Communion Meditation by Dr. George Bryant Wirth
Summer Communion
July 27, 2008
TABLE MANNERS
Scripture: I
Corinthians 11:17-34
INTRODUCTION
Many of us grew up in homes
where the family dinner table was the place to gather on weekday evenings and
after worship on Sunday afternoons.
I remember my family sitting
together in the dining room of the manse up in Sag Harbor, Long Island – our
mother and grandmother, my brother and two sisters and our father, the Presbyterian
pastor, at the head of the table, who thought it was important to begin with a
Bible lesson and then we all prayed in unison: “God is great, God is good, let
us thank Him for this food; by His hand we all are fed, give us Lord our daily
bread.”
From that moment on, we tried
to abide by the rules which were taught mostly by my mother, “Table Manners” as
she described them, that we were supposed to follow:
Sit up straight and wait
until everyone was served before you started to eat, no elbows on the table and
always say please and thank you, don’t devour the food, don’t slurp the soup,
talk and listen to one another, and nobody gets up to leave until everybody has
finished.
Additional instructions
reminded us, when the red aspic Jell-O and spinach and asparagus were passed
around, that we had to at least try some, because there were starving children
in China who had nothing to eat. The
logic of that argument was unconvincing to me, and I discovered that our black
The point is, we had table
manners in our family, and so did many of you, and although we did not always
abide by them, at least we had been told and taught what we were supposed to
do,
I
But that was not the case
with the
However, things were not
going well in
Remember, it had only been
twenty years since Jesus and His disciples had met together in the Upper Room
in
You see, some of the people
were bringing their own food, kind of like a Wednesday night pot luck supper,
and they had developed the bad habit of finishing their meal without sharing
anything with anyone else. Moreover,
some of them were drinking too much wine and getting drunk, which offended all
the others.
So Paul chastised them,
saying When you meet together, it is not
the Lord’s Supper that you eat…Do you despise the Church of God and humiliate
those who have nothing? Shall I commend
you in this? No, I will not! (I Cor.
11:20-22)
The closest I have ever come
to that situation was back in January of 1983 when I served one Sunday as
chaplain to the New York Jets football team.
They stayed Saturday night at a hotel on
My role as chaplain was to
have breakfast with them, and then conduct a 30 minute service, including
prayers, a Bible reading, a short sermon and then close with a familiar
hymn. As a Presbyterian pastor, I was
well prepared and organized for the worship experience, but I was completely
surprised by what happened at the breakfast.
Standing in buffet line with
those huge men, many of whom were Christians, as I reached with the silver
tongs for some bacon, one of them took my arm and gently but firmly pulled me
back as suddenly, the biggest human being I had ever seen stepped in front of
me, and with this massive right hand, scooped out all of the bacon onto his
tray, grunted and glared at everyone else, then went to sit down by himself.
The player who had probably
saved my life whispered quietly, “That’s Joe Klecko, our tackle – we always let
him eat first – he’s in a bad mood at breakfast, and by game time it gets
worse, which is exactly the way we want it to be.”
Well, the Jets lost to the
Miami Dolphins that day, and thank God, nobody blamed me. But I will never forget the way Klecko took
all of that bacon, which was not only bad table manners, but also not good for
his arteries!
Just so, when some of those
Corinthians devoured the food before anyone else could come to the table, they
were acting selfishly and disrespectfully toward the others. And because they drank excessively, there
wasn’t much opportunity to sense the presence and peace of the Holy Spirit in
that community.
All of which is to say that
the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper which Jesus shared with His first disciples
had become a sacrilege in the Corinthian Church – and what was worse was that
instead of being united through communion, those people had become divided by a
food fight that threatened to destroy the faith and fellowship of the entire
congregation.
II
So when Paul wrote his letter
to them, he included strong words of correction, reminding those wayward
Christians of their table manners, saying:
Whoever,
therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner
will be answerable for the body and blood of the Lord…Examine yourselves and
then eat of the bread and drink of the cup…When you come together to eat, wait
for one another. If you are hungry, eat
at home, so that when you come together, it will not be for your condemnation (I Cor. 11:27-28, 33-34).
And just to be certain that
the Corinthians remembered how the sacrament of communion had begun in the
first place, he added these words which we call all these years later “The
Institution of the Holy Supper”:
“I have
received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus
the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given
thanks, He brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is My body, which is broken for
you: this do in remembrance of Me. After
the same manner also He took the cup, when He had supped, saying, This cup is
the New Covenant in My blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance
of Me. For as often as ye eat this
bread, and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord’s death till He come.”
Now, we Presbyterians like to
do everything decently and in order, so our old Book of Common Worship has
added some additional words which have a deeper theological meaning than most
of us might realize. And every time I
recite them to you, I try to look in your eyes, because these are personal
words of invitation:
“Dearly
beloved, all that humbly put their trust in Christ and desire His help to lead
a holy life, all that are truly sorry for their sins and would be delivered
from the burden of those sins, (all of us therefore) are invited and encouraged
in Jesus’ name to come to this sacrament…so let us come that we may find rest
(and renewal) in our souls.”
Do you know what that
means? It means that we do follow Table
Manners here in this communion service, and what Jesus asks of us today is the
confession of our sin, and the desire to receive forgiveness and the gift of
grace as we open our hearts to Him.
But there’s one thing more,
and it is this: Jesus doesn’t want us to keep His gift to ourselves. So we include these words in the communion
invitation, saying that “Having been renewed in body, mind and spirit here, we
are called to go into the world out there and share His grace with those who
are in need.”
And if we believe that is
Christ’s call to all of us today, then what we need to do is to stop, look,
listen and pay attention to the opportunities and the people whom He will send
our way.
Two nights ago, around 11
o’clock, as I was working on this communion meditation, I needed a Bible
commentary from the office. So I drove
over to the church, parked on
I noticed a man sitting on
the steps, eating a slice of pizza and some potato chips. We said hello to one another as I entered the
building, found the commentary, and began to walk out the doors to my car. The man, who was still sitting there, looked
at me and said “It sure would be nice to have some water.” Now Rev. Black, in charge of our community
ministries for more than twenty years, has taught me not to give any homeless
person money on the street, but instead to invite them to come here any weekday
or Sunday so that we can get to know them and help them however we can.
But this man wasn’t asking
for money, and I suddenly remembered what Jesus said about giving “a cup of
cold water to someone in need” (Matthew 10:42).
So I went back into the building, came out with a Diet Coke, handed it
to my new friend and said, “Instead of water, will this be ok?” He looked up, smiled at me and replied,
“Thank you brother, thank you. You know,
things go better with Coke.”
CONCLUSION
And right there, right then,
I realized all over again that the promise is true: Jesus said that Wherever two or three are gathered together
in my name, I will be with them (Matthew 18:20). And the miracle is that Jesus was with
us, with that man and me, sharing pizza, potato chips and Diet Coke, just as He
is with all of us here and now, as we mind our Table Manners and eat this bread
and drink this cup. And our Lord wants
everyone to be included, and no one to be left out.
So as we come to this table,
if you know the prayer, will you say it with me?
“God is great, God is good,
Let us thank Him
for this food.
By His hand we all
are fed –
Give us Lord our
daily bread.”
In the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The sermon distribution fund has been established by the Session of First Presbyterian Church to enable friends and groups to make contributions for the printing of the Sunday sermons. Sermon leaflets will be printed from time to time, as they are requested and as funds are available. Please designate your gift for Sermon Distribution Fund. Thank you for your support.