21 years ago (2001), DreamWorks produced the animated film Shreck, in which Shrek, an ogre, falls in love with the beautiful princess Fiona, who turns out to be an ogre herself. They fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after.
Then Shrek 2 comes along three years later (2004), and the “happily ever after” is not so happy. The princess Fiona takes her new husband to the kingdom of Far Far Away to meet her parents. The King and Queen of Far Far Away receive a shock when they discover their new son-in-law is a big, green ogre, and Fiona now looks just like him.
The family sits down to a royal meal where personalities and prejudices begin to clash. A faceoff between in-laws escalates into name-calling and then a food fight. Take a look (show video: Shrek 2—An Awkward Dinner Scene).
The king and his son-in-law glower at one another from opposite ends of a long, ornate table.
“What kind of children can we expect from you?” shouts the king.
“Ogres!” Shrek yells in return.
Attempting to keep the peace, the queen adds, “Not that there's anything wrong with that.”
“Not unless you eat your young!” shouts the king.
As classical music plays in the background, any illusion of family togetherness is buried under a barrage of harsh words. The anger spreads to husband and wife as Fiona screams at Shrek, and the queen shouts at the king. Suddenly the battle breaks out in earnest, and food becomes the weapon, completely ruining the feast. The crackers are crushed, the lobster is cracked, Shrek shreds the chicken, the king filets the fish, and a roasted pig sails high into the air.
Sarcastically, the queen says, “It's so nice to have the family together for dinner” (Shrek 2, DreamWorks, DVD chapter 4, 2004, directed by Andrew Adamson and Kelly Asbury, 00:17:15 to 00:18:31, www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmpFmJfEZXs).
When families come together, they’re not always together, are they? Tensions arise because of differences in class, culture, and/or convictions. And the same can happen even when the family of God comes together.
God in His grace brought Jew and Gentile, rich and poor, male and female, black and white, Hispanic and Caucasian, and oh my, He even brought Republicans and Democrats together in one family (Galatians 3:28; Ephesians 2:14-16). It makes the family meals, to say the least, “very interesting.”
So how does such a diverse group of people learn to get along to go along to advance the gospel together? Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians 11, 1 Corinthians 11, where the Bible again addresses the issue of unity within the church.
1 Corinthians 11:17 But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse (ESV).
In 1 Corinthians 11:2, Paul commended the church at Corinth because of the way they dressed in church. Here, Paul cannot commend the church at Corinth because of the way they acted in church.
1 Corinthians 11:18-19 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized (ESV).
When they came together, they were not together. They were divided, which made the genuine believers stand out among the rest. You see, a genuine believer loves people despite their differences. Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, [if you have the right theology, if you have the right politics, if you have health and wealth. No!] Jesus said, “By this all people will know that you are my disciples if you if you have love for one another” (John 13:35) despite your differences.
Love is the mark of a genuine follower of Christ, but the Corinthian believers were dividing themselves by class. It was part of their Greek and Roman Culture.
One commentator says, “Ancient seating at public events was arranged according to rank. The churches in Corinth met especially in well-to-do patrons’ homes. [There, it was customary for the] patrons to seat members of their own high social class in the special triclinium (the best room), ideally reclining about nine diners… [The rest were] served in a larger atrium, which might comfortably seat an estimated 40 persons (Keener, C. S., 2014, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament, Second Edition, p. 483-484, IVP Academic).
Those with higher rank got the best seats, and those with lower rank got the worst seats. On top of that, those with lower rank got little or no food.
1 Corinthians 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 (ESV).
In the early days of the church, they celebrated the Lord’s Supper as part of a larger meal, which they called the Love Feast. Church members brought food to share, much like our potluck dinners today. Then they broke bread and drank from the cup, commemorating our Lord’s death on the cross.
However, in the Corinthian Church, those who got there first ate all the food and drank all the wine. These were the wealthier people, because the slaves had to wait until they finished their work before they could go to the Love Feast. Then, when the slaves arrived with their meager rations, all the good food was gone. They starved while the wealthy feasted. So Paul writes…
1 Corinthians 11:22 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? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not (ESV).
Paul refuses to commend the Corinthian Church, whose selfishness mocks the Love Feast and the sacrifice of our Savior on the cross. When they came together, they were not together. They divided themselves into factions and neglected the poorer members of their church. It caused serious divisions in the church, which hindered their testimony and mocked the gospel of Christ. If you don’t want to see that happen here at Faith Bible Church, then when you come together…
COME TOGETHER.
Display the unity that is yours in Christ Jesus. Team up with one another to accomplish what you cannot do on your own.
For example, don’t sit with just your friends. Make an effort to sit with people you barely know, and get to know them, so they become your friends. Go out of your way to interact with people who are different than you.
I like the way Sandra McCracken put it in a recent issue of Christianity Today magazine. She writes:
I played softball in a community league when I was a teenager. We didn’t know each other the first time we stepped out under the lights together. We were strangers in gray polyester uniforms and orange baseball caps.
