Table Manners

As we read last week, the church at Corinth struggled with balancing living in the culture that surrounded them and living their faith. Since in Christ we are not bound by the law, what are our boundaries? Paul’s response, remember, is that while all things are lawful, not all things are beneficial or constructive. “Therefore,” he teaches, “whatever you do, whatever you eat or drink, do everything to the glory of God and be imitators of Christ.”

As the congregation gathered continued to listen, again, it became clear that someone had shared with Paul what was really going on. The words had to sting. “I do not commend you, because when you gather for the Lord’s Supper it is not for better, but for worse.”
So, what is happening? The Corinthians do not have little pieces of bread cut and juice in little cups. The first Lord’s Supper was Jesus’s last supper, and it was a Passover meal. When the Corinthians gather to celebrate the Lord’s Supper, they are having a full meal. They aren’t gathering in a Fellowship Hall at a church, but at someone’s home. And, if the whole church is coming over, it needs to be someone with a fairly large home. Large homes belonged to people who were more well off. Those who were wealthy prided themselves on their hospitality. Inside the home would be a room that was for reclining and dining for the host and their closest friends. These dining rooms usually accommodated about 9 people. The best wine and food would be served here. And then there would be more rooms, with food and drink of lesser quality. Then, those who arrived last, the freedmen and slaves, would stand around or sit around the atrium of the home outside, which generally could accommodate another 30-40 people. Now, of course, sometimes by the time the last folks got off work, the food and wine would have run out. “What! Shall I commend you in this?” asks Paul, “No, I will not.”

It is easy from outside the community to see the divisions, the exclusive groupings. But, if you were among the privileged, you might not have noticed. After all, you arrived and reclined where you were invited, you ate and drank and visited – how were you to know that there were others who didn’t get food?

We might act surprised, but it’s not unheard of today. I know a church where a sign had to be put up on the buffet line for Wednesday Night Dinners that take-away food for leftovers had to be packed after everyone had the opportunity to go through the line, because several weeks in a row by the time the end of the line made it to the buffet table all the meat was gone and the last people arriving to Wednesday night dinner were hungry and irritated. Then, after the sign appeared, the people who had been packing up the food were irritated because they didn’t eat that much, so they felt like they had paid plenty to be able to pack up some meat for later.

I myself have been part of MULTIPLE conversations about church fellowship gatherings where a main point of discussion was how to mix people up so they didn’t just eat with their friends.

I know of another church where the women get together to plan church dinners and they already know who will make what…and even after years of attending, newer people to the community are never asked to bring a dish.

In the church in Corinth, when they had dinner, those with free time to come early and relax came early, and those doing everything they could just to make it at all came later, old timers sat together and new comers sat together, the divided into insiders and outsiders, there were people who shared history that went back to when their kids were little, people who had worked together for years, people who spent time together socially because they could afford the same entertainments, and people whose children hadn’t been friends with their children, people who worked longer hours at more menial labor and couldn’t afford to keep up the social calendar…that’s what they are dealing with in the church at Corinth…not that un-like what we do when we gather, really.

So, when you come together to eat as the church, because that is what the Lord’s Supper is, it is any time the church comes together to eat together, Paul says, this isn’t just any meal. This isn’t a social occasion like other parties. Wait for one another. Allow the Body of Christ to be put back together, to be re-membered. Jesus is re-membered as the community of believers comes together in love, care, and respect.

Paul recounts Jesus’s institution of the Supper. This is the earliest record we have of what happened at the last supper, remember, because Paul is writing before the Gospels were written. What we know about the observance of the Passover in 1st Century Israel comes from Philo, a 1st Century Jew, who described “the Passover as a festival of thanksgiving: “And this festival is instituted in remembrance of, and as giving thanks [eucharistia] for, their great migration which they made from Egypt.” Philo focuses on two key reasons for the Passover: remembrance and thanksgiving (cf. Ex. 12:14, 13:3)” Paul writes that “The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 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.” 25 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.” 26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.”

One of the ways that we ensure that all are able to come to the Table and receive Communion is to use bread and juice that everyone can eat and drink. The Directory for Worship instructs that “The bread used for the Lord’s Supper should be common to the culture of the congregation; those who prepare the bread shall make provision for the full participation of the congregation “(W-3.0413) and a non-alcoholic option shall be provided for the wine. Our bread, as a result is gluten, nut, dairy, and soy free to ensure that we allow as many as possible to receive without concern for allergic reaction. And our cup is unfermented juice rather than wine.

