“But in the following instructions, I cannot praise you. For it sounds as if more harm than good is done when you meet together. First, I hear that there are divisions among you when you meet as a church, and to some extent I believe it. But, of course, there must be divisions among you so that you who have God’s approval will be recognized! When you meet together, you are not really interested in the Lord’s Supper.” 1 Corinthians 11:17-20 NLT
Paul is really heated here, writing to the churches in Corinth. It’s so ironic that the most eloquently written summary of Communion and most often used in our services today was written in such brutal honesty.
Paul, delivering high truth with high love gets all over the church for being selfishly schismed! They came as individuals, ate and drank as individuals and thought nothing of it. This idea of unity has been the core of my heart and the exhortation towards the Church for as long as I can remember. Love FOR God is both vertical and horizontal. I’ve been saying it for years. Someone says they love God, the proof is how they love the least, the hardest, the most disenfranchised among them.
Paul’s exasperated joke falls on dense eyes and ears, “of course there has to be division…” how could anyone tell if there’s a clear leader if there weren’t wealth, gluttony and authoritative snobbery? Does God only bless the best?
Our sacrament to God should be a practice of sacrifice, service and unity. It should be clear that the rich are sharing, not in a communistic fashion, but in God-given generosity. It’s not to equalize wealth, it’s to love! And the strong and mature are serving.
I love the bluntness of the NLT, they were not interested in the “Lord’s” supper at all, to some it was just another party.
These abuses in the love feast ended up damaging communion so badly that it took on a far more formal, ecumenical style. It was later reduced and compacted into a far more ceremonial experience where communion had to be served to people rather than people serving one another. Chalk another great living object lesson lost to the church believing we should do it properly, the way it’s “always been done.”
PRAYER:
Dad,
Revisiting this always make me sad and mad at how we’ve taken a beautiful experience and expression of theology being lived out together in the church and reduced it to a checklist. I don’t mind the miniature symbolism as much as I mind the loss of community, service and intent to remind us of being a true body of believers. That we have to fight much harder to remove the individualism in communion or water baptism, for that matter, to get back to a shared community expression of our to you and each other. Help us O’ Lord!