The church in which I grew up was a typical local “Church of Christ” congregation; and Sunday worship services were tightly scripted and formatted – like every other Church of Christ across the country. In fact, so tightly scripted were worship services that virtually anywhere in the country you could predict within a minute, or two, what part of the service would be taking place with the “four-hymn-sandwich” format. I kid you not. Anywhere in the country on any given Sunday, at close to 20 minutes past 11 o’clock, communion would be starting.
Communion was central to weekly worship in a Church of Christ and the one “presiding” (usually a male, until the 80s) led the service and “officiated” at the communion segment. Just about everyone was expected to have their turn at “presiding”. And very often – very often – the “presiding brother” would round off his communion talk with a solemn warning from 1 Corinthians:
1 Corinthians 11:28-29 (NIV)
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.”
There was one “presiding brother” who would conclude every communion segment with these words from the apostle Paul – without fail - and would scowl at the congregation in the process as a way of emphasising how dangerous it was to mess with the Lord’s Supper elements representing the body and blood of “our precious Saviour”. The thinking was, or the “theology” was, that if you did not come properly prepared and consecrated to the communion table and ate of the bread and wine anyway, somehow this was a great sin against the elements and therefore against the very body of Jesus, Hhimself – a most heinous sin.
That was the prevailing thinking back in the day at our local church at Box Hill.
The problem with that “theology” is that it was not the reason the apostle was rebuking the Corinthians in saying what he did. It was not about the kind of preparation to which the “presiding brother” referred. The issue was that the Lord’s Supper celebrations at Corinth back then had been turned into lavish affairs for the wealthy – “love feasts” they were called (parties with communion tacked on) - with all manner of rich food and wine available for their own little cliques where overindulgence and drunkenness was all too commonplace; and where the poor were completely left out and humiliated in the process. It’s hard to imagine such a scenario today, but it’s all there in black and white in 1 Corinthians 11 …
1 Corinthians 11:20-22 (NIV) [Paul] “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!”
I think the apostle was pretty upset! “Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!” This soulish-fleshly approach to the Lord’s Supper totally missed the point of communion, and completely ignored the intended outcome for God’s people – that we are all one in Christ, not in theory, but in the practices of our fellowship in Christ’s name. These communion “parties” cost more than a month’s salary for a poorer brother or sister – who were not included anyway. Hence Paul’s savage rebuke. The manner and experience of the Lord’s Supper was one of the divisions in the Corinthian church that was causing great damage. Paul’s rebuke had nothing to do with the possible mishandling of the communion elements per se, as our “presiding brothers” used to admonish.
The issue was behaviour and attitude that not only created division and humiliation amongst the people of God, but accentuated and actively promoted it. This divisive behaviour was just so despicable and, as Paul warned, was an utter failure to discern the Body Of Christ. That is, what the effect of their behaviour was having in the whole Body of Christ – the family of God. In the very process of conducting the Lord’s Supper, instead of drawing the people of God together more and more tightly around the Saviour whose atoning work makes us one Body, one church; the opposite was happening in the most selfish and humiliating way.
The issue at hand for Paul – and the principle we derive from it, seeing as we don’t have such shocking “communion parties” – is this: any behaviour, corporate or individually, whether intentional or not, seen or hidden, that damages the loving unity of God’s people, is a sinful failure that trashes the atoning work of Christ. And so, the apostle says, everyone should carefully examine themselves before they come to participate in communion in order to see if there is anything in our hearts, any behaviour that needs to be repented of, any attitudes still prevailing, any words spoken that, left unaddressed, would continue to damage the unity of the fellowship of God’s people, and cause humiliation – and get rid of any and every such impediment. And there are serious consequences for any failure to do that.
The issue is simple: what I carry in my heart and mind promotes loving, kind and compassionate unity in the church as the Spirit leads me, or destroys it – no matter what that thing is.
The response is clear: I will very carefully discern the Body of Christ (not the communion elements, themselves, but the family of God) to ensure that as far as it is incumbent upon me, I will do all I can to be aware of my effect on others and jealously keep safe our unity in Christ, and so honour Christ’s atoning work. And so, a paraphrase of 1 Cor. 11:28-29
1 Corinthians 11:28-29 (MRO) “Everyone ought to examine themselves before they participate in communion. 29 For those who eat and drink of it without discerning the sacred unity of the whole people of God, will inevitably eat and drink judgment upon themselves.”
May we all remember that we are the Body of Christ 24/7, and get rid of anything in us that would damage another, or cause them hurt, or worse, as we prepare to gather in worship of Christ, our Lord.
You are dearly loved.
Ps Milton