selfishness

THE GRACES OF GOSPEL-SHAPED COMMUNITY

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The Grace of Waiting for One Another at the Lord’s Table

I have written elsewhere about various what I call graces of gospel-shaped community. In this post I want to consider another lesser-known one another text of the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 11:33: So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another.

The Biblical Setting

The Corinthian church struggled with multiple problems. Paul wrote the letter to address them one-by-one. When we come to chapter 11, he turns his attention for the next couple of chapters to abuses in their corporate worship—especially the most serious of all—their practice related to taking the Lord’s Supper. Serious doesn’t even begin to express the degree of alarm sounded here. Their abuses in this regard made God so sick, as it were, that He brought severe physical judgment upon the people (1 Cor. 11:30). The Table is not something with which to trifle!

The Historical Background

Commentator William Barclay explains:

The ancient world was in many ways much more social than ours is. It was the regular custom for groups of people to meet together for meals. There was, in particular, a certain kind of feast called an eranos to which each participant brought his own share of the food, and in which all the contributions were pooled to make a common meal. The early Church had such a custom, a feast called the Agape or Love Feast. To it all the Christians came, bringing what they could, the resources were pooled and they sat down to a common meal. It was a lovely custom; and it is our loss that the custom has vanished. It was a way of producing and nourishing real Christian fellowship.

Indeed, it is. We find biblical evidence of those kinds of love feasts among the churches in two other places: 2 Pet. 2:13—concerning false teachers plaguing the church—They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their deceptions, while they feast with you. And Jude 12: [regarding false teachers] These are hidden reefs at your love feasts, as they feast with you without fear, shepherds feeding themselves. Frequently those Christian feasts would culminate in the eating of the Lord’s Supper. They combined the Supper with their community meal—unlike the way we typically separate it on Sundays. OK, so far so good. But look what happened in Corinth with this whole deal in 11:20-21: When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. More on this disgraceful behavior in a bit.

Understand a couple things about first century Corinth. Class distinctions abounded, rich and poor especially. The current famine (Paul speaks of it as the present distress in 1 Cor. 7:26) exacerbated the situation in that the slaves who normally went without anyway, suffered even greater want given the circumstances. In fact, the weekly common meal where the rich and poor would eat together in the church, sharing as each one had means, might amount to the only decent meal a poor person or family would get in any given week. The poor depended upon those with greater means to share from their abundance. But that was not happening in Corinth and Paul made sure here in chapter 11 that they would get nothing in the way of commendation for their astonishing behavior. He scolds them at the end of v. 22: Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. He was ticked. He blistered them with godly reproof. For what?

Hurrying! He rebuked them for not waiting for the poor who couldn’t get to the feast as soon as they in their wealth and leisure could. No, instead they would wolf down the food, stuff themselves, and even drink to excess according to v. 21, with the result that some of them got drunk while the poor went hungry! A good bit of research into the first century as well suggests that the well-off may have taken up the prime spots in the household’s dining room leaving the poor to stand and/or congregate in ancillary rooms of the dwelling. Good grief!

Do you see the picture? Do you get the result? The calloused, selfish, insensitive, grab-game behavior in Corinth brought yet another form of division and separation into the assembly, based on the haves and the have nots, the rich and the poor! Before Paul hammered anything else in the letter, he took on the problem of factions in 1 Cor. 1:10-13:

[10] I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. [11] For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. [12] What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” [13] Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?

So, in chapter 11, Paul returns to the poison of division in the body but comes at it from a different direction—the abuses of the Lord’s Supper. That’s why in vv. 23-26 he chooses to teach them again the true nature and proper observance of the Supper as a spiritual event of the highest order—not a cause of gorging the physical appetites! Indeed not, as he rails with rapid-fire rhetorical questions in v. 22: What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? In other words, you have homes for satisfying your appetites. Your sinful behavior despises the cross of Jesus which obliterated class distinctions of every kind, made abundantly clear in 1 Cor 10:17: Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. And your behavior humiliates the poor for whom God takes up offense. Proverbs 17:5: Whoever mocks the poor insults his Maker.

Now we have a basis for understanding his loving, (note that though steamed at them, in v. 33 he calls them brothers, a term of affection) practical admonition at the conclusion of this section: when you come together to eat, wait for one another. The Greek word for wait can mean that or expect. I think the ESV gets it right given a text like Acts 17:16: Now while Paul was waiting for them in Athens and this immediate context previously reviewed. The ESV includes a marginal note with an alternate rendering of share with, I suspect, because waiting for the poor to show up implies the expectation of sharing with them and not hoarding. Do this waiting with a view to sharing, Paul says, (and if you can’t, eat at home to take the edge off) why in v. 34? So that when you come together it will not be for judgment. Judgment of the worst kind.

