IS NOTHING SACRED?
A sermon by Kelly Wiant Thralls
August 3, 2008
Is Nothing Sacred?
Jeremiah 5:20-29
1 Corinthians 11:17-34
I have the pleasure of picking up with fifth week in our series on the letters to the Corinthians. I know Jim has set the stage and given you a feel for this small and contentious congregation in the port city of Corinth.
You may remember that the Corinthian congregation had people from a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds. Most were of lesser means and of lower social status. There were, however, a few wealthy and prominent members and it was these members that often hosted the house church. Members would gather in these large homes for a shared meal and worship.
It is their behavior around the shared meal that has Paul outraged in today’s passage. He can find nothing commendable in their practice of celebrating the Lord’s Supper and even goes so far as to say that their coming together is for the worse, not the better.
It turns out that some of the wealthy members were free to arrive early to hang out with friends of the same social status. There were probably servants who served food and drink. So by the time those who were poor arrived, there were picked over cold left-overs and drunk co-worshippers. In Paul’s opinion, this rude, inhospitable behavior proved that the Corinthians had completely lost sight of the meaning of the Lord’s Supper.
____
The Lord’s Supper is often a confusing ritual within the church. Because it is a ritual, we seem know that there is something significant about it, but my guess is that if you ask those participating, few could give much theological reflection upon the practice. Some find it a very powerful and an important part of worship, while others find it slow and tedious. I’ve heard both of these arguments sitting with the young people as well as with the officers of the church.
Many of you have probably heard my complaints about Communion Night at the Montreat Youth Conference. A long time ago, the night communion was served became the night the youth dressed up. It may have started as a show of respect, as in wearing your “Sunday best.”
In my opinion, however, it has become the night when the young people dress up for one another. Many of the young women wear dresses I believe appropriate only for clubbing. It has become a contest to see who is sexiest or prettiest. Each year our group attends Montreat, I lead the youth in a conversation about dressing up on Communion Night. I remind them that communion is not about dressing up to look cute for the guys. In fact, wearing a cute skirt or a fabulous pair of shoes has nothing whatsoever to do with the Lord’s Supper.
So what does it mean? Why do we participate in this confusing, powerful, and sometimes slow ritual of the Lord’s Supper?
_______
The funny thing is that if it weren’t for the fact that the Corinthians were misbehaving, we might never have learned Paul’s understanding of the Lord’s Supper nor that he considered it an integral part of worship. In that sense, we are fortunate to learn from others’ mistakes.
You may have recognized in the midst of Paul’s angry words to the Corinthians, what we now call the words of institution – the words that Jim Brown, Rev. Um, and I saw each time we break the bread or pour the cup: The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “this is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he took the cup also, after supper, saying “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.”
For Paul, who you will remember grew up in the Jewish tradition of hearing the Exodus story told over and over again, the telling of the events of the Last Supper is incredibly important. It links all who hear the words to the story of the Last Supper. It invites the current worshippers into the old story that is an ongoing story of Christ’s redemption in the world. Paul believed as I do, that if we tell the story over and over, it becomes our story, we are incorporated into it.
Why else do we tell stories over and over again? We at Market Square tell the story of the radio station WMSP. We tell the story of playing classical or jazz music and acting as DJs from the 4th floor of this building. We tell the story of Heath Allen who did some research and then convinced the session of Market Square to build a larger radio tower. Then we tell the story of selling the radio station for millions of dollars. And in so doing, we have told the story of our endowment, of one of the reasons Market Square is a healthy congregation able to reach out in generosity and able to send young people to amazing places like the Montreat Youth Conference.
We tell the story again and again because we want to invite new members into our life together. We want this story to become their story and our shared story. I was not here when WMSP existed. It was sold long before I arrived and yet, it is a part of my story now because it is a part of our collective story.
So Paul repeats the story of the Lord’s Supper reminding the Corinthians that they too are a part of it – they are the story's continuation. In the same way, we are invited into the story. It becomes our story of redemption, of our new life in Christ. And in hearing the words, we are united to every other hearer of the story.
