Funeral Or Festival? What Should Be Our Mood During The Lord's Supper?

The song leader picks out a song, tells us the number and begins to sing. About half way thru the final stanza, four men get up and begin to walk to the front of the room where there stands a table. Setting on this table are multiple shiny plates containing small pieces of bread and small containers of juice. One of the men says a prayer, asking that we would all examine ourselves and take it in a worthy manner. Then the men begin to walk down the aisles handing the plates to the people sitting on the ends of the rows. As the bread, and then the juice, is passed to me, I take it, put it in my mouth and close my eyes. The room is quiet, just then a child asks his Mother a question and is quickly chastised for it, “Be quiet,” she says. As we sit in silence with grim looks on our faces we must make sure we don’t talk, smile or heaven forbid laugh, that would be irreverent, and then the thought strikes me, “The only other time the atmosphere is like this, is when I’m at a funeral.” Why? Why are we acting like we’re at a funeral? Why are we told it is to be a silent, solemn occasion?

Of course I knew the answer given all too often, I’d even preached sermons explaining this in the past. “The Lord’s Supper is a time of solemn remembrance of the great sacrifice Jesus became for our sins. We show reverence to our Lord by conducting ourselves in a respectable manner while remembering his death, that is why we remain silent during this time.” For a while I struggled with the thoughts I couldn’t get out of my head. At first I tried to suppress the things I was feeling and learning. I heard the voices saying things that I was becoming all to accustomed to hearing, “Who do you think you are? Do you really think we’ve got it all wrong this whole time? Believe me, men much older and wiser than you would have figured this out if it were true. You must be becoming a liberal!” I wondered where this solemn ritual came from (I could find no trace of it in the New Testament),and  the more I studied, the more I realized that what we were doing was not commanded by God, as I had always thought. And so, here I am writing this blog, and asking the question, “What should our attitude be during the Supper?”

The Messianic Banquet

Something that can shed light on the practice of the early Christians is a study on the Jewish hope of the Messianic Banquet. Isaiah wrote of a great banquet that would be hosted by the coming Messiah (Isaiah 25:6-8). This was a great hope of the Israelite people, they longed for the day when they would be reclining at the table of the Lord. When Jesus came he “came eating and drinking” (Matthew 11:19), hosting celebratory meals for all who would come, looking forward to “the wedding supper of the Lamb” as John writes (Revelation 19:7-9). The great event was clearly a hope of first-century Jews. One Jewish man once declared, “Blessed is the one who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God” while at the table with Jesus. Jesus himself said, “I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 8:11). The practice of the early Christians was an extension of the practice of Jesus of eating festive meals with his disciples, and looked forward to the wedding supper of the Lamb.

It’s Sunday Not Friday

Aside from an ignorance of historical fact and the national hopes of Israel, the traditional arguments for observing the supper in our current manner seem to confuse Friday with Sunday. We are not gathering for the Lord’s meal while he is in the grave. The tomb was empty! Jesus was raised from the dead! The Lord’s meal is not a funeral. Yes Jesus was crucified, but he was resurrected. Jesus lives!

In thinking about this apparent confusion between Friday and Sunday, crucifixion and resurrection, a few biblical events come to mind. First, Jesus found the women going to the tomb (as if it was a funeral) and Mary crying outside the tomb and he asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?” Crying over the death of one who lives makes no sense and when she realized he was alive her sadness turned to joy.  Then Jesus encountered two disciples walking the road to Emmaus deflated, and he said to them, “How foolish you are and how slow to believe that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? (Luke 24:25). When I think of how our practices of the Lord’s Supper do not fit with the things we say we believe about Jesus, I’m reminded of Jesus’ question to Martha (John 11:25), “Do you believe this?” Do we believe that Jesus lives? If so, then why do we practice the Lord’s Supper, which by all accounts is to look back on the work of Jesus (which was the greatest victory ever and the reason for our purpose, lives, hopes and aims), the way we do?

I have often thought, while we sat there in silence and gloom, “I wonder what Jesus thinks about what we are doing.” I can imagine him, as we each look down with eyes closed and somber looks, screaming at us, “I’M ALIVE!”

