EATING THE LORD'S SUPPER IN GLADNESS AND SIMPLICITY OF HEART!
"So then whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord. But let a man prove himself, and in this way let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not discern the body."
This IS such a somber passage and one that certainly calls us to the same. I find myself constantly reading scripture nowadays and asking myself, "Just what does this really mean?" My current practice is to attempt to approach scripture with unvarnished reverence, stripped of my own ideas and preconceived notions. This is not always an easy thing, but I believe it does give our Lord much more opportunity to speak in our ears when they aren't so full of ourselves and our religious training.
With that in mind, the passage that lept out at me on another reading of this was "For he who eats and drinks, eats and drinks judgment to himself if he does not discern the body." So there's the qualifier regarding our unworthiness to partake of our Lord's Supper,"IF" we do not discern the body."
For years I took Communion, with a deep and profound sense of my own unworthiness to partake of it, and was always fearful of "eating and drinking judgment to myself." I looked at the sin in my own heart and the grace of God just shrunk. And in all honesty, for this reason, taking communion was rarely a joyful experience for me. I was just haunted by this passage of Paul's to the Corinthians. It was never a matter of "Whoopie! It's Communion Sunday! Time to squirm again because of the worthiness I will never merit to take of His body and His blood."
Having taken literally "hundreds" of Communions over my lifetime, I have never heard any teaching on this "discerning of the body" in relationship to Communion. Taking Communion always seemed to be about me and my own sin and my "worthiness" before the Lord.
My understanding has changed quite a lot. You see, my sin is buried in the blood of Jesus--all of it! Past. Present, Future. My sins do not come up in regard to the Lord's Supper. If I am seeing this correctly, this is not what Paul is talking about here. But what does come up is whether or not I am "discerning His body." In the context of this chapter, Paul is talking about the brothers who weren't waiting for the poorer brothers to eat together, as Paul says,
"For in your eating, each one takes his own supper first, and one is hungry and the other is drunk. Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and put those to shame who have not? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I do not praise you."
This topic of discerning the body of Christ is formidable. Paul picks up on this topic again in chapter 12. For example he says of Christ's body:
"And those members of the body which we consider to be less honorable, these we clothe with more abundant honor; and our uncomely members come to have more abundant comeliness, but our comely members have no need. But God has blended the body together, giving more abundant honor to the members that lacked, that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same care for one another."
The scriptures are divided by chapters and such, but it appears to me that Paul is still expanding on "discerning the body" here. Do we really see us as "One" or do we divide each other according to our "comliness?" I'll be the first to raise my hand and say this is something I have been guilty of. And when I am guilty of this, then I am "eating and drinking in an unworthy manner."
Do you see from this how much our Lord loves His body, each and every member? And how valuable each and every member, from the least to the highest, is to Him? To judge another as not fitting into the Lord's body, or holding an inferior position, is to bring judgment on ourselves.
But having said all of that, do check out Acts 2:42-46:
"And they continued steadfastly in the teaching and the fellowship of the apostles, in the breaking of bread and the prayers...And day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they partook of their food with gladness and simplicity of heart."
On reading the account of the Last Supper, it appears that our Lord, after they began eating, took a simple loaf of bread and broke it and passed it around to the twelve, saying "This is my body, broken for You." And then, after they had all supped, He took the cup and said "This is my blood, shed for you."
So what we call the Eucharest, the bread and wine, was part of a full meal. And from the above passages, it seems the early Christians just loved meeting together around this meal "with joy and simplicity of heart." So where is this solemnity that is so much a part of our Christian world today? And none of this was orchestrated by any official clergy. That is worth noting. We just see the simple word "they".
One translation says "they partook of their food with exultation and simplicity of heart." Exultation is to "leap for joy, to be extremely joyful!." In today's parlance, we would call this "radical joy!" And simplicity of heart speaks to me of an event that was stripped of it's religiosity and ritualistic elements.
Now in v. 47 of this passage, we read this:
And the Lord added together day by day those who were being saved."
You see, "joy" is the best sermon of all. When there is this kind of "joy" and "exultation," other people are attracted to it, aren't they? Was there something about the way the early Christians "broke bread together" that was evangelistic by its very nature because it was saturated by joy? You bet!
