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. 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. (1 Corinthians 11:17-34)
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A few years ago there was a public opinion survey done. Those polled were offered 20 short phrases to choose from and were asked to pick which one was most meaningful to them. The top three choices seemed especially relevant for today. The words most people appreciated were “I love you.” The next most appreciated words were “I forgive you.” And third - and I can relate to this one as well - were the words “Supper’s ready!” In a way, although this wasn’t a religious poll, those three sayings do a not bad job of summing up what’s important about our faith, and today those three statements kind of sum up what we’re about as a worshiping community. We have a mix of symbols before us. On the one hand, we have our Communion table set. You’ll be invited to partake of what we call formally “the elements,” and informally “the gifts of God,” and colloquially “the bread and wine” - except they’re not really bread and wine … but that’s a whole other issue! You’ll come forward to the table (all of you who want to, without exception) and receive a little round (and admittedly rather tasteless) wafer, and a tiny cup of grape juice, and that’s Communion. And you’ll do it confronted by the signs of abundance with which we have the front of the sanctuary decorated this morning. And we have these two contrasting images before us because of the great collision between Thanksgiving and World Wide Communion Sunday - a collision that only happens when October 7 is a Sunday: the first Sunday of October is set aside as a Communion Sunday by as many Christian denominations as could be convinced to do so, so that as many Christians as possible could actually receive Communion on the same day, and October 7 is the first Sunday of October; and since the second Monday of October is Thanksgiving Day in Canada, October 7 is the day before the second Monday in October, and so it’s Thanksgiving Sunday in church for us. And so we have the collision. It’s not exactly Titanic meets the iceberg, but it explains the contrasting images.
I’ve skipped over a fair chunk of 1 Corinthians. These were the sections in which Paul briefly addressed some of the more “worldly issues” the Corinthians were struggling with. I skipped over them because they really aren’t issues that are a part of the modern church or world. We’ve moved today to the part of the letter that deals with more spiritual concerns, and Paul begins this part of the letter with a discussion about what we call today Holy Communion. This passage is the only scriptural depiction we have of the early church’s commemoration of Jesus’ Last Supper - and it’s not a pretty sight. As in so many other ways, the Corinthians were having a lot of problems with this memorial. But what we can also figure out is that what we call Holy Communion isn’t what the earliest church thought of as the memorial to Jesus’ last supper. I think - given the type of elements we use in church today - that we’ve forgotten that this was a “supper” - a full meal; indeed, a Passover meal, and so probably a fairly substantial one. If we wanted to recreate the type of meal they had at Corinth to remember Jesus, it would have been more appropriate to have done it last Sunday down in the banquet hall after church over the peameal on a bun (although Jesus, of course, wouldn’t have eaten bacon!) As in so many other things, though, the Corinthians had a problem with their version of Holy Communion. It had become the source of division around which the people of God were divided into the haves and the have nots, rather than the table of unity in which the people of God acknowledged themselves as brothers and sisters, God’s children, equally beloved by God.
“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.” It seems pretty clear from the context of the letter that what was happening was that the wealthy Corinthians Christians were claiming the abundance of the meal for themselves, and that the poorer Corinthians Christians were being left on the outside, kept away from the table, as if they weren’t worthy to be there. That’s why Paul goes on to say “do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?” Communion is nothing if it isn’t real communion; if it isn’t the occasion for God’s people to gather together in complete equality and setting aside all of the differences of social class or race or age or gender or opinion or ideology or whatever else it might be and simply enjoy the fellowship of the table. In a society in which there is greater and greater distinction between the haves and the have nots - a society in which the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer - the church must be the place where those distinctions are set aside, and the table of the Lord is the place where that has to begin. I’m thinking again about that survey I mentioned. The table of the Lord is the place where “I love you,” “I forgive you,” and “supper’s ready!” come together as we share not only the supper provided by God, but also the love and the forgiveness of God.
So, the table is open. It’s open for all. And all are equal at it.
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