But what about at home? Is there a right or wrong way to prepare the elements or are there requirements? The requirement is that you be included and not be made to feel less than. Your bread can be a pinch of a hotdog bun, or a cracker, or a Poptart, or some oatmeal; it can be any food, preferably something that is like bread, or that comes from grain, but really, anything that fills you and sustains you. Your cup can be wine or grape juice, orange or apply juice, or water – any drink.

What matters is how you receive it, not what substance you receive. And that is what Paul objects to. The Corinthians are treating the Lord’s Supper like any other social gathering, eating and drinking without unity, without community. Paul writes, “Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup.”

Over the centuries some have used these words to create a fence around the Table, to keep out the sinners, to make sure that only the holy receive the holy Sacrament. But, we know that is not what Paul intended, and it certainly is not what Jesus intended. This bread and this drink are ordinary, and so are we, until we receive them. So, before we receive them, we need to get ready to be made holy. We need to examine ourselves. In the Reformed church, the need to prepare has shaped our worship liturgy. The call to reconciliation, prayer of confession, kyrie, and assurance of pardon are a formalized part of our preparation to receive the Sacrament.

I suspect that having a liturgy of confession to follow wouldn’t have fixed things at Corinth, though. The problem is more than words that need to be said. The problem is relationships that need to be transformed.

A friend of mine from seminary has recently been diagnosed with a brain tumor. She just finished her second week of chemo and radiation. She wrote this reflection on her CaringBridge site about how those who don’t know what she is going through, wouldn’t know at this point if they didn’t really know her. I think what Paul is saying to the Corinthians and to us is that we are to be prepared with this kind of knowing one another as we come to be united by Christ at this Table. This is what she wrote:

…all week I’ve been pondering old adages; still waters run deep, don’t judge a book by its cover, appearances can be deceiving, you never know someone’s full story, what they’re carrying or have experienced.

It’s part of what’s made this so surreal, unbelievable and what prompted my daughter, early on to exclaim “I think it’s a colossal misdiagnosis!” I look good. Healthy even. I trittrot in the morning with friends and, when I can, take an evening stroll. I nap regularly and can’t mentally juggle quite as many things. My hair is thinning but my radiation oncologist says likely another week till big handfuls come out prompting a radical new ‘do. So I look ‘normal.’

I was thinking about this in light of a typical Sunday morning as we welcome and greet those sitting next to us in the pew; how many of us look ‘ok’ even when that may be the furthest thing from the truth. We put on our Sunday best, smile brightly, ask ‘how are you’ reply ‘fine thanks and you.’ We’re neither lying nor being fully honest. We simply haven’t invited one another into the kinds of deep relationships that can hold the fullness of our lives. Yet I wonder if this is the most important task to which we’re called as churches – inviting one another into deep, meaningful relationships. When Jesus told Peter to cast his nets in the deep water, then called him to follow – I wonder if the lesson was less about miracles and fish and more about realizing that the things we hunger for aren’t easily spotted and scooped up from the shallows but require a trust in that which we cannot see. And I wonder if the invitation was less to follow and more to enter into the kind of relationship that can withstand doubt, questions and betrayal and still sit down to supper together.

How many hurting people who look fine are sitting in the pew next to you? I know the work of relationship building is exhausting – inviting people out for a walk, or coffee, or sitting down, more than once, beside a visitor or member you don’t know well and not being in a hurry to catch up with friends. Or when we have fellowship meals again being intentional about stepping outside our friend group (come on ya’ll let’s be honest we have them in churches) to sit at a table with the regular visitor who entered a room full of relative strangers bravely casting their nets in the deep hoping to find those kinds of sturdy relationships.”

We come to this Table as a community, not as individuals. We come to be knit together, to have our nets mended, so that we are able to welcome even more into the fellowship. We don’t sit together in this room as the insiders; if you are at home today, I invite you to introduce yourself on the chat or email us at [email protected]. Let us know who you are and what town you live in; let us know one another. And when we take Communion today, be prepared that I am going to invite us to stand together, and form a circle, where all are included, all are welcome, as we are made one in Christ.