At the start of our opening game, there was a palpable feeling of possibility. My teammates were talented, and the coach was tough. As he invested time watching us throughout the season, he positioned and repositioned us in different roles, playing to our individual strengths. As each player lived into her giftedness, there was more synergy and success.
Today, instead of feeling like a single team with diversely gifted players, we find ourselves in a cultural moment where it often feels we’re on different teams altogether. This is true in society at large, and sadly, it seems just as true inside the church.
But there was a time when the church was like a brand-new softball team, stepping out onto fresh-cut grass in late summer, individual differences obscured by what they were as a whole: “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit... All the believers were together and had everything in common” (Acts 2:4, 42, 44). God is so committed to this unity that Jesus prayed specifically for us, “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you… so that the world may believe that you have sent me” (John 17:21).
Jesus was not naive. He knew that finding unity is patient, slow work.
Let’s open up our echo chambers and build bridges instead of moats. Let’s listen for the still, small voice of the Spirit and attend to what he may ask of us. These are heavy times, but there is kingdom work to be done (Sandra McCracken, “We Really Are on the Same Team,” CT magazine, October, 2021, p. 28; www. PreachingToday.com).
How right she is! “These are heavy times, but there is kingdom work to be done.” So come together when you come together. Then, when you come together…
REMEMBER JESUS!
Recall what He did for you on the cross. Keep in mind His sacrifice for you.
1 Corinthians 11:23-26 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes (ESV).
When we partake in communion, we look back on what Christ did for us on the cross, we look around to others who need to hear that good news, and we look forward to His Second Coming.
When Jesus celebrated His last supper with His disciples, they were celebrating the Passover Meal together. As you know, the Jews to this day celebrate Passover to commemorate their redemption from Egyptian Bondage. Jesus, however, gave that meal new meaning when He identified the bread with His body on the cross and the cup with His blood, shed to ratify a New Covenant between us and God.
The Old Covenant depended on our obedience to the Law to receive God’s blessings, but we could not obey, so we were held in bondage to our sin. In the New Covenant, God forgives our sins, writes His law on our hearts, and gives us His Holy Spirit. He changes us from the inside out and blesses us unconditionally (Jeremiah 31:31-34; Ezekiel 36:25-28).
Thus, when we take communion, we commemorate our redemption from bondage to sin, not to the Egyptians, the Romans, or even the Democrats or the Republicans. :) Christ sets us free from sin! And that’s the good news we proclaim until He comes again.
Now, when Jesus took the cup “after supper,” it was the third cup in the Passover meal, which was the first cup AFTER the meal. It was the cup of redemption. Then, there was one more cup, the cup of praise or consummation, which looked forward to the consummation of all things in God’s Kingdom.
But Jesus stopped the meal before that last cup. After they drank the cup of redemption together, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, I will not drink again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:25). My dear friends, there’s one more cup we’re going to drink after Jesus comes again. It’s a cup from which we’ve never drank before. It’s the cup of the consummation of all things in His Kingdom.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait until that day! What a day, glorious day that will be! Perhaps today! But until then, we proclaim His death when we eat the Lord’s Supper. It’s the only thing that binds such diverse people like us together.
During World War II, General Douglas MacArthur invaded the Indonesian island of Biak, to secure an island airfield from which to launch his forces against the Japanese. Six months later, in June 1944, a chaplain named Leon Maltby arrived on the island to minister to the troops. He had a 20 by 60-foot canvas structure to serve as his chapel but nothing in it except a floor made out of packed coral and a roof made from a yellow parachute. So with the help of some carpenters, he built pews, a platform, and an altar.
He wanted to serve communion but had nothing to serve it with. Then he found some unused 50 caliber bullets. He pulled out the lead, gunpowder, and firing caps. He welded the casings, pressed them into the right shape, and shined them up. Each took about two-hours to complete, and he made enough for 80 communion cups, which he used to serve his men.
In 1945 Chaplain Maltby sailed into Japan, becoming the first Protestant chaplain to enter Japan. He befriended a local Japanese pastor and used that same communion set to serve the Lord’s Supper with him. This moved the Japanese pastor deeply. The set is now on display at the Veterans Museum in Daytona Beach. There, a sign reads, “The pastor clearly understood the significance of ‘Instruments of death becoming a symbol of eternal life’” (Stephen Dempster, Micah: Two Horizons OT Commentary, Eerdmans, 2017, p. 131; www.PreachingToday. com).
That’s what the cross is all about! It was a terrible instrument of death, which has become the symbol of eternal life.
More than that, it brings enemies together. The Bible says, “[Jesus] himself is our peace, who… has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility… that he… might reconcile us… to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility” (Ephesians 2:14-16).
So if you want to come together, come together around the cross. Come together, focusing on the cross, not your differences. Come together and remember Jesus. Then…
REFLECT ON YOURSELF.
Examine yourself as you come to the Lord’s Supper. Appraise your own attitudes and actions towards other believers.
1 Corinthians 11:27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord (ESV).
No one is worthy to eat the Lord’s Supper. But those who recognize their own sinfulness can eat the Lord’s Supper in a worthy manner. They can eat it with humility and selflessness unlike the Corinthian believers who ranked themselves higher than others and selfishly consumed all the food before the poor could enjoy any of it.
