September 14, 2015
Togetherness
I’ve seen any number of ways
to serve and partake of communion — individually, in small groups, in unison, or
at one’s own leisure and discretion. Certainly we are collectively at the Lord’s
Table whether it takes five minutes or 10 minutes to serve everyone. However, I
know that if I’m one of the first to receive the emblems, by the time the last
person is served my mind has likely jumped ahead to the next order of service. Recently
one pastor had people come forward and pick up the emblems, “Return to your
seats and when all are seated we’ll eat the bread together and then together we
will drink the cup.” For some reason the pastor’s use of the word “together”
placed even greater emphasis for me on Paul’s instruction to the Corinthians about
waiting for one another. Whether it’s strictly communion, or communion mixed
with a potluck, the mental-togetherness of remembering the body and blood of
Christ is of great importance. “When you come together, it is not the Lord’s
Supper you eat, for as you eat, each of you goes ahead
without waiting for anybody else. One remains hungry, another gets drunk. 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” (1 Cor 11:20-22 NIV).
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1 comment:
Gail;
-----The greatest thing about emblems is that they are just emblematic. What they stand for is the important thing. Any importance about the emblem itself is only that it continues forward in a manner capable of expressing the meanings of its import. The trend a few years ago to cast Thanksgiving into a feast of whatever you want to put on the table was an effort to destroy its meaning. Turkey is so much a part of the Thanksgiving metaphor that “Turkey Day” has become its nickname. Does God require turkey over lasagna? Does the law? The church? No. Maintaining the culture does. The same can be stated for that fad of doing Christmas in July.
-----Culture is thoughts, sentiments, and attitudes shared by a group of people in how and why they do things. Culture is enormously big to the Lord’s people, because fellowship is vital, and culture is one element embedded in fellowship. Without culture, there is no fellowship. In fact, I think it can be stated that fellowship is culture formulation.
-----If folks are tired of America, they can eat Popsicles on Thanksgiving and do Christmas on Halloween as far as I care. Their chaos will ensue where my culture dies. But communion is a different matter. It is not just any cultural element. It didn’t just emerge as did Christmas. It wasn’t instituted by some President as was Thanksgiving. But the Lord God in His first advent laid out Communion as not a suggestion, but a command. Some cultural emblems stand for very important concepts, and their emblematic characteristics should be carefully guarded. Communion is an emblem whose characteristics must be guarded.
-----I’m not so sure, though, that waiting for one another to bite the cracker crumb or swallow the shot of grape juice is such a characteristic. I would be more inclined to believe it was if Communion today were the meal it was for both Jesus and Paul. And what cultural elements have we lost because the meal characteristic of this emblem has long, long ago fallen to the wayside? It seems the emblems themselves have already deteriorated to a mere shadow of their former state. But at least they are there. And that is emblematic of their last bit of meaning: faithfulness.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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