“Love-Feast?”

First Congregational United Church of Christ

October 3, 2010

The Rev. Sharyl B. Peterson

Scripture Reading:  1 Corinthians 11: 17-26

I’m guessing that most of us sitting here this morning, at one time or another, have attended some kind of fancy dinner party that celebrates some person’s or some organization’s accomplishments.  Maybe it was the high-school or college awards banquet at the end of the year.  Maybe it was our organization’s Christmas party.  Maybe it was our company’s annual profit-sharing meeting.  Whatever the group is, and whatever its purpose is in gathering, the format for these events is pretty similar.

            There are a bunch of small tables scattered around the floor of a dining-hall or large meeting-hall, and a big head table up front, where all the “very important people” sit.  And usually the tables are decorated with nice linens, and dishes, and cutlery, and there may be flowers or other centerpieces in the center of each table.  And after the meal is finished (or perhaps diners are at least into the dessert course), someone stands up and introduces the guest of honor, and everyone leans back and tries to get comfortable so they can listen to the guest-speaker without falling asleep.

            Given our experiences with events like this, we can fairly easily imagine what may have been happening in our Scripture-passage we heard this morning, when some of the church-members in Corinth had gathered for one of their (ostensible) agape or love-feasts.

            Unlike most church-gatherings today, we know that those early church-dinners were held in private homes (since there weren’t any church-buildings yet).  And we know from that fact that the size of the early Corinthian church wasn’t very large.  Even a really spacious home back then couldn’t seat (or more accurately, “couch”) more than a few dozen people.  So, that first Corinthian church was probably what we’d call a “small church.”  We also know that the meal to which Paul refers in his letter was probably a pot-luck, with the host perhaps providing a main course, and everyone else bringing accompanying dishes (just like we do today).

While we know that most of the members of the Corinthian church were either working-class or poor, we also know that the first people to arrive at that meal would have been the people who were better-off financially.  They would have been those people who could afford to either leave their work early, or who didn’t need as much time to clean up from work (also much like today, especially when we have evening events).

We can imagine those early arrivals gathering, and greeting each other, as people do, and catching up on local gossip as they waited their turn at the food-line.  And I think we can imagine that, not unlike our own pot-lucks, you could hear calls of delight as people went down the line, and someone discovers that Priscilla has brought her wonderful barley pilaf dish, and someone else finds that Phoebe has made her special figs-with-honey dessert (prompting a rush to the dessert-table, so they can get some before the figs run out).

            And when all those “early birds” have served themselves, and found their places, someone (probably the host, although anyone was allowed to do it) stands up and calls for their attention.  And he breaks a loaf of bread, offers the ritual blessing, passes it around among the guests who are there, and invites everyone to enjoy the rest of their food.  And some time later, when most of the food and drink has already been polished off, the later stragglers start to come in from their longer work-days, and head to the table to look for something to eat.

And while they do, and everyone else settles into their couches to get more comfortable, the host stands up and tells them that instead of hearing from a special guest-speaker, they are going to hear a portion of a letter that Paul – their founder – has sent to them.  To be accurate, it’s part of a longer letter that they’ve been listening to portions of for the last several weeks, since the letter was so long no-one could be expected to sit and listen to the whole thing in one reading.

            And as he begins to read, most of those folks are feeling pretty good.  Most of them have stomachs full of good food.  They’re anticipating hearing things that won’t disturb their digestion too much.  In fact, some of them may even be anticipating a short after-dinner nap.  After all, they all know how much Paul loves their church, a church that he himself had founded.  And even though some previous portions of the letter have in fact taken them to task for what many of them see as fairly unimportant matters – and which in some of their minds, Paul is blowing all out of proportion – they’re not expecting to hear anything that night that is going to seriously change the way they are living, or the way they are being church.

            And yet, as they listen, we can imagine a few of them shrinking down a little on their couches.  We can imagine some of them growing slightly red with embarrassment, as they notice that the late-comers – those very folks about whom Paul is writing – those people they know earn and have considerably less than they do, those people they know (if they let themselves think about it) have harder lives than most of them do – are coming away from the pot-luck table with mostly-empty plates.  With plates containing only a little spoonful of the jello with pomegranate seeds that no-one liked, and a few cool and wrinkly green beans with fig sauce … and a piece of the coarse loaf of bread that they had brought as their contribution to share … but not a bite of the delicious beef-ribs, or the to-die-for lentil casserole, much less any of Priscilla’s wonderful barley pilaf dish or Phoebe’s special figs-with-honey dessert.  Those goodies were long-gone.

            And those who stomachs are already over-full from everything they’ve enjoyed start to hear Paul’s words in the letter with new ears … and to squirm at the truth of what he is saying.   “I hear that when you come together as church, there are divisions among you.”  (I’ve heard that the people who are long-time members of the church know when to arrive in order to get the good food, and those who haven’t been around so long aren’t so fortunate, and don’t get much.  I’ve heard that those of you who have more money, and so can bring richer food, get praised for the luxuries you bring, and those who aren’t as well-off, and so can’t bring as fancy food, get criticized (and if not to their faces, certainly behind their backs).  I’ve heard that while couples are welcome here, widows … and orphans … and single people are not.)