Tony Campolo talks about a time when he sat with his parents at a communion service. He was 6 or 7 years old at the time, and he noticed a young woman in the pew in front of them who was sobbing and shaking. The pastor had just finished reading 1 Corinthians 11:27, which says, “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord.” So, as the ushers passed the communion plate with its small pieces of bread, she waved it away and lowered her head in despair. It was then that Campolo’s Sicilian father leaned over her shoulder and, in his broken English, said, “Take it, girl! It was meant for you. Do you hear me?”
She raised her head and nodded—and then she took the bread and ate it. Campolo knew at that moment that God had lifted a heavy burden from her heart and mind (Tony Campolo, Letters to a Young Evangelical, Perseus Books Group, 2006; www.PreachingToday.com).
You see, communion is for sinful, hurting people. It reminds them of the price Christ paid to forgive their sin. Yes, communion is for sinful, hurting people, not for those who hurt people with their selfish, superior attitudes. So…
1 Corinthians 11:28-32 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world (ESV).
Judge yourself before God judges you. Judge yourself before God makes you sick and takes you home to heaven early. For God loves His children too much to let you hurt your brothers and sisters in Christ. So, He will stop you before your selfishness gets so bad, He would have to condemn you with the rest of the selfish world.
Linore Burkard, from Bellmore, New York, talks about a time when her 2-year-old and she were walking along a busy street. Then suddenly her 2-year-old girl broke loose of her grasp and ran ahead. Linore rounded the corner only to see her daughter’s feet leave the curb and venture into the street.
No sooner had her little girl taken a quick stride when—plop—she stumbled and fell. Later, with her daughter's bruises washed and kissed, Linore couldn't help but wonder, “What if she hadn't fallen? A car might have hit her” (Linore Burkard, Bellmore, NY, “Heart to Heart,” Today's Christian Woman; www.PreachingToday.com).
Sometimes, God uses pain to protect you from worse harm. So examine yourself when you come to the Lord’s Supper. Examine yourself before God has to stop you in your tracks.
If you want to come together for the advancement of the gospel, then come together around the cross, recognizing that none of us are worthy of what Jesus did for us on the cross. Come together. Remember Jesus. Reflect on yourself, and…
REMAIN.
Wait for one another. Stay put until everyone has a chance to enjoy the meal together.
1 Corinthians 11:33-34 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another— if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come (ESV).
The Corinthian believers selfishly consumed all the food in their love feasts before the poorest of them arrived. So Paul tells them to wait for one another, to begin eating only after everyone has arrived. In other words: Put others before yourself before God puts you in your place.
It reminds me of what Jesus said of those who choose the places of honor when someone invites them to a wedding feast. He said: When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 14:7-11).
Former QB for the Philadelphia Eagles and Super Bowl MVP, Nick Foles got to play late in the 2017 regular season and go on to win it all thanks to an injury to starter Carson Wentz. After the surprising Super Bowl win, starter Wentz was ready to play during week 3 of the 2018 season and Foles was once again relegated to backup.
There was a lot of debate regarding Foles as the backup. Should the Super Bowl MVP really be relegated to backup? Long time, knowledgeable football fans, ex and current players and coaches all were adamant that their choice—Wentz or Foles—was the right and smarter one.
Many people were surprised that Foles took his relegation back to backup so well. In his 2018 book Believe It, Foles writes:
What they saw as a riches-to-rags sports story, I see as part of God’s divine plan. I’ve said all along that my desire is to play for God’s glory, not mine, and that’s exactly what I plan to do. My unique path from backup to Super Bowl MVP to backup again is a powerful message to share with people, and God has given me an ideal platform to do that from. To cheerfully return to a backup role after reaching the pinnacle of the sport contradicts everything the world tells us about success, fame, money and self-worth. To me, it’s a tangible reminder that we are called to humility and to a life of service….
Some people might think I deserve a better deal, but it’s not about what I deserve. It’s never been about that. The truth is, I’ve already been given far more than I deserve—a wonderful family; a job I love; grace and forgiveness; great friends, coaches and teammates. Everything I have is a gift from God, and I’m thankful for all of it. I am where I am now because of God’s grace, and I’ll continue to follow wherever he leads (Nick Foles and Joshua Cooley, Believe It: My Journey of Success, Failure, and Overcoming the Odds, Tyndale Momentum, 2018, p. 216; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s a winning attitude! – to recognize you’re here to serve, not to be the superstar. It not only works on football teams, it works in the church, as well.
If you want to come together for the advancement of the gospel, then come together around the cross. remember Jesus, reflect on yourself, and remain, or wait, for one another.
Vance Havner once described a church that had a sign in front: JESUS ONLY. Then one night a storm blew out the first three letters and left US ONLY. Then he said, “Too many churches have come to that” (Vance Havner, The Vance Havner Quote Book/On This Rock I Stand; www.PreachingToday.com).
We don’t have to let it come to that here. Just keep your eyes on Jesus and humble yourself to serve one another.
