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The Apostle Guides Us To The Table

            What a mess!  The apostle Paul must have been ready to pull his hair out.  Here he was in Ephesus, trying to manage the situation in that congregation, which was not easy, when from across the pond came the report of what was going on in the congregation in Corinth.  Even though he had spent a year and a half getting that congregation up and running, the social scene left its dirty fingerprints so that the congregation began to reflect what was going on in the community – a mess.  Members played favorites among the called staff, and factions led to friction.  An open case of adultery was ignored like an unattended open wound.  Members of the congregation were suing each other, hanging out dirty laundry for all to see even if the laundry had only minor stains.  Veteran Christians trampled on the sensitivity of new Christians, leaving a trail of hurt feelings.  Even the worship services were a mess.  Can you imagine one pastor turning on his mic to speak and halfway into his sermon the other pastor turning on his mic and preaching with the Minister of Discipleship shouting from the back of the room all at the same time?  Disrespect for God’s guidelines for gender interaction added another layer of disarray.

            Then came the matter of their friendship meals.  You might think, “What’s wrong with those?”  Here’s what was going on.  Let’s say one of our Grace Groups decided to meet each week on Sunday evening for a potluck meal.  Let’s say that some of the group members were blessed by God with a substantial income and decided to have the meals catered, featuring plenty of expensive food and adult beverages.  That’s what was happening in Corinth.  Soon enough the weekly party-ers got carried away and excluded other members who wanted to join in the fun, but near the end of each week’s party they decided to have a worship service with communion to which they then invited other members and also people from the community.  You can imagine the shock of trying to celebrate the Lord’s Supper with people who were giggling and a bit tipsy, to say nothing of total strangers being given the impression that the Lord’s Supper was the tail-end of a party.  So, among all the instructions in this letter to clean up the mess in the Corinthian congregation, the apostle included guidelines for the Lord’s Supper.

            We gather each year on Maundy Thursday for a special service that focuses on this meal.  We aren’t dealing with the kind of mess that was going on in Corinth, but reviewing what happens at Holy Communion is always time well spent especially when we recall that we are susceptible to making a mess of it by either viewing it as a good luck charm to make us feel better when we’re sick or by falling off the other side of the horse and taking it for granted.  This meal is not like a fast-food restaurant where you don’t have to think, just stand in line, and say, “I’ll have the ‘Number Three’ with a Diet Coke.”  Nor is it an all-you-can eat buffet where you keep an eye on the server bringing a fresh tray from the kitchen so you can make a mad dash and not have to elbow past other people to get the Hunan Kung Pao chicken or pizza with your favorite toppings.  It’s more like fine dining when the maitre d’ guides you to a lovely table to join your dear friends in a delightful and memorable meal.  That’s why we appreciate what the apostle wrote and want to spend some time pondering as, The Apostle Guides Us To The Table.

Showing us the powerful ingredients

            What’s on your menu for Easter?  I realize some of you might be going out for an Easter brunch, some might be traveling, and some might be all alone with an Easter meal featuring a deli sandwich and popcorn.  But for those who are home, the answer to what’s on the menu varies from house to house and from year to year.  Even if your family plans on an Easter ham every year, the side dishes might change.  So, if you have guests, they might be curious, “What’s on the menu?”  It might go even deeper once they taste an item that is just tops.  “What’s in this?” they ask.  They want to know about the ingredients and sometimes even ask for the recipe.

            The apostle Paul wanted all the folks in Corinth to understand that the Lord did not set up this meal to be a venue for leftovers from a friendship meal or potluck party, but a meal with special ingredients.  “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.”  On the night he was betrayedtakes us to the upper room in Jerusalem where Jesus and his disciples had gathered for the Passover meal.   Each spring the Israelites were to eat the same ingredients their ancestors ate on the night they raced out of Egypt to escape the enslaving Egyptian king – roasted lamb, bitter salad, and un-yeasted flat bread.  Wine was the beverage, typically diluted with water.  So, we know that Jesus gave to his disciples and gives to us bread and wine in this meal.  But there’s more!  By his divine power that goes beyond our brain power, he combines with the bread the body he lived in and with the wine the blood he shed.  This meal then becomes not some ritualistic, cannibalistic chewing on Jesus’ arm or sucking blood from his veins but a miraculous meal of four ingredients – Jesus’ own body and blood together with bread and wine.

            The big question is why?  To find the answer, you and I need look no farther than our birth certificate.  If we are human beings, then we have not only inherited from our parents a DNA mix but a spiritual disease that grows and spreads and pops out in the warts of jealously and greed, festering sores of half-truths and lies, the disgusting disfigurement of self-centeredness, and the bile that fuels I-don’t-really-need-you-Lord-because-I’m-OK-on-my-own, a disease that is humanly incurable.  Left on our own, we are the living dead.