I have to be quite honest; I’m just not exactly sure what part of the Lord’s supper makes us so somber. Is it the communion with a victorious, risen King in his kingdom? Is it the koinonia with the family of God? Is it the celebration of his victory over sin and death? Or the remembrance of his great sacrifice and great triumph?

Altar Mentality

When we examine our practices and where they came from, we find that we have an altar mentality instead of table mentality. We examine ourselves, which mainly consists of thinking about our sins and how they made him suffer. This is an altar mentality. The altar was where the sacrifice was offered. The table is where the blessings were enjoyed. On the cross Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice for us. But he rose from the grave and broke bread with his disciples. When we gather for the Lord’s meal it is not to be around the altar as the sacrifice has been offered once for all (Hebrews 7:27), it is to be around the table. But we seem determined to treat the Lord’s table as if it is an altar and we miss out on the table he has prepared for us, the blessings he is extending to us that we don’t seem to want to embrace.

If you are reading and finding it hard to consider anything other than your long-held practices, perhaps this illustration will be of some help. Just to make it clear we go to church every week, to express our devotion for the one who died for us by taking the bread and juice in silent gloom, thinking about our sins and how bad they made him suffer. Now, imagine for a moment you and your wife have a weekly date night, every week ya’ll get together and spend some special time alone. But there is a problem. You see some time ago she did something that made her feel terribly guilty. You forgave her but she never really let it go. And each week on date night, she feels it is her responsibility to spend that entire time completely focused on what she did and the pain it caused you. Now, would you appreciate that she has that attitude and spends that time in that manner, and see that as evidence that she is worthy of being your wife? Would you thank her for her attitude of reverence? OF COURSE NOT! But this is essentially what we are doing during the Lord’s supper.

Come To The Table

The Lord’s meal is an event where Jesus followers are looking back on the victory won by their Lord and King, presently enjoying his reign and looking forward to his return. Our King has invited us, the table is spread, come and join the celebration.

A History of the Lord's Supper

The early Christians came together to eat the Lord’s meal. This was a festive community meal, that “proclaimed the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). When they gathered around the table they gave thanks, broke bread, and ate their meal, which concluded after the cup was passed around. This was a Jesus-centered, every-member participating community, celebrating his reign, around his table. But this quickly changed.

Frank Viola and George Barna, in their book Pagan Christianity? do a great job summing up what this Christian banquet has mutated into:

Today, tradition has forced us to take the Supper as a tongue-tickling thimble of grape juice and a tiny, tasteless bite-sized cracker. The Supper is often taken in an atmosphere of solemnity. We are told to remember the horrors of our Lord’s death and to reflect on our sins.

How did this happen? Why was this Jesus celebration replaced with a solemn ceremony, including only a small piece of cracker and a few drops of juice?

Well, beginning in the middle of the second century, the bread and the cup began to be separated from the meal, and before the dawn of the third century they were completely separated. By the time of the fourth century, the “love feast” was prohibited among Christians! The new practice of bread and cup alone began to be called the Eucharist, meaning thanksgiving.

With this change came others as well. The Supper went from being a community event, to a priestly ritual to be observed at a distance by the laity. The bishop took on a special role in the ritual, much like the role of high priest and eventually one had to be administered the “sacraments” by the priest. Chrysostom (347-407), bishop of Constantinople, separated the idea of sacrifice from communion, and believed that the priest offered the sacrifice to God, and the people took communion.

Along with this change, the bread and cup came to be viewed with an altar mentality rather than a table mentality. John Mark Hicks in his book Come to the Table does an excellent job at showing the history of sacrifices and celebrations within the Jewish and pagan traditions. The altar was the place of sacrifice, the place where sins were dealt with, the place where the victim was offered. But following the sacrifice at the altar came the celebration, where the participants relished in joy at the work of their god in taking away their sins. The celebration of the early Christians took place at the table, but a few centuries later this ritual took place at the altar. Naturally, this led to the participants having a somber attitude during this ritual rather than a joyous one. After all, the altar has always been a more solemn place than the table.

