Text used – 1 Corinthians 11:17-26

• We believe that Christ’s work of reconciliation is made manifest in the church as the community of believers who have been reconciled with God and with one another; [we believe] that unity is, therefore, both a gift and an obligation for the church of Jesus Christ; that through the working of God’s Spirit it is a binding force, yet simultaneously a reality which much be earnestly pursued and sought: one which the people of God much continually be built up to attain; [we believe] that this unity must become visible so that the world may believe that separation, enmity and hatred between people and groups is sin which Christ has already conquered, and accordingly that anything which threatens this unity may have no place in the church and must be resisted; [we believe] that this unity of the people of God must be manifested and be active a variety of ways: in that we love one another; that we experience, practice and pursue community with one another; that we are obligated to give ourselves willingly and joyfully to be of benefit and blessing to one another; that we share one faith, have one calling, are of one soul and one mind; have one God and Father, are filled with one Spirit, are baptized with one baptism, eat of one bread and drink of one cup, confess one name, are obedient to one Lord, work for one cause, and share one hope; together come to know the height and the breadth and the depth of the love of Christ; together are built up to the stature of Christ, to have new humanity.[1] → This is a portion of the Belhar Confession.
  • About Belhar
    • Document that was penned through the Dutch Reformed Mission Church in South Africa in the early 1980s
    • Response to the sin and Gospel distortion that was apartheid
    • From intro to Confession of Belhar in our Book of Confessions: How should the church respond when sin disrupts the church’s unity, creates division among the children of God, and constructs unjust systems that steal life from God’s creation? … Apartheid formed a racially stratified society. Those with the lightest skin tones were offered the greatest protection and opportunity. Non-“white” persons were separated into three categories; each skin tone step away from the “white” category represented a decrease in governmental protections and opportunities. Racial separation was established by law and enforced through violence. Nonwhite citizens lived with constant and intrusive police presence and interference in the daily functions of life. Those who protested risked punishment, imprisonment, and even death.[2]
    • Belhar = adopted as a confession of the PC(USA) in 2016 by the General Assembly “because it believed the clarity of Belhar’s witness to unity, reconciliation, and justice might help the PC(USA) speak and act with similar clarity at a time when it faces division, racism, and injustice.”[3] → And yet here we are 7 years later … dealing with more “division, racism, and injustice” than we did when we adopted Belhar … dealing with more division, racism, and injustice than we have in decades, at least on an out-in-the-open scale … dealing with more division, racism, and injustice not only on the streets and out in the wider world but even spewing from pulpits who declare words of hate and separation and even violence and call them the word of God. And yet here we are. And it’s World Communion Sunday … a day for the whole world to celebrate coming together at God’s table in unity, in peace, in Christian love and forgiveness and acceptance. [PAUSE]
• There are a lot of different texts that I could have chosen today – lots of beautiful descriptions that intertwine faith and breaking bread and encounters with God and Jesus sprinkled throughout the whole Bible. But I picked this one for today because I feel like as the Church … as siblings in Christ … and human together, we are in a tough spot.
  • Today’s Scripture = reminder/reassurance that the Church has always been imperfect – Paul to Corinthian church: Now I don’t praise you as I give the following instruction because when you meet together, it does more harm than good. First of all, when you meet together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and I partly believe it.[4] → Never one to mince words, Paul is characteristically frank here.
    • Wants to make sure Corinthians understand he’s not praising them
    • Wants to make sure the Corinthians understand they’re doing more harm than good
      • Gr. is particularly striking here → Paul’s exact wording = Corinthians gatherings are inferior
    • Wants to make sure Corinthians understand that he can believe these rumors about interior divisions that have reached him
  • Goes on to detail these divisions: When you get together in one place, it isn’t to eat the Lord’s meal. Each of you goes ahead and eats a private meal. One person goes hungry while another is drunk. Don’t you have houses to eat and drink it? Or do you look down on God’s churches and humiliate those who have nothing? What can I say to you? Will I praise you? No, I don’t praise you in this.[5]
    • Scholar sheds some light on this situation: One finds an indication that wealth and its associated status played a part in some of the struggles between Corinthian believers. … only wealthy persons had homes and staff large enough to host the church and provide for its celebration of the Lord’s supper; and only the wealthy could arrive at the dinners early enough to eat the best food and get drunk before the other, less fortunate ones would arrive. … The Corinthians who are abusing the Lord’s supper have minimized or lost the basic Pauline sense that the life of faith is a life of community. The abusers have privatized their faith and their worship in a way that Paul finds totally unacceptable; they have lost any sense that love as the right relation to others is the proper and necessary expression of their faith as the right relation to God.[6] → Considering the church gatherings that Paul had experienced back in Acts – “All the believers were united and shared everything. They would sell pieces of property and possessions and distribute the proceeds to everyone who needed them.”[7] – we can understand Paul’s apparent sense of both disbelief and disgust at the behavior of the Corinthians. “What can I say to you? Will I praise you? No, I don’t praise you in this!”
