Communion Experiment

I’ve been thinking a lot about communion lately.  It’s something we do regularly at church, and since I’m a pastor, it ends up being something that I think about.

We often go to I Corinthians 11:23-26 as the text for communion. 

If you go back a few verses, you find Paul correcting the church for their abuses when it comes to the Lord’s Supper.  Apparently, whenever they came together, they brought food.  It was a pot-luck.  They called it a love feast. Something very important was supposed to happen at this love feast. 

They were supposed to share.

Some people brought a lot of food and wine and some people were too poor to bring anything.

Unfortunately, some of the folks showed up, wolfed down their own food, drank their own wine and shared nothing with the poor folks.  Paul told them in vss 20, 21 – that they weren’t eating The Lord’s Supper.  -Apparently The Lord’s Supper was something that had to be shared.  It was a meal.  It wasn’t just a piece of bread and a sip of wine.

They were eating a meal when Jesus first instituted communion.  Here in I Corinthians 11, it appears as if they are sharing a meal also.  In vs. 20, we get the idea that it was common for them to share a meal each time the “came together”.  The New Testament church was eating together all the time.  Personally, I think that’s cool.  I like to eat.

The way I see it, (and you can disagree, in fact, there are some people who will disagree with my sneeze if given the opportunity), the practice of communion happened DURRING THAT MEAL.  At some point when everyone was gathered around the table, the pastor, or the head of the household, or an elder would get everyone’s attention.  He would instruct them to eat the bread and drink the wine that was already before them, as an act of remembrance.

They were thankful for the meal.      -They were thankful for the fellowship.     -They were giving and receiving.

In the midst of all that, they remembered the One act that made it all possible.  They remembered the broken body of Christ…  the body, which was perfect… the body which received on our account, God’s just wrath for our sins.  They remembered the blood… that which was sufficient to wash away the sins of mankind forever… that which reminded them of the law and its inability to save. 

We did that today.  Durring a meal that was provided corporately by everybody… where some brought much and some brought little… we took a moment to remember the ultimate source of our thanksgiving.

It was pretty cool.