Online Sermons
Lesson #20 - Communing With One Another - Page 2 & Extra Doc
Series: The One-Another WayTHE LORD’S SUPPER IS NOT JUST ABOUT ME AND GOD
Understood in this sense (which is correct and Biblical,) The Lord’s Supper is not a private undertaking.
As implied by the word “communion", The Supper was/is COMMUNAL event (a sharing together).
For the most part, the intent of The Supper is not “just me and God” - - it involves A JOINT PARTICIPATION.
THE SUPPER IS NOT SOME MAGICAL POTION
“It is even likely that the Corinthian Christians thought there was something magical in the elements themselves. They
may have believed that the mere partaking of the communion was a guarantee of eternal salvation.” / Thompson, pg.69
~ Notice the broader background alluded to by Paul regarding the “spiritual” food (manna) and drink. cf. 1Cor.10:3
He adds in 1Cor.10:5, Nevertheless with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.
One may take the Lord's Supper with total seriousness; he may be faithful in the participation.
But if he neglects his brother and forgets the rest of the community, it is not the Lord's Supper at all.
~ While not magical, the supper is indeed SPIRITUAL.
In a supernatural way, every first day of the week, The Supper serves to UNITE US TOGETHER IN CHRIST JESUS.
“The Lord's Supper is far more than a memorial for a deceased Lord. It is a time for
communion, for FELLOWSHIP with the One who is still present with his church.” / Thompson, p.72
THE SUPPER IS ALL ABOUT ONENESS
? 1Cor.10:17 / Since there is one bread, we who are many are ONE BODY; for we all PARTAKE of the one bread.
One cannot enjoy communion with Christ without also experiencing communion with Christ's body, the church.
This is the message which the Corinthians had missed and which we sometimes overlook.
~ 1Cor.12:12-13 / For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body,
though they are many, are ONE BODY, so also in Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into ONE BODY,
whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
The bread and wine is not an individualistic endeavor. It is about TOGETHERNESS IN THE BODY OF CHRIST.
EATING IN AN UNWORTHY MANNER
? 1Cor.11:27 / Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner,
shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
How heart-wrenching it must be for God to view us communing without a real sense of community.
The issue is not exclusively, “Did we think enough about Jesus while communing?”, but additionally,
“Are we thinking enough about the church that Jesus purchased with His own blood?”
~ The Lord's Supper is a force so strong that it allows us (requires us) to overcome natural divisions of race, class and gender.
It is a demonstration of the power of the gospel in breaking down barriers.
~ The Church BRINGS PEOPLES TOGETHER.
Varying income levels, differing educational backgrounds, ethnic diversity, male and female, etc.
The Lord's Supper must remain a time when divergent groups are welded into ONE BODY.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Can we do a better and more thoughtful job of choosing songs to send the proper mind frame for the Supper?
In other words, there a place for singing about the horizontal dimension of the Supper.
2. Have we ritualized The Supper when select ones are removed from “the assembly” to partake?
Wouldn't it be better if we all communed with them?
3. How wonderful it would be if the Supper would serve to remind us of those who are absent,
not so as to take The Supper to them, but rather to “bring them in” once again to enjoy The Communal Supper.
THE TABLE OF THE LORD
Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup.
For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself, if he does not discern the body rightly.
The above words (1Cor.11:27-29) were written by the apostle Paul in his letter to the church at Corinth. The New Testament epistles are often referred to by scholars as “occasional documents", meaning that they were occasioned by misbehavior on the part of the church that needed to be corrected by way of instruction. In this instance, the Corinthian Christians were guilty of overlook-ing the horizontal aspect of the table of the Lord: …In your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and an-other is drunk…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 will not praise you (1Cor.11:21-22). James Thompson (Our Life Together, pg.68) writes, “The problem was that while some of the Christians feasted, others were hungry and were forced to feel their poverty painfully and shamefully. The Corinthian congrega-tion, which should have been a company of brothers and sisters at worship, presented a shameless picture of social division.”
Phillip Slate observes that the:”unworthily” of the King James Version is an adverb of manner, not an adjective of person - - a technical way of noting that it was not the unworthiness of the partakers, but the manner in which they were partaking that had be-come sinful. As he further notes, “The Lord's Supper is not for sinless people." In this passage, the body that was not being rightly discerned was not Jesus on the cross (complete with all of its physical, mental, social and substitutionary pain), it was rather a failure to properly esteem the body of Christ (the church). When we partake at the table of the Lord, we often think vertically (our gaze is cast heavenward), and rightly so. But in our gathering together in The Lord’s Supper we must not overlook the horizontal dimension of the cross. To state this matter plainly, COMMUNION is intended to be a COMMUNAL event. "Koinonia" is the Greek word trans-lated by our English words, communion and/or fellowship, and it describes having all things in common.
The Supper is a SHARING in the body of Christ (1Cor.10:16). Since there is one bread, WE WHO ARE MANY ARE ONE BODY (1Cor.10:17). Instead of serving as the unification of brothers and sisters in Christ the Corinthians had turned The Supper on its head - - making it an occasion for cliques to separate brethren. As Thompson warns, “wherever that happens the Supper is distorted.” A
final word from Paul offers a remedy for the troubling behavior at Corinth: So then, my brethren, when you come together to eat, WAIT FOR ONE ANOTHER (1Cor.11:34). The Supper was designed by God to act out the meaning of the cross. The end result of the sacrificial ministry of Jesus was to reconcile them both (Jews and Gentiles) in one body to God through the cross (Eph.2:16). The Lord’s Supper is a weekly reminder of the power of the gospel TO UNITE ALL INTO ONE, regardless of race, class or gender (Gal.3:28). John Mark Hicks captures the essence of the Corinthian calamity: "The problem is not that the Corinthians did not think about the cross, but rather the problem was that they did not embody the cross in a communal way at the table" (Come To The Table, pg.123).
Terry Siverd / Cortland Church of Christ
