Advent Lutheran Church

"Remember Me, Remember You (Holy Thursday)"

            This brief passage from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth might sound like simply a helpful reminder about the Lord’s Supper, but in fact Paul was addressing a serious problem: There was big trouble in Corinth.  The church that he had founded fewer than 20 years after the death and Resurrection of Jesus was having an identity crisis.

            In a way, it was understandable.  The city of Corinth was home to a thriving and rich diversity of ethnic groups, various layers of social status, and a wide variety of income levels.  It operated as a culture of hierarchy in which many people served the interests of the few.  Everybody knew their place.  That was simply the way it was.

            That same diversity of groups was present when the Corinthian Christians gathered for worship, only instead of removing those distinctions and barriers from among themselves they maintained them.  Nowhere was the system of hierarchy more evident than in the practice of Holy Communion.  When the congregation gathered for worship, which usually included sharing a main meal that included the Lord’s Supper, they simply imported into the church the practices that they observed in the wider culture.

            Here’s how that wider culture worked.  When someone, typically a wealthy man, hosted a dinner party he would invite his closest friends and people of similar social standing.  He would seat those people according to whatever rank he assigned them – that’s how you could tell who was important to whom.  He would seat those he considered the most valued closest to himself, and they would be seated on a raised platform in the center of his dining room.  Those valued guests would receive the choicest food and the best wine.  He would also invite people of lower social rank, and these people would stand around the edges of the room; they would receive provisions of lesser quality.

            This type of dinner was literally a display; the home of a wealthy urban man was often open to the street so that passersby could look in and see the celebration and be impressed by the host’s wealth and social standing, and also by his generosity to those of lesser rank.

            The hosts of the various house churches in Corinth maintained that same practice when the Christians gathered for worship.  When the wealthy people arrived, they often ate until they were stuffed and drank until they were drunk; while the poorer members often received nothing at all.

            Paul saw that as a gross injustice, and he wanted it to end.  So he reminded them of what he had told them before about Jesus’ words as they share the Lord’s Supper.  He wanted them to remember so that they could actually be the Body of Christ, collapse the barriers that existed among them and reunite themselves in the covenant they shared with Christ and, through Christ, with each other.  That’s the whole point, Paul maintained, of Christ’s sacrifice.

            What barriers exist between you and others?  As we are gathered here this morning it would be easy to say that there are none among us; we’re all equally beloved of God, equally in need of God’s grace and mercy.  But as you go out into the world and go about your day, what divisions and barriers will exist between you and those you will encounter?

(The assembly gathered in front of the altar as the elements were prepared)

            “Sacrifice.”  Usually, when we think of that term in a theological context we think of Jesus sacrificing his life for ours, of Christ giving himself up to death so that we can have eternal life.  But recent scholarship offers another perspective, and it’s rooted in the word itself.  The word “sacrifice” comes from the Latin phrase sacrum facere, which literally means “to make sacred.”  When Christ poured out his divine life for humanity, he actually poured his divinity into humanity, and made humanity sacred.  Just as Christ broke himself open for us, he invites us to break ourselves open, to empty ourselves so that we might be filled in this sacrament with the love and power of God, so that God might pour us out for the sake of the world.

            That’s what we remember when we remember that on the night in which he was betrayed, our Lord Jesus took bread and gave thanks, broke it and gave it to those he loved, saying, “Take and eat, this is my body, broken for you.”  Again after supper he took a cup, gave thanks and gave it to all to drink, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, shed for you and for all people for the forgiveness of sins.  Do this for the remembrance of me.”