October 7, 2012
An Audience of One - Worshipping Around the Table
- 1 Corinthians 11:17-26
- Rev. Scott Shelton
Today’s message is still in our series an audience of one. We have talked about worshipping God – the One true God – that He is the one of our focus on worship – and worshipping him through songs, through scripture, in prayer, in fellowship with other Christians, through challenge, and today – through the Lord’s Supper. Let’s read today’s scripture from…
1 Corinthians 11:17-26
“17 In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. 18 In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. 19 No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. 20 When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, 21 for as you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. 22 Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? Certainly not!
23 For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: 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.”
SLIDE: I’d like us to look at this passage today from three angles: the past, present, future. This is a theme familiar with scripture.
SLIDE: The writer of Hebrews said, in 13:8 “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” He is the same in the past, present, future – always with us – our savior, our Lord and Leader, the one who calls us friend.
SLIDE: In Revelation 1:8, we read where God says,
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.” Later in 4:8, there are creatures worshipping God who say, “Day and night they never stop saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.”
God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He is the one who was, is and is to come. God is loving, Holy, the beginning and the end, and we have counted on Him and can count on him in the past, present, and future
SLIDE:
- 1. Past
What about that past? The Lord’s Supper comes from the Jewish Passover. For the Israelites, it celebrated a thanksgiving for God’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt. Today, we celebrate God’s deliverance from our own slavery – to sin. Jesus on the last night of his life with disciples in Jerusalem, just hours before he would be arrested, celebrated the Passover meal with his disciples. After his resurrection, he celebrated a meal, breakfast on the beach with his disicples. And he gave the Passover meal new meaning.
What about Corinth? It was a church behaving badly. WE don’t want to be that church! Corinth was a very cosmopolitan city – a seaport and major trade center in the Mediterranean. Exchanges of goods and ideas happened all the time there. Maybe like New York or Los Angeles here in our country today. it was a church in Corinth that still need instructing on how to live, on how to get right with God. First Corinthians is a book in which Paul gives instructions. I know as very talented adults who can have it all together, we don’t want to hear instructions – but these are very helpful for us as followers of the Leader – Jesus Christ.
In this passage in chapter 11 – Paul lays out how to take communion. Paul first says he hears there are divisions in the church in Corinth – even when they come together. In vs. 20 Paul say, “it is not the Lord’s supper you eat , but some go ahead and don’t wait.” Some go hungry and others get drunk. In verse 22, Paul says, “don’t you have homes? don’t you have home to eat and drink in?” In Corinth, the church would come together for a feast – maybe like our all church brunch last week – then take communion. But people would take advantage of it – the rich wouldn’t share as they should – eating and drinking their own food – and not waiting to have communion with others. Late in the chapter, Paul says the people should wait on each other to eat.
In church, let’s wait on each other. I know as a church – we don’t take advantage of each other at meals but are incredibly gracious, thankful, and polite. How else might we wait on each other? Let’s look for ways to be patient with each other. For those who are rich in theology, or spiritual maturity, to help the others come along. Looking for ways to reach out through adult classes, great banquet, through small groups, to one2one to bring along others and to help them grow in faith where we can. The more spiritually mature helping the less mature, the older helping the younger, that we all may grow.
Paul says that the bread is in “remembrance” of Jesus. Think about it – if we don’t remember the Lord’s Supper becomes another ritual to get through before lunch and the football game. Instead God through Paul reminds us to remember what Christ did – to meditate, to reflect, to be thankful, and again to remember.
The cup is a new covenant. The old covenant included sacrifices when the people could not uphold God’s laws. The new covenant says God has written his law on our hearts and that Jesus is now our savior, our friends, our Lord – that old sacrifices are no longer necessary.
That is remembering the past and taking on Jesus in the present.
SLIDE:
- 2. Present
What about the present, today, the fact that God is here with us now?
Let’s look at these three words:
SLIDE:
Communion
Community
Unity
Do words sound familiar? My 9th grader and 7th grader work on roots of words in English class – finding out where words come from – this is important, as they learn the meanings of words.
