Narcissism and Nobility

Meditations on 1Corinthians

No. 20c

Discerning the Lord’s Body

1Cor 11.17-34

What God has joined together.

In God’s world, meals are the way families and societies are formed.  Even secular anthropologists have observed this fact.  Two anthropologists who performed a study of the eating customs of various cultures drew the following conclusion:

In all societies, both simple and complex, eating is the primary way of initiating and maintaining human relationships.  Once the anthropologist finds out where, when, and with whom food is eaten, just about everything else can be inferred about the relationships within [among?) the society’s members.  To know what, where, how, when, and with whom people eat is to know the character of their society.  [Fn 2.]

This is no accident; God designed it this way.  From the beginning, God has used ritual to make and sustain relationships.  From the beginning, God has used meals to give life and to form up His human family.  God initially breathed life into Adam, but afterward He gave Adam life through food and drink.  From the beginning, God also set aside special food to be eaten by His people in a special place and special times.  That’s what a meal is —  particular food shared by gathered people at a certain place and time.  So, the meal has the effect of forming up God’s human family into His presence, into His fellowship, and into one another’s fellowship.  In the meal, God gives life to his human family — which is to say He gives Himself to His family, and His family members in turn give themselves to God and to one another.  Each gives and receives only to give again.

Think about a family.  It has various members scattered about engaged in various activities.  While so engaged, they are all individually members of the one family, but the family itself is not formed —  it is not visible, the fellowship of the family is not actualized.  What will be the event that will form up the family, if nothing else does?  The family meal.  There, at that time, for that purpose, the family forms and becomes visible and enters into its own fellowship.  In a very real sense, we can say that it is the meal which forms or confects the family.  And this is exactly Paul’s theology in 1Cor 10.17: “[W]e, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.”  Notice the confectionary language: “We, though many, are one bread.”  We, being many ingredients, are united to make one loaf of bread.  Paul immediately explains his metaphor: We, though many individuals, are one body of Christ.  And how are we confected into one loaf and body?  Through the meal: “[F]or we all partake,” Paul explains, “of that one bread.”  Which bread?  The eucharistic bread of the Lord’s Supper.  In other words, we all partake of the same meal which the Lord, the head of the family, has instituted, and that meal forms we who are many individuals into the one body of Christ.

If the forming of Christ’s historical body in the incarnation was not an end in itself but had as its purpose the formation of the corporate body of Christ, how can we not see that the eucharistic body of Christ (the bread) has the same purpose?  It is not an end in itself, nor is its purpose to confect the historical body of Christ (as the Church of Rome says), nor yet is its purpose to confect the idea of Christ’s historical body in our minds (as most Protestants maintain).  If Christ took to himself a human body and gave that body in sacrifice in order to form his corporate body, how much more should we realize that that is the purpose of the Lord’s Supper, and that is what he is doing to us in the Lord’s Supper?

Family meals, family character, and the family head.

So we see the principle that the family meal proclaims the nature and character of the family, as well as the culture and society the family will propagate.  Moreover, to proclaim the nature and character of the family is to proclaim the nature and character of the head of the family.

Proclaiming the Lord’s death.

Paul says that we “proclaim the Lord’s death” when we celebrate the Lord’s Supper (1Cor 11.26).  We tend to assume this means we proclaim that he died.  But Paul means that we proclaim why he died and to what end.  We are to be the living statement of why and to what end the Lord died.

Discerning the Lord’s body.

We have seen that discerning the Lord’s body in 1Cor 11 means discerning the corporate body of Christ confected in and through the Lord’s Supper.  But it means more than that.  Notice that Paul begins this passage not talking about the Lord’s Supper but talking about general body life.  He begins by saying that there are divisions among the body (1Cor 11.18) before they ever get to the Lord’s Supper.  And Paul says they are worse off not just for taking the Lord’s Supper but for coming together at all (1Cor 11.17).  This is because the have divisions among them (1Cor 11.18).  Paul has already admonished them about their divisions (1Cor 1.10-13; 3.3-4), and now he does so again.

Paul says there “must” be divisions among them (1Cor 11.19).  How can he say that?  Because divisions are inevitable when you have people who consider themselves superior (“approved”) (1Cor 11.19).  Those who are superior want to be “recognized” — they want to have a following — and that leads to divisions (1Cor 11.19).  Paul knows there are members at Corinth who consider themselves superior (1Cor 1.10-13; 3.3-4), and therefore he knows there must be divisions even if had not been told of them.

Discerning the Lord’s judgment.

No doubt it came as a surprise to the Corinthians to learn that physical maladies which bore no apparent connection to their behavior in the Body, were in fact connected (1Cor 11.29-30).  That is why Paul informs them — because they were not making the connection on their own.  God promises we will reap what we sow (Gal 6.7-8), but the connection between reaping and sowing often goes undetected.  (That’s why Paul tells the Galatians, “Do no be deceived.”  (Ibid.))  There is a connection between sowing and reaping, and it isn’t arbitrary, but we often miss it because it is spiritual.  Spiritual doesn’t mean nonsensical; it means we must view life from a biblical perspective to see the connection.  Here’s the connection Paul is drawing our attention to: If we afflict the body of Christ, making it weak and sick, then God will afflict our body, making us weak and sick.

So at base, this passage is not about who receives the Lord’s Supper, nor even about disparity during the Lord’s Supper.  It is about pride within the Body, which leads to selfish ambition, which leads to divisions which display themselves through selfishness and disparity during the Lord’s Supper, which leads to God judging members of the Body through weakness, sickness, and even death (1Cor 11.30).  Or as Paul puts it elsewhere: “If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him.  For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.”  (1Cor 3.17.)

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Footnotes

1. Quoted by Peter Leithart in Liquid Gospel, Edible Words, Christ Church Ministerial Conference 2002.