Now we’re finally ready for the main idea for this post: The gospel shapes community by empowering us to manifest the grace of practicing selfless, loving, and sensitive courtesy toward all, particularly with taking the Lord’s Supper in view. How do we make the jump then to our context before we partake? In some ways, the takeaways are not as closely connected, since we normally practice separation between the Lord’s Supper and our fellowship meals. I suggest three applications related to Communion.

One, acknowledge the priority of the Supper as supremely important in the worship of the church and as a means of grace for your spiritual life. We should not think too lightly of this ordinance of Christ.

Two, take extraordinary care in the way you participate in the Supper with particular attention to discerning the body (11:29). The church is one body where unity, peace, and equality should excel like nowhere else. It should matter greatly how we deal with one another and that we do nothing to separate or divide the church. Practice peacemaking when necessary.

Three, examine your heart for any exclusivist prejudices that rear their ugly heads in the form of racist feelings, sexist feelings, classist feelings, cliquish feelings, or insensitive, dismissive-of-others feelings that negate the true meaning of the Supper and despise the church of Jesus Christ where all stand equal as fellow heirs of the grace of life.

If you find such ugliness in your heart, admit it to Jesus and believe the gospel again for grace and forgiveness. Then come eat and drink at the Lord’s Table with a heart’s prayer to so thoroughly delight in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for you that it elevates you to a still more excellent way, the way of love (1 Cor. 13), and the grace of “waiting,” no matter how different a class the object of your love.

The ABCs of REC

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ABC

So no doubt you get the idea behind the ABCs. The basics. The starting place. The fundamentals. To quote Coach Lombardi of Green Bay Packer’s fame on opening day of summer camp: “Gentleman, this is a football.”

What in the world is REC? Resolving Everyday Conflict.

RECLast Sunday we began a journey at OGC of working through this study by Peacemaker Ministries. It aims to help us navigate the troubled waters of inevitable conflict in relationships in a redemptive way. If you missed session one, you are more than welcome to join us this Sunday at 9:30 AM for part two.

In session one I did my peacemaking version of “this is a football.” I covered the ABCs of REC. Ready?

A – awareness of one’s heart. Two key texts anchored our study. James 4:1-3 gives us this building block of the ABCs.

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.

To deal with the symptom you have to know the cause. James makes it plain. Passions, cravings, idols of the hearts, often good things that become god things and end up bad things more than not turn disagreements into relational war. So stand guard over your heart from the get go. Be suspicious of your own desires-turned-demands that throw gasoline on the disagreement fire.

B – burdened for others’ interests. Philippians 2:3-4 shape this fundamental.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Paul assumes we will do the self-interest part of the equation. What he pleads is that we will give the same level of concern to what drives others in our conflicts. It’s not an either/or proposition; it’s a both/and one.

C – consumed with Jesus’ mindset. Paul tells the rest of the story in Philippians 2:5-11.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Imagine that. He points us to the gospel – Jesus sacrificially humbled on the cross, then gloriously exalted in the heavens. Jesus sets the pace for us. He puts the bar high by His own example. But that alone will never get us to a place of concerned deferral to others even sacrificially. Please note. A mind like this, one that looks out for interests of others to such a sacrificial degree, is yours in Christ Jesus. That’s what he wrote. It’s our very own possession. Because we are in Christ we have the supernatural strength to elude the grip of selfishness and travel the way of others-interests. That’s terribly good news.

These are the ABCs of REC. How’s your grade lately in the school of conflict resolution? Maybe you could use some remedial tutoring? Hope to see you Sunday.

What Kind of Assistant Pastor We Should Want

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I finished my Father’s Day message for this year today. I selected Psalm 112 for my text. The writer commands us to praise God for the extraordinary blessing of a man who fears the Lord. I call that kind of man an awestruck man. The man who fears the Lord lives moment-by-moment in a reverent awe of God that shapes everything he does.

As we prepare to interview on Saturday four men from our body for the assistant pastor of administration post opening this summer at OGC, we should concern ourselves with numerous issues related to character and skill, but none more than this one. Paul Tripp, in his book Dangerous Calling, explains:

Awe of God must dominate my ministry, because one of the central missional gifts of the gospel of Jesus Christ is to give people back their awe of God. A human being who is not living in a functional awe of God is a profoundly disadvantaged human being. He is off the rails, trying to propel the train of his life in a meadow, and he may not even know it. The spiritual danger here is that when awe of God is absent, it is quickly replaced by our awe of ourselves. If you are not living for God, the only alternative is to live for yourself. So a central ministry of the church must be to do anything it can to be used of God to turn people back to the one thing for which they were created: to live in a sturdy, joyful, faithful awe of God.

Would you pray for the interviewer team that we ask the right questions and probe the right issues in our time with these men? Pray especially that we get to the bottom of all-important issues like their degree of awestruckness (yes, I made up a word) before the God of the universe. While you are at it, pray this pastor knows something more of the same virtue for the glory of God and the joy of our people.

By the way, how’s your awestruckness quotient these days? Praying it gets bigger and bigger for us all.