“The Sacraments - The Lord’s Supper Part 1” Psalm 65 1 Cor 11: 17-34

 “Let us break bread together, on our knees. Let us break bread together, on our knees. When I fall on my knees, with my face to the rising sun, O Lord have mercy on me.”

“One bread, one body, one Lord of all; One cup of blessing which we bless, And we, though many, throughout the Earth. We are one body in this one Lord.”

There are many beautiful hymns to usher us in to celebrating the Lord’s Supper. That set our hearts in a place where we can reflect on what the bread and cup mean to us. But well before we had these hymns of the faith, we have had the story. The story of what took place on that night when Jesus gave himself up for us. A story that was handed down throughout the ages, included handed down to the Apostle Paul. 

Paul has traveled away from one of the churches that he had established, a church in Corinth. But after he left, he heard rumblings that things were not going well. While many folks think of the beautiful scripture read at weddings from 1 Corinthians, the truth is that this body of believers was a mess. There were divisions and in fighting. Folks were being welcomed based off of wealth and status, not the fact that they were brothers and sisters in Christ. Including when it came to celebrating the Lord’s Supper, which was set in the context of a much bigger meal.

So throughout this letter to the Corinthians, Paul needs to get back to basics. In fact, you know its pretty bad when Paul starts out this section of the letter by saying essentially, “I have nothing good to up lift about how you are celebrating the Lord’s Supper, because you are harming one another through it.” Ouch!

The Corinthians need to remember what this Supper is all about in the first place. Now each of the Gospel accounts tell the story of Jesus’s final meal with his disciples before his death a little differently. Paul’s account here is probably closest to that found in the the 22nd chapter of the Gospel of Luke, but even then, it isn’t identical. But for Paul it isn’t about getting everything exactly right, its about remembering, individually and together, what Christ has done on our behalf. 

But it is really hard to communally remember, if you are divided. Consider what its like when you are at a family gathering. We have spent a lot of time this past year in my family telling stories. Looking through old photographs and watching videos. And then we tell each other and tell together what happened. Do you remember when that took place? Or who is the person sitting there, I don’t recognize them. And as we tell the story in that way it expands and becomes so much richer than any version of the event we could have told on our own. We have something much fuller to pass on to the generations that come after us. 

That version of communally remember is so much different than people shouting corrections over one another or telling someone that their version of the story is wrong. 

If we are lucky, we have beautiful communal moments like the first example, but we probably all have events that comes to mind that would be like the second example. Which is better for remembering together? Which is more rich in passing down the important events from generation to generation?

The first for sure. But that is not where the Corinthian church finds itself. They are firmly living into the second example, if they are listening to one another at all. And Paul has had enough. This is not the faith that he handed to them and this is not the faith that they are to pass on to others. 

And for Paul if you aren’t coming together to tell that story of our faith, coming together to remember as the body of Christ what has been done for you, then you are missing what this meal is all about. 

Its not about honoring some and excluding others. Or feeding one to their fill and giving another scraps. Its about what we are remembering. Its about the why of the celebration. 

To which, Paul calls to mind the story of Jesus’s last night with disciples, when he took the items that would have already been on the table and gave them a new meaning. We sometimes miss that fact as Christians. Jesus was celebrating the Passover Meal, a whole meal that was steeped in remembering what God had done when he brought his people out of Egypt and the promise he made to be with them and be their God. 

Now Jesus took some of those same things, the bread and the cup, and gave them meaning that points to a different covenant. The covenant that will come by his broken body and blood split to set us free from the sin that has held us captive. 

Paul has no time for turning the table that is all about the forgiveness of sins into a place for sinning. It denigrates what Christ has offered. Paul essentially is saying that if the Corinthians confess what they have been doing, they too, can be forgiven. Even for their division. 

The table of Christ is not a place for division, my friends. It is a place for unity - for oneness. That’s why we only have one loaf of bread present on the table and one cup that we give God thanks for. And when we celebrate this meal, we not only live into the command that Jesus gave his original disciples, but we, too, remember. Remember who we are and remember why this story has changed us. Remember what we are to be about as Jesus’s disciples in the world today. 

Christ, in his words, wrote the sermon that he wanted us to hear every time we come around the table. It is short, but we are to write it in our hearts and minds. And we are to pass it on. 

So how do we do that? How do we pass on the meaning of this holy meal? First, we tell the story. Jesus was so wise when he took ordinary things and used them to explain something exrodinary. By taking something that we see every day, bread and a cup, and using them as symbols, they serve as reminders and starting points for us to share with the world. It’s like when we see a rainbow in the sky and it brings to mind the promise that God gave to Noah. Or water pointing us to the gift of baptism. Or a wedding band on your finger that reminds you of the vows you made. Symbols help us to remember and realign our lives, but also declare. 

But it isn’t enough, friends, to declare a truth with our lips and not live it out with our lives. The Corinthians are doing that and it just doesn’t work. Instead, we also need to live out the love that this table points us to. It is a reminder to love others as Christ first loved us. We don’t just tell about what happened around the table for our sake, we live it out for the sake of those who do not yet know.

When we tell and live it out, then we go from observers of the table to true participants. We go from admirers of Christ to disciples of Christ. We go as people who sing songs, like Psalm 65, of the forgiveness of sins and what great things God has done. We go forth, not as people who have to have all the answered, but certainly as people who have been transformed. So let us go forth, my friends. Amen.