The Communion of the Body

Series on I Corinthians

VI Meeting for Worship

B Abuses in Worship, Text: 11:17-34

Title: The Communion of the Body

Introduction

Last week we celebrated our quarterly communion service. it is timely that we can look at what Paul says about the Lord’s supper in 1 Corinthians. To us the communion service is a solemn and dignified occasion. In Corinth the service was neither edifying nor dignified. It was a shocking display of pride and prejudice. This was very obvious because when the Corinthian Christians celebrated the Lord’s supper they ate the main meal of the day together. It may have been planned with the idea that there would be ample provision for everyone, but that’s not the way it worked out in verse 21, For as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. As we look at this section in which Paul talks about worship, Chapters 11-14, we want to draw from it some general principles. Last study, for example, Paul talked about women’s head coverings, but his point was piety or reverence for Christ in worship as expressed through our acknowledging God’s authority. Here in this passage today he talks about the abuse of the Lord’s Supper, but the general principle has to do with our relationship to our brothers in Christ. Many in our day tend to think of worship only in the sense of personal preference or my coming before God. But Jesus didn’t see it that way. In the sermon on the mount he tells us if we have a problem with our brother, don’t come to worship God, first go to our brother. To me this means that worship involves not only my relation to God but to my brothers. I have to be thinking about them when I come to worship and not just myself. So keep this in mind as we look at what Paul has to say about the following aspects of the body of Christ here: the division of the body, the disruption of the body and the discernment of the body.

I Division of the Body

As we read the withering sarcasm of verses 17-19, it comes as no surprise that there were divisions in the Corinthian church, In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. 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. No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. Paul talks about these divisions in the first chapter. Paul does not discount the reports because they come from a reliable source, and, judging from the contents of this letter, they involve multiple issues. However, until we come to chapter 15 most of these issues are about their conduct and lack of love. Of course there is a process by which the false professor is distinguished from the true. In such doctrinal disputes either we reach unanimity or separate. The history of the Church of Christ displays this over and over. This is how liberal churches and heretical sects evolve, but most of the divisions in Corinth were petty and were not doctrinal. If we go back to 1:10, we discover that Paul does not approve these divisions but rather he pleads for unity. He emphasizes that we are not baptized into rival schools but we have the same Lord, the same faith and the same baptism. To deny this in our behavior is according to 1:17 to empty the cross of its power. This was anathema to Paul. Spurgeon said, “My entire theology can be condensed into four words, “Jesus died for me.” Paul says, “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.” Surely the Corinthians were missing the forest for the trees. They were allowing their factions and divisions to disrupt the body and rather than working towards unity they were reinforcing their differences at the Lord’s supper. In our text Paul says that they are just trying to prove who is right. They would never become a church that effectively reaches out to those who are missing out if they shot their wounded and majored on the minuses. Instead of being fishers of men, as Christ had called them they would be keepers of an ever-shrinking aquarium.

II Disruption of the Body

Paul describes the disruption in verses 20-26, When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. Don’t you have homes 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 praise you for this? Certainly not! For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night 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, 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.” For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. It consists of selfishness and self-centeredness. In the church at Corinth there were slave and free, Jew and Gentile, Greeks and Barbarians, Roman citizens and non-citizens, and those who were either cultured or ignorant as Paul says in 1:26-29. But, they didn’t share. They made the Lord’s supper more of a banquet than a sacrament, and a banquet in which the needs of the poorer and despised brethren were ignored. This is just what you might expect from people who think they’re better than one another. Some poor soul had barely enough money to bring the bread and wine necessary for the Lord’s supper. Others came and laid out huge feasts which they did not share and with which they gorged themselves. Jack London, the novelist of the north, coined a provoking thought which applies. He said, “Giving a dog a bone is not charity. Charity is sharing a bone with him when you are just as hungry as he is.” Chuck Swindoll observes that, “it is stupid that fellowship is so often limited to the narrow ranks of predictable personalities clad in ‘acceptable” attire.’ In the Bible ‘fellowship,’ koinonia, is not the frilly ‘fellowship’ of church-sponsored, biweekly bowling parties. It is not tea, cookies, and sophisticated small talk in Fellowship Hall after the sermon. It is an unconditional sharing of our lives with all the members of Christ’s body.” Actually, what Paul says about the right celebration of the supper here is the basis of our celebration centuries later. He eliminates all the trappings. He points out the solemn simple truth. This is all he received and all he delivered to them. This is a time for proclaiming Christ’s death, not a slovenly selfish demonstration. Let us not be too self-satisfied so that we do not indulge in these kinds of abuses. The old saying is, “To dwell above with the saints we love, that will be grace and glory, but to live below with the saints we know, that’s another story.” The principle here is that Christ died for all of them and they cannot properly celebrate the supper with all of their prejudices. In fact in v.20 where Paul calls it the Lord’s supper, what he means is that it is not the Lord’s at all if they do not have unity in the body. Thus Paul’s third point is discernment.

III Discernment of Body

The discussion of discernment is in verses 27-34, Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment. When we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned with the world. So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for each other. If anyone is hungry, he should eat at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment. And when I come I will give further directions. We need to understand that we’re all unworthy, and we all need Christ’s forgiveness. Partaking in an unworthy manner is something else. Paul talks about temporal judgments for those who partake in an unworthy manner in verses 30-32. Verse 32 tells us that he is not talking about eternal condemnation. The alternative to experiencing God’s judgments such as sickness or death in this life is to judge ourselves. Worthy partaking means that we get a proper understanding of the supper. We feed upon the symbol of his body. It is a symbol of our union with Christ. It is also a symbol of our unity with one another. It speaks not only of my relationship with God but of my relationship with my brother. To discern the Lord’s body in verse 29 is more than seeing that the bread represents Christ for Christ cannot be separated from His Church, His bride, His body. Therefore the bread represents not only the physical body of Christ but His spiritual body. This is exactly what Paul has already told them in i Corinthians 10:16 and 17, Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. So to discern the Lord’s body means to accept Christ but also to accept my brother because we both come to Christ with the same need and for both of us their is only one hope and that is Christ’s forgiveness. In the business section of the Tribune recently there was an article entitled “Team Players” about three combat veterans who have started a successful company in Tampa. I culled their suggestions for success because they seemed so applicable to the church in general and Corinth in particular. They included prayer, understanding that there’s more that you don’t know than you do, retaining a sense of humility along with a thirst for knowledge and recognizing that relationships are often more important than know how. If the shoe fits, wear it, especially if you live in Corinth. A wall of bricks without mortar soon crumbles. Later Paul will tell them that the Holy Spirit’s gifts are for the common good. They cannot survive without cohesiveness. Those successful veterans understand that.

Conclusion

In a sense verse 33 is the summary command, “Wait for each other and eat together.” We partake of the bread at the same place and the same time as a symbol of our unity. The Westminster Shorter Catechism answers the question of how we should worthily partake by telling us that we must have not only repentance and faith in Christ, but love and new obedience and it gives as the Scripture for love and new obedience i Corinthians 10:16 and 17, Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf. So we must not think of genuine worship as involving only our relation to God, but also our relation to our brothers. And, if there is a need for repentance in this area, we should deal with it before coming.