1 Corinthians 11:17-32 [NLTse]
17 But in the following instructions, I cannot praise you. For it sounds as if more harm than good is done when you meet together. 18 First, I hear that there are divisions among you when you meet as a church, and to some extent I believe it. 19 But, of course, there must be divisions among you so that you who have God’s approval will be recognized!
20 When you meet together, you are not really interested in the Lord’s Supper. 21 For some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk. 22 What? Don’t you have your own homes for eating and drinking? Or do you really want to disgrace God’s church and shame the poor? What am I supposed to say? Do you want me to praise you? Well, I certainly will not praise you for this!
23 For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord Himself. On the night when He was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread 24 and gave thanks to God for it. Then He broke it in pieces and said, “This is My body, which is given for you. Do this to remember Me.” 25 In the same way, He took the cup of wine after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant between God and His people—an agreement confirmed with My blood. Do this to remember Me as often as you drink it.” 26 For every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord’s death until He comes again.
27 So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup. 29 For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died.
31 But if we would examine ourselves, we would not be judged by God in this way. 32 Yet when we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned along with the world.
The well-to-do in first-century Greco-Roman cities like Corinth lived in dwellings architecturally known as domas. A domus included multiple rooms, indoor courtyards, gardens, and beautifully painted walls that were elaborately laid out. The vestibulum (entrance hall) led into a large central hall called the atrium, which was the focal point of the domus and contained a statue of an altar to the household gods. Leading off the atrium were cubicula (bedrooms), a dining room (called a triclinium) where guests could recline on couches and eat dinner whilst reclining, a tablinum (the living room or study) and tabernae (that is, the owners shops on the exterior that faced the street).
During dinner parties, festivals, and religious banquets in Greco-Roman society, hosts often reserved the limited seating in the triclinium (which means “three couches”) for members of their own social class. (Nine persons could be seated in a typical triclinium, reclining three to a couch.) Then, as many as forty others could be served in the adjoining atrium-courtyard. At such gatherings the guests in the atrium would often be served inferior food and inferior drink, and often complained about it.
The churches in first-century Corinth met in the homes of the well-to-do among their congregations, and it seems that this societal pattern of preferring some over others had spilled over into the church.
At different times across 1 Corinthians Paul addresses the divisions the Corinthian church had become known for: Some follow Paul; others follow Cephas (that is, Simon Peter); others follow Apollos; and others even seemed to be so arrogant as to make clear that they followed Christ! Paul highlights their arrogance here, sarcastically, saying, “Of course, there must be divisions among you so that you who have God’s approval will be recognized!” For many of these Corinthians it’s become all about being known for Christ, being recognized as a part of the “right church”. But Paul isn’t pleased: Their divisions “disgrace God’s church and shame the poor,” he says.
In the first-century church, when the Lord’s Supper was celebrated it included a fellowship mean that ended with Communion. (Like the Seder meal we celebrate each Maundy Thursday downstairs in Fellowship Hall.) It seems that in Corinth the fellowship meal had become a time when some ate and drank excessively while others went hungry and without. There was little sharing or caring. And this certainly did not demonstrate the unity and love that should characterize Christ’s church, nor was it good preparation for Communion.
The Corinthians seemed to have lost sight of the sacredness of the Passover celebration the Lord’s Supper was based upon: When the Lord was preparing Israel for the exodus from Egypt and the body of the sacrificed Passover Lamb was eaten and its blood was painted on the doorposts of the Israelite homes; and every house marked with the Lamb’s blood was “passed over” when the Destroyer came to slay the firstborn of family and flock dwelling the land of Egypt. Likewise, Jesus took the bread and said, “This is My body,” and we eat it, and He said of the cup, “This is My blood,” and as we drink we paint it on our hearts so that the Destroyer passes over us when the time for the “second death” comes. (The Revelation speaking of the “first death” as the death we die here in this life, but the “second death” being that condemnation to the Lake of Fire when Jesus comes again to judge the living and the dead once and for all time.)
And so Paul warns them not to eat the bread or take the cup unworthily: Because how can someone take lightly or jokingly the saving gift of Jesus’ body and blood offered to us in the bread and the cup? The Lord’s Supper is a visible representation showing the death of Christ for our sins. It reminds us of Christ’s death, and it reminds us of the glorious hope of His return! When we participate our faith is strengthened through fellowship with Christ, and our faith is strengthened through fellowship with other believers. And just as Peter warned the husbands reading his first letter how dishonoring their wives inhibited their prayers, likewise, participating in the Lord’s Supper while dishonoring others in the Body of Christ is eating and drinking unworthily: And many among the Corinthian Christians were sick and dying – not receiving the healing God had for them – because they weren’t treating each other as they should. (And because they weren’t treating as holy, wondrous, and awe-filled the sacrifice of the Passover Lamb Who has set us free.)
Do we have any elementary-aged kids in the congregation this morning? [Raise hands.] Any teenagers? [Raise hands.] “Does it matter to you that Jesus died on the cross for you? That He loves you that much? That He wants to be with you so much that He would go to such lengths to draw you near, through His death?” Anybody here single? [Raise hands.] Or newly married? [Raise hands.] Any widows or widowers? [Raise hands.] Or anyone married for 50 years or more? [Raise hands.] “Does it matter to you that your sins have been forgiven? Does it matter that in giving you the Holy Spirit He’s given you power to change things here on the Earth as you pray? Does it matter to you that He grants you grace to stand against every temptation and guidance to know the ways you are to go here in this world? “Anybody going away to college soon? [Raise hands.] Anybody going away to war? [Raise hands.] Anybody here grieving? [Raise hands.] Anybody here considering leaving your marriage? Or looking for work? Or hating your work? [Raise hands.]” Does it matter to you that, with everybody so afraid of death that, for you, death is just that last leg of the journey home to Paradise with God? Does it matter that Christ has completely taken the punishment for your sin, that you are unpunishable here in this world? Does it matter to you that, no matter what life throws your way that nothing can ever separate you from the love of God He’s shown you in Christ Jesus our Lord? Because all that is what we celebrate and all that is what we look forward to every time we eat this bread and drink this cup and keep on proclaiming His saving death until He comes again!