When there is that kind of joy, our Lord's work in bringing others in, is just made a whole lot easier, isn't it?
So simple church, what is your experience on both ends of this spectrum? Are you learning to eat the Lord's Supper with "gladness and simplicity?" What has the Lord taught you regarding this and what is your practice?
Blessings shaken and stirred and bubbling over,
Clark
And here's an article I read on the Agape Love Feast of the early Christians you might find interesting: http://www.earlychurch.com/LoveFeast.html
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by konti on -
Wow Holy Brother, great post. Thank you brother for sharing it with us. There is a small group of 6-8 people we gather every week and we have decided to have a common meal together every two Sundays. While eating we take the Lord's Supper and we see it as a part of a meal. I live in Athens, Greece, I don't have time to translate your post, but let me share with them a summary of your post in Greek.
Love in Him,
Konti
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Permalink Reply by Clark Wade on -
Thanx so much Konti. I was thrilled to get your compliment. Wow! Greece eh? Man, now that's a place I would love to visit.
Thanx brother.
And blessings to your fellowship there.
konti said:Wow Holy Brother, great post. Thank you brother for sharing it with us. There is a small group of 6-8 people we gather every week and we have decided to have a common meal together every two Sundays. While eating we take the Lord's Supper and we see it as a part of a meal. I live in Athens, Greece, I don't have time to translate your post, but let me share with them a summary of your post in Greek.
Love in Him,
Konti
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Permalink Reply by Clark Wade on
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Thanx Aida,
I liked what you said here:"These are phenomenal times of loving the people at our table and getting to know them better. That to me is the Lord's supper and I feel Father is very pleased with those times of gatherings as we share our lives together." Amen. And Aida, I also added an article at the end of this I ran into that you also might find interesting. I thought it was pretty good stuff on the agape love feast of the early Christians. May the primal genius of these early Christians continue to be re-discovered and practiced in our lifetimes. Amen?
Aida said:Great post, Clark. I'm still going to an institutional group on Sunday mornings and they like to do what they call communion once a month. We eat a tiny piece of bread and drink a thimbleful of juice. Sometimes I participate and sometimes I don't but I no longer consider that the Lord's supper.
At various times, we gather for a group meal - either the entire group or a part of the group. These are phenomenal times of loving the people at our table and getting to know them better. That to me is the Lord's supper and I feel Father is very pleased with those times of gatherings as we share our lives together.
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Permalink Reply by konti on
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Hi Clark, you are more than wellcome here in Athens. It's great to meet saints who live in other parts of the world. By the way, Taylor Overbey is organizing a pilgrimage trip next year in August following the footsteps of the apostle Paul. Just have a look at the events and see if you can join. It would be great to meet you face to face.
Love,
Konti
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Permalink Reply by Clark Wade on
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Hey Konti,
Sorry so late with this response brother. And man, that sounds so great! Thanx for the invite. I would love to make that trip. But this coming summer is pretty well taken. I'm going to be attending my, hang on, my 40-year high-school reunion. Gasp! And if you are ever in the states, the same invitation is open to you.
In His Embrace,
Clark
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Permalink Reply by Katie Mather on -
At our twice yearly gathering of SCer's from all over the continent (that we tongue in cheek call The Pilgrimage to Portal. You have to see Portal, GA to get the joke. Pop 597) we do a Sabbath meal. For the last five years we have held a celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles and this spring will be our first Feast of Passover. See the web, www.bearcreekportal.com/pilgrimagehome.html.
At last October's Pilgrimage on Friday evening we had a New Testament dinner. We had foods that were probably eaten in Jesus' day using wooden bowls and utensils. I wanted to put the tables on the floor and sit on the floor, to get in the setting of the early church, but decided against it in consideration of our older guests. When we do this with our family, we gather everyone's coffee tables and cushions. The grandchildren love it.
