Paul says some of you are sick and dying because you gulp the Supper unworthily (1 Cor 11). Share the moment the bread and wine stopped being routine and started feeling dangerous.
What happened, and how did it change the way you prepare?
Ok, in some church cultures people are told to make sure we have confessed all our sins before taking "Holy Communion" or having "the Lord's Supper". The main attention of preparation can be making sure we ourselves are all set and not in trouble with Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 11:17-34, our Apostle Paul gives things about how the Corinthian church had abused the Lord's Supper, and what they needed to do, instead >
1 Corinthians 11:17-19 > our Apostle Paul says they had divisions. And so, they were not doing the Lord's Supper right, if they were divided. Even so, ones could see who was **not** involved in the divisions . . . and realize those were the "approved" leaders.
1 Corinthians 11:20-21 > people would bring their own food and drink and take it - - right while a poor Christian was sitting there with nothing to eat and drink. So . . . the problem here was not if the well-to-do person had confessed one's sins, but the person was being inconsiderate of the poor Christian . . . the problem then being how they were relating personally with one another. They were being anti-love, then, not relating in love the way Jesus has loved us. And so, they were not having their supper/communion in true remembrance of Jesus because they were not loving the way Jesus has loved us.
His way of loving as His family is much of what is the remembrance of Jesus, is it not? So, instead, by focusing on only our own sins and focusing away from one another and loving, this can be a major problem of communion in case it has become an outward idol ceremony with copy-catting and with no real relating.
In 1 Corinthians 11:22 > "What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing?" So, yes they were abusing those who had "nothing". Yes, Jesus had a lamb dinner with His disciples at the "Last Supper". It was communion, indeed, but with the Passover dinner which includes lamb, to my knowledge. So, there is nothing wrong with communion being a full dinner, but it needs to be full of the remembrance of Jesus, by being full of His love with His family way of caring and sharing with one another . . . not with each of us trying to make our minds concentrate on some imagination of Jesus on the cross while we even ignore each other!!
So, then, yes > when ones have a pot luck . . . and all are welcome, whether they have time or money to prepare food . . . this could be more like the Last Supper, with everyone loving and delighting in sharing as family with one another.
However, ones were despising and shaming the poor Christians. And what we do to the least of Jesus Christ's brethren, we do to Jesus Himself.
"Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me." (in Matthew 25:40)
So, those people indeed were in a lot of trouble . . . much worse than just dying and getting sick and being weak.
1 Corinthians 11:23-25 > so, yes, Jesus says to share the bread and cup "in remembrance of" Jesus.
"For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death till He comes." (1 Corinthians 11:26)
And what shows Jesus Christ's death? How He was loving while on the cross > this is much of all that is involved in Jesus dying for us, on the cross. And we are commanded >
"And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma." (Ephesians 5:2)
So, His death which we are to show has much to do with how Jesus was so loving, right while so suffering and dying for us, and how He was "a sweet-smelling aroma" to God . . . so sweetly pleasing our Father. And this is how we are to be: sweet and pleasant to our Father during whatever is going on.
So, their way of doing the so-called communion was anti-Christ, I would say. They were not personally relating and sharing as family, like Jesus did during the Last Supper.
1 Corinthians 11:27-28 > Paul says not to eat and drink "in an unworthy manner". I see, from the context of earlier scriptures, how the main issue was the divisions and how horribly they could be relating with ones less well-to-do. Therefore, my opinion is the unworthy manner was not only failure to confess some list of sins or some failure to devote oneself to the bread and drink. But they needed to be attentive to one another . . . not isolating themselves in trying to get grace only for their own selves, or brownie points for paying attention to the "symbolic meaning" of perhaps some cracker and grape juice.
1 Corinthians 11:29 > Paul says they were not "discerning the Lord's body". Now, ones take this to mean the bread is the body of Jesus. But, then, why does Paul not say not discerning the body "and blood" of Jesus . . . if the drink is really Christ's blood?? What I see, from what Paul says earlier, is he means they were not discerning how those poor Christians are the body of Christ. Jesus is so more concerned with if and how we honor and regard the children of God who are the body of Jesus >
"For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones." (Ephesians 5:30)
1 Corinthians 11:30 > here we have the verse that you are talking about . . . how many were sick and weak and dying. They had been relating badly with needy Christians. And "Therefore" many of them were sick and weak and dying. And so, Paul then concludes with what they need to do >
1 Corinthians 11:31-32 > judge themselves, be chastened by the Lord. Hebrews 12:4-14 talks about how we need to actively seek our Heavenly Father for His real correction which changes our ***character*** so we are sharing with Him in His own holiness in His love's "peaceable fruit of righteousness".
1 Corinthians 11:33 > and Paul says "Therefore" > "wait for one another" < this means how they are relating with each other.
But because they were relating in such an impersonal and even anti-love way, ones were dying and weak and sick. When we live in what is not love, this can affect us emotionally and even physically . . . even if God does not somehow punish us. And if we do relate in God's love with one another during the Lord's Supper, this love is full of God's own grace to grow and mature us to be and to love like Jesus. So, yes there is grace in the true Lord's Supper, grace being the effect of God's own love being ministered by "each" of us to one another >
"As each one has received the gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." (1 Peter 4:10)
But it seems to me, how ones can isolate themselves in how they do the Lord's Supper. Ones do not function as ongoing and life-giving and love-ministering children of God. And so they hide with a little bit of bread and drink. But instead we can always stay prayerful, submissive to God so we are constantly spreading His own grace.
