Sermon for Sunday, October 7, 2007

Discerning the Body

Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz

Scripture: I Corinthians 11

²³ For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me." ²⁵ In the same way he took the cup also, after supper, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me." ²⁶ For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. ²⁷ Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord. ²⁸ Examine yourselves, and only then eat of the bread and drink of the cup. ²⁹ For all who eat and drink without discerning the body, eat and drink judgment against themselves.

I want you to think about what you did for your lunch meals this week. Did you eat with anybody? Did you eat lunch at all? Was it a time of fellowship with others? Was it just a wolfing down of something on the run, or an unhurried time with someone else and a pleasant conversation?

I had two different kinds of lunches this week that came to mind—one was a slice of cold pizza that I carried with me out of the building as I was on the way to a meeting, the other was a good conversation over good food.

With those times in mind, let me tell you about an article by the Denver Post food critic Tucker Shaw this week. I read him pretty faithfully, and his column last week was so important I am quoting some parts of it for you.

He told about a meal a few days ago when Bill O’Reilly and Al Sharpton ate together at Sylvia’s soul food restaurant in Harlem. Sylvia’s is famous. It is one of the stops on some bus tours of New York. But apparently O’Reilly had never been there, and O’Reilly has glowing things to say—not necessarily about the food, but about the fact that in this black owned restaurant where most of the clientele is African American, people just acted civilly and quite normal. He apparently needs to get out more because he was impressed that no one was yelling obscenities and living up to his racial stereotypes, but that it was “just like being in an Italian restaurant in an all white suburb.”

He had a good experience, and, think about this, this was Bill O’Reilly and Al Sharpton sitting down and sharing a meal together and having a good experience.

This is where Tucker Shaw has real insight; this feeling of fellowship happened not in a library or in a debate, but in a restaurant:

I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. Because to my mind there is no more powerful reconciling activity in the world than dining together, no commoner common ground than food.

When different thinking people sit down and break bread together, everything changes. Defenses begin to crumble, blinders begin to fall away, and what unites, for a moment at least, begins to upstage what divides.

Mr. Shaw’s insight is deeply Biblical. Having a meal together in the Bible was very important. It was how a covenant was sealed and ratified. It was a sign that people were united and connected to each other—not in identical opinions but in common humanity. When you ate with someone in Jesus’ time, it meant that you were accepting and identifying with them. You did not eat with just anybody. You were reconciling with that person and bonding with that person.

Do you remember why the religious legalists got so horribly upset with Jesus in his associations with “unworthy people”?  It was not that he simply associated with “the wrong kind of people”—it was worse: HE EVEN ATE WITH THEM!

He ate with those—DEMOCRATS, THOSE REPUBLICANS, THOSE LIBERTARIANS, THOSE BAPTISTS, THOSE CATHOLICS!!

Jesus celebrated our common humanity and ate with anybody and everybody. And Jesus has given us, of all things to remember him by, a meal—a chance to eat together.

This communion meal, on World Communion Sunday, has a similarity to that meal between Rev. Sharpton and Bill O’Reilly. It brings together people of differing ideas and opinions around a common table.

When it was being celebrated 2000 years ago in the Greek city of Corinth, it did that also. Corinth was the Las Vegas of the first century—the largest city in Greece with some 600,000 people. It was a rough population. The temple of Aphrodite on the acropolis of Corinth had 1000 temple prostitutes. There were many temptations to not follow the ethics of Jesus Christ.

And the members of this young congregation that Paul had started in Corinth when he went there and plied his trade as a tentmaker while he taught about Jesus—this young congregation was full of controversy and conflicts.

Just skim the first letter to the Corinthian Christians and see for yourself: he had to talk with them about sex, about marriage, about the dietary laws, about food, about conflict management—a host of controversies.

In the reading for today, he is very upset with them. They are supposed to be a family, a community of people who care for each other. But when they come together for the Lord’s Supper, they are failing miserably and doing it all wrong. Why?

This is when communion was a full meal—not a symbolic meal. And they were acting selfishly. Some would get there early who did not have to work a long day and eat all the food. When the others got there after a long work day, there was nothing left. Some had stuffed themselves and gotten drunk and the others, the poorer folks, had nothing to eat or to drink.

They were unworthy celebrants of communion because they were failing to look out for each other. This is connected to one of Paul’s most famous pieces of writing just one page later in your Bible—his most famous passage on Love; love is never rude or boastful or selfish. Love looks out for the other person’s needs.

Speaking of looking out for one another and being connected, did you see in Friday’s Post that the players on the Colorado Rockies have voted to send a share of their possible playoff victory money to the widow of Tulsa Drillers coach Mike Coolbaugh. The Drillers are the Rockies Double A farm team, and first base coach Mike Coolbaugh was killed in July when a line drive hit him in the head. The Rockies players chose to do this on their own, and it is a wonderful example of Paul’s encouragement to look out for one another because we are one family.

Paul did not expect the church members to have all the same opinions in this conflicted Las Vegas of a town named Corinth. He did expect them to be in a covenant and to look out for one another and to be a family in Christ gathered around a family table. Does your family all have the same opinions when you gather around for a meal—especially at large family events or holidays? Our family certainly does not, but we are united and reconciled by love.

This is World Communion Sunday when we celebrate communion with millions and millions of fellow Christians around the globe—Orthodox Christians, Baptist Christians, Catholic Christians—you name it. We will have different ideas and opinions. Having exactly the same beliefs is not a requirement in the United Methodist tradition.

You may have seen that the same controversy from the 2004 election is about to happen again about whether some of the presidential candidates are now being expected again to totally agree with the prescribed theology and politics of their church to be welcome at the communion table. It is happening again.

That is not true here. Everyone who considers themselves a friend and follower of Christ and is trying to live by his teachings—loving God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and loving/looking out for our neighbor—is welcome here today and every day. Everyone. 

And there are people who need to be at this table still. We all have friends and co workers and neighbors who have heart felt hungers and yearnings they are trying to feed with spiritual junk food and who need to know they are welcome at the Lord’s table where what we are given is the bread of life.

Will you think of those persons now who need to be here and who you might later invite to be here who may not know that this is a welcome table open to everyone, open to them.

Christ invites to his table all who want to know him and follow him and who seek to live in his way. Come and feed upon him in your hearts by faith and with thanksgiving. Amen.

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