_______
And this is the second thing Paul wants to stress. The Lord’s Supper reminds us that we are members of Christ’s body. The bread or the body that we break actually has double meaning. It is both Christ’s body and the corporate body.
So in the Lord’s Supper we are invited into communion with Christ. This is a very personal relationship, one in which we are invited to live our lives in relationship to Christ meaning we orient our lives around the teachings and the call of Jesus Christ. At the same time, we are invited into communion or into community with all those who join us at the table – with all who have heard the story. Of course, its much broader than just this table, the one before us, we are invited into communion with all brother and sisters who sit at the Lord’s table – whether it be here or in San Antonia or New Mexico or Korea or the Middle East.
The wealthy Corinthians with their full bellies and intoxicated minds failed to take into account the full meaning of the body of Christ. They failed to see their connection to their poorer brothers and sisters. In their haste to enjoy the meal and one another’s company, they disregarded and humiliated part of the body of Christ. That is why Paul was so angry. They were not demonstrating the love that a life lived in relationship to Christ requires nor were they caring for the body or the community of Christ.
_______
Of course, as I’m sure you have seen over the last four weeks, we are a lot like the Corinthians – oh so human. We too find ourselves separated by socio-economic status and by many other dividing lines. It may not happen overtly around the communion table, but we all know there are very few places in our lives where we recognize one another as members of the body of Christ. Even dressing up on Communion Night at the Montreat Youth Conference separates us. Those of wealthier means have nicer clothing and the more expensive brands. One doesn’t have to know a lot about fashion to recognize the dividing lines that are drawn simply by the clothes we wear.
There is only one place I have seen these dividing lines fall away and the body of Christ represented. This year, the body of Christ was a sea of deep blue. On Dance Night, the youth and adults at the Massanetta Middle School Conference all don their conference T-shirt. This year the shirts were royal blue so over 200 young people and adults crowded in a stuffy building to sweat it out on the dance floor.
At Massanetta, one cannot enter the dance if he or she is not wearing a conference T-shirt. To enter, you must look like everyone else. This is done for several reasons. It prevents a scenario much like the one played out each Montreat Communion Night in which young women dress to impress not God but each other and the young men around them. It removes the pressure that society has placed on young men and especially young women to look and dress a certain way. It also levels the playing field so to speak – for two hours one evening in June we all looked pretty much the same. For once our clothes did not set us apart. You could tell whose family had more money and or whose had less. For two hours on a steamy evening in June we were one body – a royal blue dancing swaying sweating body. For two hours I believe we glimpsed the body of Christ.
And then they lead us off the dance floor and into the candle lit sanctuary where to the beautiful sound of 200 young voices singing each of us were anointed with oil and reminded that we were indeed members of Christ’s body. I have a feeling Paul would have approved of Massanetta’s Dance Night and especially the anointing service that followed. For no where else have I witnessed such an intentional representation of the body of Christ.
So here is the challenge that Paul presents to the Corinthians and to us. Before you join in this ritual, before you hear the words of institution and are again invited into the story of the Lord’s Supper, before you eat the bread or drink the cup, ponder your own relationship to the body.
Ponder your relationship to Christ’s body that was broken and raised for you. Where are the places in your life that seem to fall in line with Christ’s teaching and call? Where do you find yourself wandering? When and where do you find your love of God growing cold?
And then ponder your relationship to the body of Christ. How are you connected to those that eat and drink with you? Who do you need to invite or welcome to the table? When has your willingness to serve the members of Christ’s body grown lukewarm?
Paul believed that the Lord’s Supper was an opportunity for growth for both the individual and the community. It is not a passive ritual. Yes, it can sometimes take awhile to serve an entire congregation but all the better for it give us more time to ponder and more time to begin reorienting our lives towards the body of Christ that is broken, raise, and sitting beside us.
So we believe, so let us live.