Communion, community, and unity – have some of the same roots – you can see it.
The meaning of Lord’s Supper is
COMMUNION – communion with God.
We are with God in a sacred moment – special in a way with him.
We are in COMMUNITY with Him. We are in COMMUNITY with each other. We share life together in the church. We are in UNITY with each other in our faith and belief. When we say in the words we believe that Jesus is Savior, Lord and Leader, that he did this for all of us, that we are all sinners, and need salvation, we have unity in that – and can share community in that, and can have communion with God in that faith.
In verse 26 it says, “For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” This means that you realize that Jesus died for you. That when he said, this is my body, he meant that he would give his body for you. That when he said this cup is the new covenant in my blood, he meant he would give his blood for you on the cross. And by taking of the bread and the juice, you are taking Jesus’s body broken for you, and taking in Jesus blood shed or spilled for you…for you…and for me. It’s not just a history lesson… a good story…he’s not just a model citizen…or just an example of how to live…he gave his life. And then by rising from the dead, he proves his can defeat death and backs up his claims that he is God in the flesh – the incarnation.
Today, if you want that communion, that community with God– then before you come – pray to ask Jesus to come into your life for the first time as Savior.
Or if you’re not sure, pray again to be sure – ask him again to be your leader and Lord. Or if you are sure, and want to start fresh, pray to do that.
By coming today, you can Re-new your faith – make it new again. You can refresh – re-fresh your commitment if it is a little stale. Each time as we take communion, we take in Jesus again and get a fresh start, a clean start to go out and live with him and for him.
A young evangelist was doing the faithful work of evangelism in an airport, when he came upon an elderly man asleep in a chair. He was not to be deterred by someone being asleep, so he woke the man up and said, “Sir are you saved?” “What? What?” Said the old man. “Sir are you saved?” The old man replied, “Yes, I am. I suppose I am saved, I’m probably saved, yes.”
The young man pushed onward, saying “That’s not good enough. Can you tell me exactly when you were saved?” The old man said, “Not exactly but it was about 2000 years ago.”
The Lord’s Supper is for yesterday, what Christ did, and – what it means for you today.
Christians from different branches of Christianity have different understanding of Christ’s presence at the table. Some say the meal is only a symbol of Christ presence. Our Catholic friends say there is a physical presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In this church, we are between those two thoughts. We believe in a real presence of Christ, in a way not fully understood, that is more than a symbol, but not the actual physical presence of Christ. Jesus is here with us in this sacred moment – this sacrament.
Here’s another way to look at. Author Gordon Mikoski says that the classical debates about the presence of Jesus Christ in the Lord's Supper have been inverted. We can ask: Is Christ present? But the real question is – are we present at the table. We need to bring the body of Christ to the table. Not the physical body, but it is us the church, that need to come to the table as the body of Christ. We come humbly, joyful, expecting to meet God when we share the Lord’s supper in community with God and with others.
SLIDE:
- 3. Future
And finally we look to the future, to forever, to what is to come. The future for Christians is not just next week, or next year, but for eternity.
The Lord’s Supper is something we should look forward to each time we take it, something we can approach with joy, and not take lightly.
I remember a time I was taking it lightly.
A little over a year ago, I was asked to share communion with an elderly woman from ZPC who was more or less homebound. I was a little reluctant to go just because I was in a hurry. I shared honestly that I was feeling busy on my phone with someone just before I met with this lady. And I felt as if God spoke through this trusted advisor. They said, “Scott you can’t rush through this time with this person. People know if you are in a hurry. You can’t do it. You sit there and be with that person as long as you need to sit.” So I did. In her retirement home, we talked about family, hers and mine, we looked at pictures. Talked about health and life, and shared favorite bible verses. I read some of our favorites aloud and it felt like a holy moment. We prayed, and then shared the Lord’s Supper together. It was a great time – and the things that seemed so important in my schedule before suddenly weren’t so important. She passed away earlier this year, going to be in communion with God for eternity. And I look back on that time as a very special, holy time of sharing the sacrament together.
