Communion Is Not An Individual Exercise

This is the fifth post in a bi-weekly five part series. It is inspired by the book of 1 Corinthians and my studies of that book. Posts will have appeared here and on A Deeper Church. Read the previous posts in the series:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

They learned first the breaking of bread and the sharing of wine in Paul’s eighteen months with them. It was a symbol, a reminder, a representation of the Truth they had come to believe. It was entering into not just union with their Savior, but communion. A meeting. A joining together. The Spirit, the Son, and the Father reaching out to one another as hands reached out for bread and goblet.

And though bread and wine were staples in their homes, they did not mean the same when digested and imbibed alone, apart from one another. Bread and wine commingled and traveled down the esophagus, melding together in the stomach. But there was no communion. It was just a meal. But together, in those early days, together it was the Body of Christ come alive in their midst. As the Spirit of God indwelt each of them individually, the Spirit reached out to itself from with each of them. Communing with itself as they communed with one another.

At that table, with bread and wine and a God who had saved them, who was saving them, who would save them still, they entered into communion. Yes, through the sharing of bread and wine because his body was broken and his blood was shed. And they entered into communion because they were community. They were the Body he left on earth to point others to the body that hung on a cross. To the body that death could not hold. To the body that destroyed death forever for all who would believe and put their faith in him.

And so they communed.

But when bread and wine become food and drink, and tallies are kept of who brought what and if they brought the best wine and the tastiest bread, or simply what they could afford, communion withers and the table becomes a place of judgment. When bread and wine and body broke and blood shed become tools for division, there is no communion.

As we read that they sat and ate and drank, not sharing but withholding, not in communion but in disunion, dividing, not abiding, I cannot help but think of our own communion tables. Of goblets and loaves, of plastic cups in gilded trays and paper-like wafers that stick to tongues as words of reminder, words of communion, words of body broken and blood shed are poured out over us, calling us together. Do you feel it? Can you hear it? That longing of the Spirit within you crying out for Itself, crying out to Itself through walls we have erected to keep us from those who do not commune as we do? Or simply the longing to commune beside another body as we the Body take and break and eat and drink as individuals?

Spirit cries out to Spirit as we attempt to commune with the Savior alone.

But we were never meant to commune alone. Unity with one’s self is simply an individual. One. One person. Alone.

But if we are to be like him, to commune with him, then we must commune with each other. We must be united with him, in him, and with one another.

Because his body was broken, yes. His body was broken so that this body of broken sinners turned redeemed saints might never have to experience that breaking.

Let us break bread and drink wine.

Let it remind us of the breaking of his body so that this Body might never be broken.

How does your church take communion?
Do you take communion alone or with others?
How do you practice communion with the Body?

the foolishness of wisdom

This is the second post in a six part series that will run for the next three months. It is based on the book of 1 Corinthians, and posts will appear here and on A Deeper Church. You can read the first post in this series here.

“For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”

Imagine a city full of people driven by success, driven by money, always striving to be the best, to one-up their neighbor and their co-worker, always wanting to be at the forefront of the next cultural movement or moment.

Now imagine learning about Jesus. Imagine learning that people could live together in community and have everything in common. Imagine learning that wisdom didn’t come from worldly knowledge, but instead from a man crucified on a Roman cross.

I don’t have to imagine too hard because mostly this sounds like where I live. No, I don’t worry about whether or not the meat in my hamburger was sacrificed to idols first. But that whole relativist, subjective truth, anything goes just so long as it doesn’t rain on my parade cultural attitude sure feels familiar.

We have been given not the wisdom of this age, but wisdom from God. Not so that we may flaunt our knowledge and impress each other with what we know, but so that we may grow in our understanding of the Gospel. So that we may grow mature in our faith. So that we may grow in our ability to mirror him, to image him.

But the wisdom of this age is tempting. It is popular. It is easy.

And the wisdom of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.

And if we are honest, if I am honest, doesn’t it occasionally feel foolish to us, to me, as well?

Because Christ crucified and raised from the dead is all well and good if you were John and you saw him die and you saw him alive and you saw him ascend. But what about us? What about two thousand years later? Where are our miraculous signs and wisdom?

We fear we lack them, so we either stand on soapboxes and hope we yell louder than those who would oppose us so we don’t have to engage with the questions they raise. Or, like the Corinthians, we slip off to the sidelines and hope someone else dukes it out for us while we try to fit in. We say, “I’m not really into theology, I just love Jesus, but whatever you love is cool too” and we hope that no one presses us about what it means when we say we love Jesus.

But friends, brothers and sisters, we have been given the miracle of the resurrection which, yes, we take on faith, and we have been given the wisdom of the cross which is supposed to look foolish. But it is only foolish from the surface. It is only foolish when we look at it from a worldly perspective. Let us not be afraid to steep ourselves in the wisdom of the cross, to enter fully into the wisdom of the Gospel. For it is when we are in Christ, when we are living out his Gospel, that we come to understand the wisdom of Christ crucified and raised for sinners like us.

New York + Las Vegas + Los Angeles = Corinth

This is the first in a five part series that will run for the next three months. It is based on the book of 1 Corinthians, and posts will appear A Deeper Church and here, on my personal blog. It has been said that if you combined modern day New York, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles you would end up with something like Corinth in the time of the Apostle Paul.* A city marked by the hustle and bustle of ships in the harbor and merchants traversing overland trade routes. By the temples and idols and the people who called those steps their office and those statues their gods. By the one-upmanship that colored their philosophical discussions and their drive to reach the next rung on the social and economic ladders. You can read the rest of the post over on A Deeper Church.