            Paul says:  “I hear that when you come together, it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper.  For when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and (another) one goes hungry, and another becomes drunk.”  What are you people thinking?  What are you doing?  And do you think I commend you for this kind of behavior?  “Not! … because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse… In this … I do not commend you!”

            And what Paul is chastising them for is not their particular ritual practice – coming together for the agape meal – but that they have completely lost sight of why they are doing it, and what it is supposed to be about.  They have forgotten that this is not a private dinner-party, where the host offers the invitations, and invites the guests he or she wants to have there, and leaves out anyone he or she doesn’t want to have there … but this is God’s dinner-party, and it is God who issues the invitations, and who invites everyone.

            They have lost sight of the fact that this meal is about God’s grace!  That this meal is about God coming to us in human form, in the person of Jesus, our Christ.  That this meal is about taking into themselves a symbol of His body, broken so that others might live.  Taking into themselves a symbol of His blood poured out to mark the new covenant that God has established with humanity through Christ.

            And most important of all, they have forgotten that this meal is not just about remembering – either Jesus’ life, or his death.  It’s about living out what Jesus taught.  It is about living up to the standards that Jesus set.  It is about doing our best to truly live into the belief that “we are all are one in Christ.”  It is about honoring God’s new covenant with humanity by doing our best to get rid of every barrier that divides us.  It is about coming together despite our differences, about transcending all those divisions that the world thinks are important. 

            What has Paul so upset is that this group of church people in Corinth has done exactly the opposite.  They had emphasized the differences between themselves and others, they had ignored or humiliated the poorer ones and the marginalized ones among their group, they had torn to shreds the whole idea of truly Christian (that means “Christ-like”) fellowship.

            Even though, at the end of their meal they had also shared the Eucharistic cup, as was the custom (based on the model in the Gospels), they had desecrated the sacrament –  in Paul’s words, they had sinned gravely – because they had completely violated the new covenant with God that that cup represents.  The new covenant of love and grace, of communion and fellowship, of an utterly new way of life, not through a dead man named Jesus, murdered by the Romans, but through a living Christ, that God was holding out to humankind.

And so, the bottom-line for Paul was that their dinner-party was not a true agape meal, a true love-feast, with and for our God, but instead was unbrotherly, unsisterly, uncommunal, and flagrantly contradicted the purpose for which they had (presumably) met.  In Paul’s words, as he stringently reminds them, when you eat it this way, “it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat.”

            Today, as you may have noticed, is World Communion Sunday.

That makes it an especially wonderful day to remember – and to celebrate – that on this day, we join in communion both with God, and with our sisters and brothers across the world.  It is a wonderful day to be aware – and to rejoice in – the fact that starting roughly at dawn way over on the other side of the world at the National Date Line, people gathered on beaches, in forests, in churches; and they broke bread, or tortillas, or rice-cakes; and they drank wine, or fruit-juice, or water, all to celebrate our oneness in and through Jesus Christ – and that just as we are going to do that too, in just a few minutes, people will keep doing it, all the way across the world, until it is night-time again.

            This is also an especially wonderful day for us to take Paul’s words to heart, and to examine our own lives and practices.

As we look around just at the worshippers gathered here this morning, we might think more deeply about which of our sisters and brothers don’t really feel much like “our” sisters and brothers?  Which folks who are here with us make us uncomfortable, or bother us, or make us resistant to truly “becoming one” with them in Christ?  And we might also think about which of our sisters and brothers are not here with us this morning – and what have we done (or not done) to make them feel unwelcome, or left out of this community of faith?

            As we look around our wider community, we might consider which members are people for whom we have little or no regard, people whose needs seem much less important than our own?  Is it undocumented immigrants, working in our orchards, or cleaning up our hotel-rooms, or collecting our garbage?  Is it the river-front tent-dwellers, or those homeless folks who spend their afternoons down in the park, or at the library?  Is it someone else?  And what have we done (or not done) to make them feel unwelcome, or left out, of this community in which we live?

            And finally, we might think about those places in our wider world,        suffering from famine, or from lack of health care, or from the violence and atrocities of war.  We might think about the children who die every single day from malnutrition, or from diseases that we could prevent, if we had the will.  Children whose parents love them just as much as we love our own children, or grandchildren.  We might think about the men and women who despair because they have to watch their children dying, or because they are unable to find any work at which to earn a living, because their country has been devastated by war.  And we might earnestly and prayerfully consider, which countries’ disasters we are really bothered by, and care enough to respond to, and which ones we are complacent about, and content to simply “live with”?

            Today, my friends, and more importantly, Jesus’ friends, let us consider:  who is not yet my brother?  who is not yet my sister?  And then, to not just identify – but to actually embody and live out – how we might offer a piece of Communion bread – of Christ’s body – of God’s love – to each of them?  How might we share – and so live out – the cup of the new covenant with each of them?  And even … from whom do we – each of us – need to receive that same bread, and that same cup, in order to grow truly into being “one body” in Christ, to truly claim and enjoy the abundant life he offers us, and to truly become the kinds of thoughtful, compassionate and generous people on which our world depends?  Amen.