When You Come Together

What a privilege we’re about to enjoy… our two congregations, taking this sacred meal together! Food has a timeless tradition as an impetus for coming together. Abraham and Sarah ate a meal with God at Mamre in Genesis 18, confirming the promise of the birth of Isaac. Moses and the elders of Israel ate with God on Mt Sinai in Exodus 24:9-11, confirming the covenant of the Law. Jesus performed his first recorded miracle at a wedding feast in Cana in John 2.

So, it might interest you to know that much of what we call “Chinese food” here in America… isn’t exactly that. General Tso’s Chicken, Crab Rangoon, Egg Foo Young, Beef and Broccoli, egg rolls… even Fortune cookies and “Chinese take out boxes” are innovations that have their origins to some degree or another here in the United States. Talk about the fusion of cultures… there’s even a restaurant in Iowa called Fong’s Pizza, where you can get Asian-inspired dishes like Crab Rangoon Pizza. Now the purists among us might find something like that a culinary catastrophe… but I submit to you that something delightful has emerged from this coalescence of cultures and cuisines. The authentic tradition influencing these tastes should not be completely discarded, but speaking as the child of a first generation immigrant myself, there is also joy in embracing one’s new surroundings. We remember the past, but we cannot be limited by it. The place we live now is about potential, new opportunities, the promise of labors rewarded.

Life in America requires adjusting to new surroundings, figuring out how to balance your cultural influences and heritage while integrating into the place you call home. Life with Christ and His people requires much the same mindset. We may be new creatures in Christ, casting off the old man and his deeds while putting on the new man created in righteousness and holiness… but that doesn’t mean we discard all of the influences that shaped us. Paul was the Apostle to the Gentiles, but never forgot that he had been a “Hebrew of the Hebrews.” As we are reminded in...

Jeremiah 13:23a (ESV)

Can the Ethiopian change his skin

or the leopard his spots?

We cannot completely change who we are… even as we must change to who Christ is.

This is what makes the passage we are looking at this morning so alarming. Paul sees that whatever else was happening, the Corinthians were not willing to change and adapt. When there should have been a blending and fusion, this church stubbornly clung to their traditions and distinctions.

1 Corinthians 11:17–34 (ESV)

But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.

For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 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.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world.

So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another— if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

This is the Word of God, inerrant, infallible, inspired; written by God, written for us that we might know what to believe; that we might know how to live; and that on it’s pages we might meet the living Christ.

Strictly speaking, Paul’s purpose in this passage is not prescriptive, though the details supplied offer us much instruction in how we are to observe the Lord’s Table. The passage is rather a corrective one, addressing two prominent abuses of the Corinthians—the abuse of the ordinance and the abuse of each other.

So notice first that when we come together for a time such as this, it is to recall that...

JESUS SACRIFICED FOR OTHERS

The Corinthian church is gathering together, but for the entirely wrong reasons. Instead of a meal recalling the sacrificial work of Jesus atoning for the sins of humanity, they have turned it into a social event, where what is prominent is WHO is prominent. You have the affluent, those more well-off and responsible for providing the food for the feast, standing out and claiming advantage for themselves.

What did that look like? Well, it was common in Roman contexts for there to be different levels accessible to different social classes. You might have the slaves mingling and serving in outer courtyard, the working class sitting in the atrium, and the elites reclining in more exclusive triclinium. As Gentiles converted to Christianity, they did not always shed these practices. Paul was observing that they had brought these class distinctions into a place where the ground should have been level.

What is it they should have been doing instead?

Jesus said in...

1 Corinthians 11:24b (ESV)

“This is my body, which is for you.”

This is the gospel… Jesus died for our sins--Penal Substitution! It is what Isaiah prophesied:

Isaiah 53:5–6 ESV

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

His broken body absorbed the consequences we deserved, for the sins we had committed. The suffering Jesus endured in His physical body is what made it possible for us to be incorporated into His corporate Body.

His shed blood is the mark of the new covenant.

1 Corinthians 11:25b (ESV)

“This cup is the new covenant in my blood. ”

What does that mean for us?

Hebrews 9:15 ESV

Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.

We stand forgiven at the cross. Our sins are covered, and no longer separate us from God. We are no longer enemies… we are sons and daughters! “What can wash away my sins? Nothing but the blood of Jesus!”

Reminded of these realities, Paul in effect is saying:

STOP THINKING ABOUT YOURSELF

The stinging rebuke is not just “Stop being so selfish!” The emphasis is, “How can you be so concerned about yourself when you’re supposed to be commemorating someone who sacrificed everything for others.... for you?” It’s like sending a newlywed a gift of a 6 month subscription to eHarmony; giving a vegetarian a gift basket from Omaha Steaks; like looking for the cheese island at the Chinese grocery store… It’s contradictory and out of place.

The passage confronts approaching the Table here in an “unworthy manner.” No matter how much we might ever prepare ourselves, we must never forget that not a single one of us on our own is EVER worthy. At the same time, we are capable of coming to the table in an inappropriate way. The wrong way Paul is confronting in Corinth is the division and disunity in the Body.

1 Corinthians 11:29 (ESV)

For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself.

One legitimate interpretation of this verse is that it is not the sacrifice of Jesus’ physical body that is failing to be discerned, nor is it the bread which is being consumed together in the sacred meal. Rather, it is the consequences of the conflict within the local congregation.

1 Corinthians 10:17 (ESV)

Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

A failure to come together, united in His sacrifice, united in obedience to Our Lord, is the worst kind of defacing and desecration professing Christians are capable of. When we come together...

1 Corinthians 11:33–34 (ESV)

So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another— if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come.

At a restaurant, servers wait on tables. They serve the needs of the customers. The solution Paul is prescribing to counter their abuse of the ordinance and each other is to practice hospitality.

Brothers and Sisters, when we come together, something Paul speaks of 5 times in the passage we’ve considered today, we do so to...

REMEMBER AND PROCLAIM

We remember what Jesus has done. We remember He has done it for us. We proclaim to the nations that He has done it so they too can have life, and life more abundantly. We proclaim it by modeling the richness of our relationship with Christ by having rich relationships with each other. In these uncertain times, when there have been challenges to the frequency and occasions where believers gather, it is good for us to be reminded why we do this. We gather—putting ourselves and our categories aside—to make Jesus visible. He has died… bearing our consequences; He has risen… giving us life; He is coming… live in hope and anticipation.

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Father, we come before you confessing our failures and shortcomings. Like the Corinthians, we divide ourselves into categories. For them, the lines were drawn on material and financial status. Our lines can resemble theirs, even as we draw new boundaries with political positions, ethnicity and race, perhaps even the ways we respond to threats to our physical health. While we cannot and ought not eliminate all variety and diversity, this wonderful mosaic you have composed—help us to realize that we have been called into these bodies: Rochester Chinese Christian Church, Calvary Baptist Church. You have established these congregations to display the beauty of Your Son and His gospel. Give us boldness to come together; give us compassion to serve each other; give patience to endure one another’s differences, seeing ourselves how you see us—sinners deserving of your judgment, graciously given the freedom of forgiveness and hope of eternal life through the death of Jesus for our sins.

We ask this in the name of your Son Jesus, the Bread of Life, who bids us to this sacred feast, Amen.