I recently attended a church
that places great emphasis on family and the service attendance had more youth
and children than adults. A teenage boyfriend and girlfriend who were seated in
the middle of the auditorium whispered in one another’s ear, rub each other’s
back and arm, and look dreamingly into each other’s eyes. While the communion emblems
were being served the young lady leaned over for a moment of kissy-face. Those of
us sitting in the back pews were waiting to be served and I found myself
wishing the man sitting behind the twitter-pated kids would have thumped them
on the head. Paul said, “Therefore, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of
the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and
blood of the Lord. A man ought to examine himself before he
eats of the bread and drinks of the cup. For anyone who eats and
drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on
himself” (1 Cor 11:27-29 NIV).
1 comment:
Gail;
-----Verse 28 worked big effects in my life. It indicates that God expects certain conditions in His children that are indeed His children’s responsibility to seek if not develop, and to maintain if not improve. The test for truth is whether a person is free enough from bias to note the differences between the concepts of God’s Word and the practices of his own soul. The test for love is whether he sobers up from being drunk on himself enough to test for truth. In the end, reality will test us all. And nothing is more real than the Lord God.
-----Build a stage, and they will come. Play guitars and beat drums and make celebration to the Lord! We have an eternity in God’s righteousness to celebrate. Our society loves to party and live it up. So let’s do that in church, and they will come. But will they come to examine themselves? Or to party? Maybe not so many would come to worship God. We will lose what we had to celebrate if we stop worshipping God. For the most basic essence of worship is building into the core of your being the nature of what you worship. That requires passing the tests of truth and love. It is natural that not so many will come to worship. Worshipping God is a narrow way.
-----The irony is, so should celebration be a narrow way. The first definition of “celebrate” given by Merriam-Webster is “to perform (a sacrament or solemn ceremony) publicly and with appropriate rites.” Oh, really!?! I didn’t know that until I looked the word up just now. “…with appropriate rites.” Should that make us ask “what’s appropriate?”, or might we ought to just examine ourselves to see if we are being what we already know about appropriate? Merriam-Webster’s second definition is “to honor (as a holiday) especially by solemn ceremonies or by refraining from ordinary business.” But I thought “ordinary business” in the church was to attract the flies by being more like them so we can trap them into becoming little angels. Well, anyway, I always rather noticed a flight from “appropriate” to “ordinary” in today’s churches. And this new attitude always seemed to make “examining yourself” a rather stodgy and inappropriate affair. Now I’m wondering if the term “Celebration” for the church service is inappropriate.
-----If this were a truthful world where the concepts we practice selected the words we use, maybe little Johnny would invite his girlfriend to the church party Sunday morning. But then again, maybe we’re being a bit stodgy in our analysis. This romantic couple probably were refraining from the courses of their ordinary business, thank God. And really, they could have been examining their reflections in each other’s eyes. Funny thing about the heart, there’s always a slim chance that its language is not the same as the body’s language. Paul bids us to pay some attention to Body language in being like minded, sober and alert, outdoing one another in showing honor, and building one another up, “…being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.” (Philippians 2:2) Hmmm… “appropriate rites”…hmmm.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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