Special Outdoor Worship, September 7, 2008
Grace be unto you and peace, from God our Father and from our Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.
Let us pray: Dear Heavenly Father, we give you thanks for your living Word, Jesus the Christ, who through his life, death and resurrection revealed your will for our lives. Through the power of your Holy Spirit, open our hearts and minds to receive your Word and sacraments as the means of grace for all generations. This we ask in Christ’s holy name. Amen.
Paul’s First Letter to the church in Corinth reveals, as do all of his letters, his deep theological insight that has contributed greatly to the foundation of Christ’s Church. I would like you to think for a moment, and consider the fact that this letter was written by Paul only about 20 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Therefore, it is one of the earliest writings of the New Testament, penned long before the Gospels.
To be sure, Paul was a great evangelist, who went throughout the Greek and Roman Empire proclaiming the kingdom of God, inaugurated by Christ’s death and resurrection. As a result of his missionary journeys, and those of others in his day, congregations of Christ’s church were established at an enormous rate. The problem was, however, that once a congregation was formed, Paul left those fledgling congregations to carry his message of Christ’s victory over sin and death to other towns and villages.
At that time, there were no quote, “Pastors” to provide continued direction and understanding to those congregations, about what it means to follow Christ as one of his disciples. And I’m sure, that at this point in the life of Christ’s Church, there were no “constitutions” to guide their life together. As a result, not long after Paul left those congregations, problems soon started to develop. The congregations in Corinth were certainly no exception.
So, when Paul heard about the problems that developed among the congregations in Corinth, he wrote them this theological letter, in the hope that it would help them understand the significance of what it meant to be a disciple of Christ.
For example, Paul chastised the congregations in Corinth for their sexual immorality, which stemmed from their independent arrogance in thinking, that if Christ had freed them from sin and death, they could indulge in whatever activity they pleased. Paul spoke against incest, in responding to the report that a man had married his stepmother. Paul upheld the sanctity of marriage, and spoke against the Greek custom of frequenting brothels.
And Paul did so, not by lifting up Roman and Jewish law, but by making the theological point about the sanctity of the human body. For according to Paul, through our baptism, “we were washed, we were sanctified, we were justified in the name of Jesus the Christ and in the Spirit of God the Father.” As a result, we should not join our bodies, which have been so blessed, in sinful activity.
I don’t want to dwell this morning on all of the immoral social issues that sprang up in the fledgling congregation of the Corinthian Church. But I would like to focus on Paul’s theological understanding of the sacraments. For Paul not only gave clear direction to enable these congregations to understand the significance of these rites of the church in Corinth, but to the church throughout history.
First, from my understanding of Paul’s letter, there must have been some mythical perception on the part of the Corinthians, that when one was baptized, the person who performed the sacrament, somehow imparted wisdom to the person baptized. Since there were several persons who performed baptisms in these congregations, factions developed. It is almost as if, within 20 years of Christ’s death and resurrection, different denominations of Christ’s Church began to form.
Paul had heard that, and I quote, “Each of you says, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” To this Paul states, “What! Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” End quote. Paul then goes on to extol the Corinthian Church to seek the wisdom of God in Jesus the Christ, that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power to redeem us from sin and death.
Can you imagine how this statement of Paul, helped the Church throughout the ages to focus on the true significance of the sacrament of baptism? The person who performs the sacrament is of no importance. God forbid, that I, who have presided over many baptisms in my ministry, would claim any responsibility for the grace of God bestowed upon those who receive this sacrament.
I may have shared this with you before, but shortly after I was ordained, a young, unwed mother and friend of mine, came to me and asked if I would baptize her baby. This mother shared with me that before she left the hospital, she had thought of placing her daughter up for adoption, but that she wanted her to be raised in the Christian Church. And so, when she was feeding her baby, she took her glass of water, dipped her fingers into it, and baptized her daughter in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
I then asked her, “Well, what do you want me to do? Your daughter has been baptized.”
“But I’m not a pastor of Christ’s Church, she said. I want her baptism to be legitimate.”
“It is,” I told her. And then I explained to her Paul’s message to the Church in Corinth, and made arrangements to acknowledge the baptism of her daughter at a service of worship, and issue her a certificate of baptism. It is God’s act of grace, that unites us to the death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, not the person who celebrates the rite.
Finally, to our text for this morning. Apparently, it was the custom in the congregations of the Corinthian Church to worship around a meal, in much the same way that Jesus and his disciples celebrated the Passover. However, given the factions that had already developed through their allegiance to the person who baptized them, or the factions that naturally develop through the prestige of wealth, further divisions arose within the congregation.
To this, Paul says: “In the following, I do not commend you… For when you come together as a church… it is not really to eat the Lord’s supper. For when it comes time to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own supper, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. What! Do you not have homes to eat and drink in? Or do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing.” End quote.
Paul then goes on to give us the very first recorded account of the institution of the sacrament of Holy Communion. He says, “For I received from the Lord what I also handed on to you, that the Lord Jesus, on the night when he was betrayed, took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, “This is my body that if given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” We know the words of institution, for we hear them every Sunday.
But Paul adds, in rebuttal to their distorted practice of celebrating the Sacrament as a means of God’s grace, the words, “For as often as we eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord.” End quote.
Here again, is a theological statement that defined the significance of this sacrament as a means of grace, even before the Gospels were written. From Paul’s message, we actually come to understand this sacrament by the word “communion.” Writing against those who ate and drank their full, while others went hungry, Paul says, “Let this meal proclaim the death of Jesus for our redemption. For it binds us together as God’s own family, redeemed by the death of Christ.”
As a result, we are to either share the riches of our table, so that all may rejoice in the presence of our crucified and risen Lord, or eat at home. For we are the “communion” of Christ’s church, who, as his disciples, are to seek to acknowledge his gift of grace, and strive to fulfill the needs of all those who have been redeemed by his death.
The sacrament of communion is not just a simple meal. It is a means by which God enables us to receive the very presence of Jesus the Christ, who gave his life for our redemption. Thus, according the words of Christ himself, is believe his words, “This is my body; This is my blood, given and shed for you, for the forgiveness of sin. And through the power of God’s Spirit, we have grown throughout the ages, since Paul first wrote this message to his congregations in Corinth, to perceive the presence of our crucified and risen Lord in this sacrament. May God’s Spirit continue to grant us his grace, that we might deepen our faith to live as Christ’s disciples.
Amen