The Eucharist took on an aura of mysticism and superstition. The bread and the cup were viewed as holy objects in and of themselves. By the time of Gregory the Great (540-604) the sacrifice of the mass was fully established. It came to be believed that the bread and wine actually changed into the Lord’s physical body and blood during the Eucharist (The doctrine of transubstantiation, which explained how that change occurred, was not worked out until the 11^th-13th centuries). These changes led to the people approaching these elements with fear and dread, as well as confusion and mystery. This remained the case in the Catholic Church until the reformers (14^th-16^th centuries), began to question and condemn many practices of the Pope and the priesthood, including transubstantiation. With the rise of Protestantism, the idea that the bread and the wine became the literal flesh and blood of Jesus during this sacrifice by the priest was rejected by newly forming Protestant denominations. The title given to this ritual was also changed from “Eucharist” to “Holy Communion.” Although there were tweaks here and there, the practice still appeared to be very similar to that of medieval Catholicism. The ritual still consisted of only a bite-sized piece of bread or cracker and a very small amount of wine or juice. The mood was still somber, and the people observing the ritual still for the most part sat in silence as they maintained the altar mentality. They were no longer served by a priest but now a pastor, although it was awful hard to tell much of a difference between the two.

The 17^th and 18^th centuries saw the beginning and development of “The Restoration Movement.” Unfortunately, in regard to the Communion ritual, those involved in the restoration movement kept virtually the same practices as most throughout mainline Protestantism. They just vowed to go thru this ritual more often, and renamed the altar table the communion table.  With the restoration movement came the phrase “The Lord’s Supper,” taken from 1 Corinthians 11:20, being used as a title for this ritual, although the practice was still far from that of early Christians.

This is a brief trace of the history behind our current practice of the Lord’s Supper. This is information that I have learned in an effort to investigate my own beliefs and practices and in response to continually asking myself the question, “Why do you do what you do?” I encourage you to investigate for yourself, and find out why it is that you do what you do, and why you believe what you believe.

Sources

The Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2011.

The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament by Craig Keener. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1993.

From Symposium To Eucharist by Dennis E. Smith. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2003.

Come To The Table by John Mark Hicks. Abilene, Texas: Leafwood, 2002.

Making a Meal of It by Ben Witherington III. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2007.

Pagan Christianity? by Frank Viola and George Barna. Carol Stream, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 2008.

Reimagining Church by Frank Viola. Colorado Springs, Colorado: David Cook, 2008.

The Eternal Kingdom by F.W. Mattox. Delight Arkansas: Gospel Light Publishing Company, 1961.

The Lord's Supper In Corinth

In this blog I have wrote about the passages I have used in the past to support or defend the way I practice what is commonly called the Lord’s Supper. These are passages I used to point to and say, “See, this is why I do what I do.” In previous posts I have taken brief looks at Luke 22:7-22, Acts 2:42, 2:46-47, 20:7, and now 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.

¹⁷ In the following directives I have no praise for you, for your meetings do more harm than good. ¹⁸ In the first place, I hear that when you come together as a church, there are divisions among you, and to some extent I believe it. ¹⁹ No doubt there have to be differences among you to show which of you have God’s approval. ²⁰ So then, when you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper you eat, ²¹ for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk. ²² Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God by humiliating those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? Certainly not in this matter!  ²³ For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, ²⁴ and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me.” ²⁵ In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me.” ²⁶ For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.  ²⁷ So then, 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. ²⁸ Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. ²⁹ For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. ³⁰ That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. ³¹ But if we were more discerning with regard to ourselves, we would not come under such judgment. ³² Nevertheless, when we are judged in this way by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be finally condemned with the world.  ³³ So then, my brothers and sisters, when you gather to eat, you should all eat together. ³⁴ Anyone who is hungry should eat something at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment.  And when I come I will give further directions.

I will present an argument I have used in the past to show that the way “we” take the Lord’s Supper is right and those who don’t do this are wrong. Then I will answer that argument. The reason for this is an effort to make this post as easy to understand as possible, as well as be as clear as I can in explaining what I’m getting at. Before I do this, here is some very basic background information on the banquet in the Greco-Roman world:

Background on Greco-Roman banquets.

The banquet was a key part of life in the Greco-Roman world. The word deipnon is the Greek word for their evening meal, the main meal of the day. The symposium immediately followed the deipnon. The symposium was the part of the banquet where the entertainment took place. This should help us to understand part of the setting for the meals in Corinth.

