One time a student came to Socrates and said, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, because anytime I meet you, you show me what I am.” God’s a lot like that. Someone has said, “Our problem with God is not His existence, it’s His essence, for when we see Him, He shows us what we’re not.”
One time Luther was asked by a friend, “Where are you going to stand when everyone is against you?” Luther replied, “Right where I stand now, in the hands of Almighty God.” You see, Luther knew that his standing was not the product of the work of Luther; it was the product of the work of God.
Generations ago some unknown author wrote: “I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me; It was not I that found, O Savior true, No I was found of thee.”
Years after Watergate, Chuck Colson said, “My greatest humiliation was the beginning of God’s greatest use of my life. He chose the one experience, in which I could not glory, for His glory.
And the Apostle Paul knew that. After writing two letters to the church at Corinth, Paul writes a third letter that we call II Corinthians. (We’re missing the first and maybe another one.) Near the end of it, the apostle returns to a familiar theme – humility. Indeed, both of the Corinthian epistles take on the issue of egotism as the primary problem in Corinth. And Paul begins his rebuke in the first chapter of the first letter. Twenty-six chapters later Paul says, “If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness…For when I am weak, then I am strong.” The problem in Corinth is factionalism. It’s a factionalism born of pride, and Paul hits it head on. In fact his most devastating critique of egotism is a reference to Christ’s teaching in II Corinthians 12:1-10. Here Paul recounts the time when he was caught up into the third heaven and there he heard things that cannot be told. But in I Corinthians 11 he tells us one of the things Christ told him. And guess what? It’s all about oneness!
Think of it. When Paul meets the Risen Christ, whether in the desert of Arabia (Gal. 1) or here in the third heaven, the subject the Lord addresses with him is communion. That’s the Corinthian problem. That’s our problem, too – factionalism and individualism born of egotism.
When one considers the marks of a life that’s becoming more and more like Jesus, one of the clearest and strongest is a corporate identity. This stands to reason, for in all the Gospels there’s only one thing that Jesus says He earnestly desires (read “lusts after”) and that is to eat with His disciples. Indeed, His final command prior to the cross is, “Love one another as I have loved you.” As we noted last week, when the Holy Spirit transforms a life, one of the clearest byproducts is a whole lot less “me” and a whole lot more “we.” And that’s exactly what we find again in Sunday’s text: I Corinthians 11:1-2, 17-34.
In preparation for Sunday you may wish to consider the following:
1. Find some Scriptural examples of eating together as the sign of intimacy.
2. What experience might Paul be referring to in II Corinthians 12:2?
3. How could Paul’s experience of 14 years earlier relate to what he’s saying in I Corinthians 11?
4. What does the word “communion” mean?
5. Why does Paul say that when the Corinthian Christians come together in verse 17 it’s not for the good, but for the worse?
6. Why is it that the most pressing thing on Jesus’ mind before the cross is eating with His disciples?
7. In verse 24 Paul mentions something Matthew and Mark fail to mention in their accounts of this first communion. What is it?
8. What can we learn about our corporate identity in Christ from the word “Eucharist”?
9. What does it mean to eat and drink in an “unworthy manner”?
10. How do both of the variant readings in verse 33 make the same point - that it’s all about the “whole” and not the “parts”?