Well, as we look to the long-term future, of eternity, we can be excited too. Compared to people who don’t have faith, we have hope in a great future.
In scripture Jesus tells of a wedding feast, a picture story of a feast in heaven.
Luke 14:12, “Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”
Later…16 Jesus replied: “A certain man was preparing a great banquet and invited many guests. 17 At the time of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’
18 “But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said, ‘I have just bought a field, and I must go and see it. Please excuse me.’
19 “Another said, ‘I have just bought five yoke of oxen, and I’m on my way to try them out. Please excuse me.’
20 “Still another said, ‘I just got married, so I can’t come.’
21 “The servant came back and reported this to his master. Then the owner of the house became angry and ordered his servant, ‘Go out quickly into the streets and alleys of the town and bring in the poor, the crippled, the blind and the lame.’
22 “‘Sir,’ the servant said, ‘what you ordered has been done, but there is still room.’
23 “Then the master told his servant, ‘Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. 24 I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.’”
We all come here broken in some way. But God invites us to his banquet – to be a part. We may not look on the outside that we are the people described in Luke – poor, lame, hurting – but we are people who need Jesus. There are those who unfortunately for whatever reason will say “no thanks. I’m not coming to the banquet.” Maybe we have not done a good enough job of explaining to them the love of Jesus and the meaning of his sacrifice. Maybe they have bought in to an idea that they are good enough to earn their way to heaven, or that life here on earth is all there is.
But today, we say there is something more. There is something called sin that separates us from a loving and holy God. Our sin can even keep us from God for eternity – if we reject God’s love. The good news is that there is a remedy for the illness, a rescue from danger, a payment for the cost of sin. Our salvation is in Jesus Christ – who died on the cross, giving us life, that we might have with him, through Jesus. And the Lord’s Supper reminds of that life each and every time we share it.
Remind yourselves that - this is his body broken for you, this is his blood shed for you – we remember yesterday. We celebrate today, life with him, right now where we are as his broken people. We look forward to tomorrow – a great banquet, a heavenly feast – with God and our loved ones who know him.
That picture of that feast in heaven is a great picture. Not just of us here coming to God, but people from all ages, from all places, from all backgrounds coming to meet Christ and share a meal with him.
Part of the beauty is around the world…today people are sharing in the Lord’s Supper. It is World communion Sunday – which means Christians all over the world are taking communion today – even this very hour.
At ZPC, one of the countries we have the most partnerships as a church, is in Romania. Recently a couple moved here through that relationship. I’d like to invite Lili Stoian to come forward with me now.
Lili emigrated from Romania with her husband Doru and their daughter Delia in April of this year, sponsored by Dave and Joan Gall. Lili was a teacher and Doru a bi-vocational pastor in Romania. Their family stayed in the Lodge when they first arrived and they are now living in Zionsville. Both Lili and Doru work for Zionsville schools and we are happy to have the family actively involved here at ZPC. I’m going to share some of the words of institution with Lili today. I will say them in English and Lili in Romanian.
Today – on world communion Sunday, knowing that God hears and understands us in every language, wherever we come from; and with others around the world we can celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
First we will pray.
Scott prays:
Most loving God, we thank you that you have loved us.
Yesterday, you loved us with the sacrifice of Jesus.
Today you love us as we share this meal together and receive your grace.
Tomorrow, we look forward to sharing a feast with you for all who know you, whether from the United States, Romania, or anywhere in the world.
We thank you humbly for this meal, and ask that you bless it to feed us spiritually and physically. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
Lili prays in Romanian
Scott: On the last night of Jesus with his disciples he ate with them. 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.”
Lili repeats in Romanian
Scott:
When the bread comes to you, you may hold it, so we may wait and share it together.
Servers come forward, all is now ready.
Serve bread…Scott says, “Take and eat.”
Scott:
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 again.
Lili – repeats in Romanian
Scott:
Servers would come forward all is ready – please drink of the cup as you feel led.