• And I have to ask, friends: Are we so different today? Have we come such a long way from that long-ago Corinthian church? Or are we stuck in the same cycle 2000 years later?
  • Christian pastor, author, speaker, and modern-day prophet John Pavlovitz lays it out pretty clearly in A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, and Hopeful Spiritual Community: We’ve lived so long in an Internet culture of drive-by analysis that we’ve forgotten that this isn’t normal, that our faith demands a deeper investment of time, of ourselves. We never even make it to the table with many people because we’ve evaluated and judged them from a mile away. As a result, local churches so often become segregated, conditional communities of life-minded culture-warring Christians who believe they have God on their side. These faith communities rarely operate as one big table, just a series of smaller ones. Despite all our talk of a gospel for everyone, despite our effusive language about diversity and inclusion and grace for all – we ultimately just want to know what people think about gays or guns or maybe hell, and we either align ourselves with or distance ourselves from them depending on their answer. In this way, theology becomes an easy, efficient barrier between ourselves and those we believe to be less enlightened than we are. Our believe system becomes a wall.[8]
    • Brings to mind the ancient allegorical story known as the Parable of the Spoons
      • Attributed to Rabbi Haim of Romshishok (Lithuanian village)
      • First, the rabbi travelled to Hell and saw a terrible sight. There were rows and rows of tables piled high with food and sat near to them were rows of starving, emaciated people trying to eat. The people were all strapped to their benches too far from the food to reach it, but with a spoon long enough to scoop some up. This didn’t help them to feed themselves though, because the long spoons and their strappings meant they could not get the food they had picked up near their mouths. The poor souls were doomed to forever sit looking at heaps of delicious food, able to pick it up, but never able to eat it. Next, the rabbi travelled to Heaven and was surprised to see a scene almost identical but with one important difference. The rows of food-laden tables were the same, as were the people and the long spoons. However, where in Hell there had been sadness and starvation, here in Heaven there was joy and satisfaction. One long party. He realized why this was when he watched one of the occupants of the benches reach to the tables with his spoon, pick up some food and navigate it to the mouth of a person near him, rather than his own. She then reciprocated. This mutual satisfaction was happening everywhere in Heaven and it was this that separated it from Hell.[9]
  • Paul reiterates the important part of the gathering at the end of today’s Scripture reading – portion that we hear every time we gather together around that table: I received a tradition from the Lord, which I also handed on to you: on the night on which he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread. After giving thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this to remember me.” He did the same thing with the cup, after they had eaten, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Every time you drink it, do this to remember me.” Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you broadcast the death of the Lord until he comes.[10] → The importance is in the coming together – in the setting aside of all the things that are supposed to pull us apart … in actively, intentionally, even forcefully putting those dividing elements away – turning our backs on them – to turn our faces toward one another. We gather together not because we find ourselves to be worthy but because, at this table, through these simple elements of bread and wine/juice, God makes us worthy.
    • Not because of who we are
    • Not because of what we’ve done
    • Not because of anything that we bring with us
    • Not because we’ve said or learned or done or been the right thing
    • Book of Order: The Lord’s Supper enacts and seals what the Word proclaims: God’s sustaining grace offered to all people. The Lord’s Supper is at once God’s gift of grace, God’s means of grace, and God’s call to respond to that grace. Through the Lord’s Supper, Jesus Christ nourishes us in righteousness, faithfulness, and discipleship. Through the Lord’s Supper, the Holy Spirit renews the Church in its identity and sends the Church to mission in the world. … The opportunity to eat and drink with Christ is not a right bestowed upon the worthy, but a privilege given to the undeserving who come in faith, repentance, and love. All who come to the table are offered the bread and cup, regardless of their age or understanding.[11]
      • Rachel Held Evans: This is what God’s Kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes. And there’s always room for more. → Thanks be to God. Amen.

[1] From the “Confession of Belhar, September 1986” from The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Part 1: Book of Confessions. (Louisville: The Office of the General Assembly, 2016), 10.3.

[2] Ibid, 300.

[3] Ibid.

[4] 1 Cor 11:17-18.

[5] 1 Cor 11:20-22.

[6] J. Paul Sampley. “The First Letter to the Corinthians: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 10. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 777, 934.

[7] Acts 2:44-45.

[8] John Pavlovitz. A Bigger Table: Building Messy, Authentic, and Hopeful Spiritual Community. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 113-114.

[9] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/story-long-spoons-lessons-mutual-support-hard-times-jamie-smith.

[10] 1 Cor 11:23-26

[11] From The Constitution of the Presbyterian Church (USA), Part 2: Book of Order. (Louisville: The Office of the General Assembly, 2019), W-3.0409.