journey since the beginning of the year. It was decided that all of that we not important on my birthday. The joys of the day started with lunch. We went out to eat at BJ’s brewhouse. They have a lunch special that allows you to get a main meal and a small Pazooki (a cookie with ice cream).

Of course my mom mentions its my birthday. I enjoy my lunch of salad and soup and then I get to desert. They bring me a full size one instead of a small one.

So two salads a bowl of chili and then this huge cookie dessert.

The Pazooki alone was over 1300 calories. Now you need to understand In a normal day My calorie intake is supposed to be right around 2500 calories to maintain the deficit that i have been after.

Well over half my calories in one desert. This is why I wasn’t counting or worried about this.

Needless to say we went back to my moms and enjoyed a food coma nap because man it was a lot of food.

That evening we went over to my brothers house to spend time with them and to celebrate my birthday. We had Pizza from Fiori’s. A local place in Pittsburgh. This wasn’t some chain pizza this was high quality pizza.

Of course I enjoyed that a lot because well its just great pizza. What birthday wouldn’t be complete without cake but not just any cake and Icecream cake from DQ. By the end of the night I was needless to say feeling the affects of all that food.

I hadn’t eaten that much sugar in a long time and I hadn’t eaten that many calories in one day in a long time.

It was good but it was bad.

My choices had consequences. I both enjoyed and paid for it.

This experience was going through my mind as I thought about what it means to have a loving community.

With Community there are Choices that have to be made, and there are consequences to those choices.

This morning i want to start by looking at a community in the Bible and the importance of the choices that are made.

1 Corinthians 11:17–22 NIV

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!

The Community in Corinth

What a troubled community. There were a lot of problems at Corinth.

Now I am going to restate something for all of you that I shared early on in my ministry here.

Often when you hear a pastor preach out of Corinthians you might be worried that there is trouble a brewing in the church. Because this book is a lot of Paul addressing issues within the church and pointing out their faults.

That doesn’t mean that we wait for problems to arise but to help us realize that we need to look at these things before we get there and we learn from the mistakes of the church and the past and grow before it is a problem.

This is important than for us to understand what is happening here.

In these opening verses we see the problem that the church is facing when it comes to the Lord’s supper.

The Problem

The challenge we have is that the church of Corinth was being an unloving community. They were not being considerate of their fellow believers. Look at what Paul says to them.

1 Corinthians 11:17 NIV

17 In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good.

Your meetings do more harm than good. that is not the description we want for the gathering of the Body of believers. He goes on though.

1 Corinthians 11:18 NIV

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.

There are divisions. This is an interesting part of the passage because when we talk about the idea of divisions in the church we often see this cited as one of the main challenges that happen in church.

Church before we go on can we be honest with each other?

Can I share something in honest and openness with each other?

Cliques and groups happen in the church. There are natural divisions that will happen.

Age, gender, places in life, and so many other things separate and pull us into different groups.

Its natural that we want to be around like people. Because we connect better with them. We relate.

Yet, does that mean we are exclusive to each other.

Absolutely not.

We have to remember that there is a healthy way to be in groups of the church but at the same time still be a part of the whole church.

Its when groups start excluding people that we have the issue.

For the Corinthians this was the challenge they faced. They were being exclusionary to others.

1 Corinthians 11:21 NIV

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.

This passage gives us insight into what is happening. In order that we are better able to understand it we need to have a short history lesson.

In the times of the church it wasn’t uncommon for clubs and associations to have a common table meal.

The Common Table

That this was a time that when people gathered they would all participate in a shared meal.

The church like many of those clubs had a similar approach. Not only because of the outside influence but because Jesus set the example with the Lord’s supper and a meal was shared.

Yet, one of the challenges that came from this is that in the common table meal that is that it wasn’t unusual that the quantity and the quality of the food that was shared in the clubs would be given based on various measures.

The Rich and higher contributors would receive the best and the largest amounts while the poor would either not be there for the whole meal because of work or they would get less and lower quality meals.

This was creeping into the church. This was an attitude and a problem that was showing up in the body of believers.

The Wealthy members of the church would have a more extravagant meal and would be able to start it much earlier because they weren’t required to work like the poorer members of the church. They would get drunk on wine and fill their bellies like I did on my Birthday. While others sat hungry.

Let me ask you a question, Does this sound like the table that Jesus would want to exist in the body of believers?

Think of it this way.

The church is going to start planning and organizing all pot lucks or dinners based on your tithing.

If you give you get to go first in line and you get the choice of the best food and deserts.

If you are giving some you get the middle of the line but you might miss out on some of Ms. Brenda’s Mac and cheese or some of the good pies and cakes at the end.

Oh, if you aren’t giving guess what sorry you don’t even get to go through the line we will have a second line just for you with Tuna fish sandwiches and some chips. Nothing fancy just basic food.

Does that sound like a community that is a loving and Christ filled community?

The Common Table

Christ called us to be a community that didn’t see the table as a place to create division but to come together and see each other as equal.

This doesn’t mean we are equal in all aspects of life but we are equal before the eyes of God.

Some of us with always come from different backgrounds and places in life.

There will be man and woman, Poor and Rich, and an number of races and ethnicities.

There will be young and old, struggling and prospering, the hurt and the healthy.

All at different places.

Yet, as a church we have to be a place that is embracing of all people.

Divisions will happen. Yet, we also will be unified by the table of Christ.

That is the power of communion and the Lord’s supper. IT is a reminder of what brings us together. It is around his willingness to go to the cross that we are united together.

A loving community that we are called to be doesn’t allow for things like wealthy and social status to prevent each other from coming together.

This requires us to humble ourselves and see that as long as we are submitting to Christ we can be unified in Him.

That’s why Paul reminds the Corinthians of what Jesus did for them.

1 Corinthians 11:23–26 NIV

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.

Transition to communion.