PASSAGE FOR THE DAY:
1 Corinthians 11 (click the link)
REFLECTIONS:
I'd like to focus on the verses 20-34. Here they are, taken from The Message.
20-22 And then I find that you
bring your divisions to worship—you come together, and instead of eating the
Lord’s Supper, you bring in a lot of food from the outside and make pigs of
yourselves. Some are left out, and go home hungry. Others have to be carried
out, too drunk to walk. I can’t believe it! Don’t you have your own homes to
eat and drink in? Why would you stoop to desecrating God’s church? Why would
you actually shame God’s poor? I never would have believed you would stoop to
this. And I’m not going to stand by and say nothing.
23-26 Let me go over with you
again exactly what goes on in the Lord’s Supper and why it is so centrally
important. I received my instructions from the Master himself and passed them
on to you. The Master, Jesus, on the night of his betrayal, took bread. Having
given thanks, he broke it and said,
This is my body, broken for you.
Do this to remember me.
After supper, he did the same
thing with the cup:
This cup is my blood, my new
covenant with you.
Each time you drink this cup,
remember me.
What you must solemnly realize is
that every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you
reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master. You will be drawn
back to this meal again and again until the Master returns. You must never let
familiarity breed contempt.
27-28 Anyone who eats the bread or
drinks the cup of the Master irreverently is like part of the crowd that jeered
and spit on him at his death. Is that the kind of “remembrance” you want to be
part of? Examine your motives, test your heart, come to this meal in holy awe.
29-32 If you give no thought (or
worse, don’t care) about the broken body of the Master when you eat and drink,
you’re running the risk of serious consequences. That’s why so many of you even
now are listless and sick, and others have gone to an early grave. If we get
this straight now, we won’t have to be straightened out later on. Better to be
confronted by the Master now than to face a fiery confrontation later.
33-34 So, my friends, when you
come together to the Lord’s Table, be reverent and courteous with one another.
If you’re so hungry that you can’t wait to be served, go home and get a
sandwich. But by no means risk turning this Meal into an eating and drinking
binge or a family squabble. It is a spiritual meal—a love feast.
In verses 24-36 Paul reminds us of the words Jesus spoke the night of the Last Supper. He reminds us that each time we partake in the feast to do so in remembrance.
The early church gathered for this feast and broke bread together in remembrance just as Jesus had instructed. But, just as we are want to do, they quickly lost sight of the meaning and purpose behind it. The rich, who had easier schedules to follow, would show up to the feast early, eat all the good food and pass well into drunkenness before the poor laborers would even get to the feast. How can you remember Jesus Christ and the sacrifice he made for you and give it the reverence it deserves, if before you even start you have already given over to contempt and divisiveness? Paul chastises the church saying: if you are so hungry you can’t wait for everyone—eat beforehand; if you drink until you have to be helped home, the sanctity of the supper is already lost on you; if you have a division between your rich and your poor then you have already lost sight of Jesus.
Paul warns them “do not let familiarity breed contempt.” Whoops. Who can stand with me and say “guilty as charged”? I feel the chastising sting from Paul even several hundred years later. I know that have found myself in that same boat in our modern day service. I have been guilty of taking the Lord’s Supper for granted. I say with my words, Lord I am doing this in remembrance of you while in my head I am making the grocery list for the day or wondering if my children are behaving in Children’s Church. I am not focused on Jesus. Then Paul reminds them to “examine their motives, test your heart, [and] come to this meal in holy awe.” What a wonderful reminder, even if it is a chastisement. Sometimes I get so comfortable in my traditions that I forget to that not only should I be focused on the “why” of the Lord’s Supper and truly remembering Jesus and his sacrifice and his return, but that I should do so with a holy awe. I love those words. I know that I, having been a Christian most of my life, sometimes get so bogged down in the familiarity of the story of salvation that I forget to truly stand in awe of what it means. Paul says that to lose sight of that will bring condemnation to us all.
APPLICATION:
Most of don’t partake in a feast of remembrance anymore. The Lord’s Supper is done in different ways at different churches. Some churches offer it every Sunday, some churches offer it once a month. You can find it being passed out by priests or passed along in a silver tray. However it is taken, we should still stand in holy awe of the significance of it. Join me the next time you partake in the Lord’s Supper by truly focusing on the sacrifice of Jesus and worship joyfully in his promise that he is coming again.
PRAYER:
Lord, help me to never lose myself in the familiarity of our traditions. Help me to always stand in holy awe of your son Jesus and his sacrifice.
WHO AM I?
My name is Amanda Preece. I am blessed to be the mother of 4 wonderful children, one of whom is truly the cutest baby in the world.
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