            “Lord, have mercy on us,” we cry.  Surprisingly he did, and he does.  He offered the cure – a life with no stain or stink, no rot or rebellion, lived in the body of the God-man, Jesus, and a death to pay for our failures, captured in the bleeding of the God-man, Jesus.  That is the cure for our spiritual disease, a cure proclaimed and conveyed to us through the Holy Scriptures.  But because God knows us so well, because he knows we tend to forget, because he knows we still revert to our old ways, our old habits, and worry that he might change his mind and remove the cure, he found a way to put the cure – the life we should have led, embodied in the body of Jesus, and the payment for sin we should have made, embodied in the blood of Jesus – he found a way to put that cure miraculously in, with, and under a thin un-yeasted piece of bread and a tiny sip of wine.  The apostle guides us to the table where we eat and drink these powerful ingredients so that we internalize the cure, assuring us of the words of the Lord Jesus himself, “This is for you.  This is the new covenant, the promise of my curative love.  Eat and drink, and be assured through the eating and drinking of these powerful ingredients that as far as I am concerned, you are whole!”

Showing us the invited participants

            What would you think of a stranger knocking at your door one evening and saying, “I was walking by and could see in the window that you were at the table with your family.  The food looked really inviting, and the wonderful aromas have wafted through the door.”  Just like that, he strolls past you to the dining room, sits down, and starts to help himself.  By the time you recover from the surprise and return to the table, he has already swallowed a few bites.  Suddenly his face turns red.  He starts to cough and sneeze.  He gasps for air and doubles over with cramps.  You rush to help as he wheezes, “Are there peanuts in this food?  I have a severe peanut allergy” … all of which could have been prevented if you had a chance to get to know the person first, build a relationship with him, and invite him to dinner.  The ingredients in your meal were powerful.  They provided nutrients for most folks there.  But for anyone unprepared, they can have the opposite effect and actually cause harm.

            We really love visitors and are delighted when guests come through our church doors.  That’s why we invite everyone to worship.  We want everyone to hear about Jesus.  But we love and respect people so much that we don’t invite everyone to this table because we don’t want anyone to damage their connection with God.  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.  The apostle guides us to this table and makes it clear that if a person is not prepared for these powerful ingredients, they could have the opposite affect and bring spiritual harm.

            So how do we prepare so that the powerful ingredients will benefit us?  The apostle guides us to the table and helps us recognize the invited participants.  A person ought to examine himself before he eats of the bread and drinks of the cup.  When I examine myself, then first of all, I will be believing firmly in my heart, “I care about all the Bible’s truths.”  If I don’t really believe that Jesus is who he says he is, if I view him as a fine morality teacher and not as my substitute, if I don’t believe that he can miraculously merge his own body and blood with bread and wine, if I think this is just some memorial ceremony, if I in some way poo-poo the ingredients, then I am no better than those who spit on Jesus at his trial and those who mocked him when he was on the cross.  Then I am not prepared for this meal.

            When I examine myself, then I will be believing firmly in my heart, “I care about my personal relationship with God and crave his forgiveness.”  If I do not recognize the negative impact of my sin on my relationship with God and other people, if I do not come to grips with the sad reality of my sins in general, if I have glossed over specific sins as no big deal, then I am not prepared for this meal.

            When I examine myself, then I will be believing firmly in my heart, “I care about the connection I have with the people around me.”  If I think that this meal is private and just between God and me, if I think that I do not have an impact on others when I worship and commune with them, if I don’t care about sharing the support system of oneness of faith with those around me, then I am not prepared for this meal.

            To be an invited participant I need to be mature enough spiritually and mentally to think through that kind of self-examination.  If I would like to be an invited participant and have not learned that kind of self-examination, then I need to talk to a fellow Christian or a pastor to find out more about it.  Otherwise, I will be like a person with a bad cold at the pharmacy buying whatever I can get my hands on, which might be powerful medicine but which might have adverse side effects for me.  Members of our congregation know that they are invited participants not because they are so worthy but because they followed the apostle’s guiding to the table and learned how to examine themselves and prepare.  We are absolutely thrilled when guests desire to be participants in this meal.  That’s why we ask those guests, who are not members, before participating to spend some time learning in a Bible study with us how to prepare so after that they, too, can be an invited participant.

            Why not just skip this meal altogether?  I suppose a Christian could do that.  But that would be like saying “No” to your spouse if he or she offers a hug when you’re feeling down.  Why would we not want a hug from the Savior when we’ve made messes of our lives?  This meal won’t make life’s messes go away, but it does offer powerful ingredients to help us cope.  Nothing fancy here, but the apostle is the maitre d’ and guides us to the table to see that this meal may look simple, but its ingredients are holding the Son of God.  That must have been what the Virgin Mary was thinking when he was a baby.  That must have been what the disciples were thinking when he was asleep in the boat during a storm.  He doesn’t look like he can help, but he does.  This Supper doesn’t look like much.  But Jesus’ promises attached make it a meal that is elegant and beneficial, a meal we want to enjoy again and again.   Amen.

Preached at Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI (www.gracedowntown.org) on April 21, 2011

Services

Sundays 7:45, 9:00 & 10:30 am

Mondays 6:30 pm

Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church | 1209 North Broadway Milwaukee, WI 53202 | (414) 271-3006

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