At the end of the meal we took the bread and the grape juice (OK, I do believe that it was wine, but for the sake of others in our culture...). Each table group broke the yummy challah bread with one another and had their juice to remember Jesus. Then Tim demonstrated a blessing. As is Jewish custom to bless the family members at Sabbath meal, Tim blessed me. It was also my birthday, so it was a great birthday present. As he blessed me, there wasn't a dry eye in the place. He then instructed every body to also bless each other at their table. One couple who came from Canada said that seeing the blessing, was worth the whole trip. (For more on the blessing, see Lynn Reddick's book, The Two Minute Miracle: Releasing God's Power, Protection and Prosperity with Spoken Blessings, available at www.timmather.com)
Every time we have communion, Tim ends with a with a cheer. Everyone joins in as we shout in Hebrew and english, "to life!" (I don't know how to spell it, just say it.) as we declare his life for ours.
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Permalink Reply by Marshall Diakon on -
The Pilgrimage sounds wonderful! An all-too-rare expression & communion with the richness that is our inheritance in Christ; Messiah.
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Permalink Reply by Melville Holmes on -
I'd mentioned this in another post but it seems appropriate here. It was nearly 40 years ago that I was meeting with a group of beleivers in a house, sitting around on the floor because the living room had no furniture, that I experienced the Lord's supper in the most clear and profound way, nothing like it since. For one thing, we didn't do this as a regular thing according to the calendar and I do not beleive it was meant to be a ceremony or ritual in the first place, or even a "sacramant" in terms of what the Roman Caltholics call transubstantiation. This was as there was a sense in the spirit that this was what the Lord was calling for at the time. There was a loaf of bread passed around and a cup with red wine. We broke off a piece of bread and took a sip from the cup. You couldn't miss the symbolism of our partaking of one loaf, being one loaf, made one with the One whose body was broken for us. It was the same with the one cup of the New Covenant in His blood.
This would be hard to repeat now, with the fear of germs. And if a family member under drinking age partook you could end up in court over it.
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Permalink Reply by Marshall Diakon on
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Thanks be to God, what you describe from nearly forty years ago is repeated every day, in various places around the globe.
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Permalink Reply by Ron Kellington on -
Hi Clark.. A couple of Easters ago, a friend of mine wrote the following: ( Steve is also a member of this site ).
It was too good ( and relevant ) not to post.
Easter 2006
Hello Friends
The meaning of the love feast divides Christians now as it has in the
past. The reality is that whatever meaning you attach to the
symbols you are wrong because it is not a symbolic meal!
What really does a bit of dry cracker and a thimble of grape juice signify? That the life of Christ is dry and scarce? If we are doing a symbolic meal let us at least have massive loaves of bread and buckets of wine! Forget the plastic thimbles! Bring out the beer steins! Jesus died to give us life and life more abundant! His first miracle was turning water into wine, lots of wine!
In the New Testament the love feast was not a symbolic meal served by religious professionals. It was a real meal shared in homes. It was not ritual. It was not magic. It was the sharing of real food and real life.
The reason Paul was speaking to the Corinthians about their love feast was because some ate too much and some got drunk while others went hungry! Their sin in not discerning the body of the Lord was the sin of excluding the poor from the feast.
That is another thing we do with our symbolic meal, we make it exclusive to members of our particular religious group. Jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners (would there be enough evidence to convict you of the same?) and of eating with sinners. His love feasts were not exclusive!
Maybe division and exclusion equals sickness and death? Maybe that is what Paul meant in I Corinthians 11:30?
According to Jesus (Luke 10:1- 10) one of the primary means of extending His kingdom is to eat and drink with people that do not yet know Him and He practiced the same when he want to Zacheus' house for dinner.
Enjoy a real love feast!
Share it with those that do not yet know Jesus!
Show His death and resurrection until He comes!
Show that you are His body!
Do what He did!
Harvest Now!
Steve & Marilyn Hill
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Permalink Reply by konti on
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Hey saints,
I've got a question. The Lord's supper in our fellowship is part of a full meal. But sometimes, someone else who is not christian, may be present in this meal, What would your reaction be towards them, what would you do to explain to them the meaning of what we are doing? Would you exlude them from this part of the meal?
Love,
Konti
Ron Kellington said:Hi Clark.. A couple of Easters ago, a friend of mine wrote the following: ( Steve is also a member of this site ).