Argument #1

The Lord’s Supper and a full meal are mutually exclusive (The Lord’s Supper is not to be taken with a meal, or turned into a meal). After all, Paul asked them, “Don’t you have homes to eat and drink in?” He also wrote, “Anyone who is hungry should eat something at home, so that when you meet together it may not result in judgment.”

Answer:

I believe this conclusion is based on 2 things: 1) A lack of understanding of the nature and practices of the early communities that formed around Jesus. 2) Forcing our current practices onto the text. It’s almost as if my eyes focused on these two phrases alone, and I saw Paul saying to the Corinthians, “Stop eating meals”, and neglected to see the entire passage as a whole, and not the rest of this letter to the church at Corinth, let alone first-century Christianity within the Greco-Roman world.

Those who argue this overlook the fact that early Christian communities did not have specially designated religious buildings where they could worship God. Instead they put the belief, that the church is a community of people and not a building, into practice. And they met in houses, the places where these people lived. They didn’t have “worship services” with a holy time and a holy place.

The fact is that early Christians ate, what is here referred to by Paul as the Lord’s Supper, within the context of a meal. Contrary to popular belief, Paul says nothing to discourage them from continuing this practice! One would think that if Paul were writing this passage, mainly to command them to stop eating meals, he would say, “Stop eating meals!” In fact it is the exact opposite. As Scott Perry mentioned in his comment, Paul rehearses the story of Jesus breaking bread with his disciples on the night he was betrayed, and he makes it clear that a full meal was involved, placing the phrase “after supper” in between the bread and cup. Also, look at Paul’s directions on how to solve the problem (v.33). Does he write, “When you get together, stop eating meals with the Lord’s Supper”? NO! Instead, “You should all eat together.”

Argument #2

During the Lord’s Supper, in order to be pleasing to God, we must examine ourselves, meaning, we must think about the sins we have committed, weigh them against the good we have done and make sure we are worthy to take the Supper.

Answer:

In order to come to this conclusion, one must separate the words “examine yourselves” from their context and assume Paul was wanting the people at Corinth to do what we do. The phrase “examine yourselves”, within its context, clearly is referring to the way they are divided, and their practices which were turning the community meal into individual meals, “humiliating those who have nothing.” Paul is certainly not commanding them to make sure they are meeting imaginary standards of some moral code, to determine whether or not they are worthy to partake of certain ritualistic acts. Nor is he requiring them to meditate upon some personal sins that they may have committed during the week before. He is pleading with them to consider how their behavior is damaging the community of Christians at Corinth, and their brothers and sisters individually.

Argument #3

Also, during the Lord’s Supper we are to meditate on a visual image of Jesus hanging on the cross (Note: Other thoughts other than these two themes are inappropriate during this time).

Answer:

I believe this conclusion is mainly based on a misunderstanding of what Paul writes in v.29: “For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves.” The body, many in Corinth were not discerning, is the church. They were tearing down the community instead of building it up. Their suppers were meals of individuals or cliques, while the Lord’s Supper is a community enhancing event. There is certainly nothing wrong with visualizing Jesus on the cross, but the fact is that Paul is simply not writing to chew these people out for not focusing their constant attention on a mental image of Jesus suffering.

The more you learn about the Greco-Roman world, especially banquets in that world, the more you realize that the problem in Corinth has to do with them turning the Lord’s Supper into their own. Their community banquets were nothing more than events that upheld the values of the surrounding society. Their social boundaries and levels of status were set by the world.

The community at Corinth was divided. Paul writes, pleading with them to consider their practices and strive to unite rather than divide, to build up instead of tearing down. Promote the values of Jesus your King, instead of the values of the society in which you are living. His goal for them is simply “to eat together.”

Sources

The Holy Bible: New International Version. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2011.

The Zondervan Greek and English Interlinear New Testament edited by Mounce and Mounce. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2008.

The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament by Craig Keener. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1993.

From Symposium To Eucharist by Dennis E. Smith. Minneapolis, Minnesota: Fortress Press, 2003.

Come To The Table by John Mark Hicks. Abilene, Texas: Leafwood, 2002.

Making a Meal of It by Ben Witherington III. Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2007.