It was too good ( and relevant ) not to post.
Easter 2006
Hello Friends
The meaning of the love feast divides Christians now as it has in the
past. The reality is that whatever meaning you attach to the
symbols you are wrong because it is not a symbolic meal!
What really does a bit of dry cracker and a thimble of grape juice signify? That the life of Christ is dry and scarce? If we are doing a symbolic meal let us at least have massive loaves of bread and buckets of wine! Forget the plastic thimbles! Bring out the beer steins! Jesus died to give us life and life more abundant! His first miracle was turning water into wine, lots of wine!
In the New Testament the love feast was not a symbolic meal served by religious professionals. It was a real meal shared in homes. It was not ritual. It was not magic. It was the sharing of real food and real life.
The reason Paul was speaking to the Corinthians about their love feast was because some ate too much and some got drunk while others went hungry! Their sin in not discerning the body of the Lord was the sin of excluding the poor from the feast.
That is another thing we do with our symbolic meal, we make it exclusive to members of our particular religious group. Jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners (would there be enough evidence to convict you of the same?) and of eating with sinners. His love feasts were not exclusive!
Maybe division and exclusion equals sickness and death? Maybe that is what Paul meant in I Corinthians 11:30?
According to Jesus (Luke 10:1- 10) one of the primary means of extending His kingdom is to eat and drink with people that do not yet know Him and He practiced the same when he want to Zacheus' house for dinner.
Enjoy a real love feast!
Share it with those that do not yet know Jesus!
Show His death and resurrection until He comes!
Show that you are His body!
Do what He did!
Harvest Now!
Steve & Marilyn Hill
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Permalink Reply by Clark Wade on
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Great Question Konti. The first thing that comes to my mind is regarding the bread and the cup. I think what I would do is mention that the partaking of these elements were for the followers of our Lord Jesus Christ. I don't know what your procedure is but this might be a great time to invite "unbelievers" to accept Him and then they would be free to partake. I would then think the rest of the meal would be open to all, but the bread and cup for the believers only. Does that make sense?
Clark
konti said:Hey saints,
I've got a question. The Lord's supper in our fellowship is part of a full meal. But sometimes, someone else who is not christian, may be present in this meal, What would your reaction be towards them, what would you do to explain to them the meaning of what we are doing? Would you exlude them from this part of the meal?
Love,
Konti
Ron Kellington said:Hi Clark.. A couple of Easters ago, a friend of mine wrote the following: ( Steve is also a member of this site ).
It was too good ( and relevant ) not to post.
Easter 2006
Hello Friends
The meaning of the love feast divides Christians now as it has in the
past. The reality is that whatever meaning you attach to the
symbols you are wrong because it is not a symbolic meal!
What really does a bit of dry cracker and a thimble of grape juice signify? That the life of Christ is dry and scarce? If we are doing a symbolic meal let us at least have massive loaves of bread and buckets of wine! Forget the plastic thimbles! Bring out the beer steins! Jesus died to give us life and life more abundant! His first miracle was turning water into wine, lots of wine!
In the New Testament the love feast was not a symbolic meal served by religious professionals. It was a real meal shared in homes. It was not ritual. It was not magic. It was the sharing of real food and real life.
The reason Paul was speaking to the Corinthians about their love feast was because some ate too much and some got drunk while others went hungry! Their sin in not discerning the body of the Lord was the sin of excluding the poor from the feast.
That is another thing we do with our symbolic meal, we make it exclusive to members of our particular religious group. Jesus was accused of being a friend of sinners (would there be enough evidence to convict you of the same?) and of eating with sinners. His love feasts were not exclusive!
Maybe division and exclusion equals sickness and death? Maybe that is what Paul meant in I Corinthians 11:30?
According to Jesus (Luke 10:1- 10) one of the primary means of extending His kingdom is to eat and drink with people that do not yet know Him and He practiced the same when he want to Zacheus' house for dinner.
Enjoy a real love feast!
Share it with those that do not yet know Jesus!
Show His death and resurrection until He comes!
Show that you are His body!
Do what He did!
Harvest Now!
Steve & Marilyn Hill
2010 National House Church Conference
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