Eat and Drink with One Another (1 Corinthians 11.23-34)

Introduction

On the table in front of us there is bread and there is wine. Why? It is a matter of obedience. Jesus himself told us to this so that we never forget what it cost him to bring us together and win us for himself.

For most meals the essential thing is what the food tastes like. But what is important here is not what it tastes like but what it means. We come to this table, as equals, hungry for God.

Jesus said, “Do this in remembrance of me.” So I want to take you with me on a journey in time. We’re going to think again about what happened around the meal when Jesus broke bread the night before he died.

1) Past

It’s the night of the Passover festival and Jesus’ twelve followers are with him in Jerusalem. They’re all there; Peter, James and John of course, the inner circle… but unknowns too like Thaddeus and Bartholomew.

Jesus instructs his disciples to prepare the traditional feast in an upstairs room. They don’t know that it’s their fateful last night with Jesus and that by this time tomorrow he will be dead and buried. For them it’s a festive celebration, it’s a gathering of friends in the company of their master.

It’s Jesus’ last ever meal, and he alone knows it. He washes his disciples’ feet, talks with them and takes charge of the meal. He tells them just how much he had been looking forward to it. “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer” (Luke 22.15). He says clearly, without parables, that he is going to go through agony and die. “My blood will be poured out for you,” he says. He knows exactly what’s going to happen to him. Arrest, torture, the cross, desertion, loneliness, dereliction, death…

Peter is there, unaware of what he is about to do. In just a few hours he will have categorically denied ever having known Jesus only to bitterly repent afterwards. Jesus knows. But Peter is welcomed at the table anyway. Every week there are Peters at this table; coming with a good heart, earnest, innocent, enthusiastic… but fickle, impulsive, and easily led. The Lord knows that you and I can deny him just as easily. What matters is can Jesus count on us to come back to him broken and sorry afterwards?

Judas is there too. Yes, even him; the Judas who will hand Jesus over to death, the Judas who will show regret and remorse - but not repentance. But Jesus accepts even him as well to this table. On the cross tomorrow Jesus will cry out, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t understand what they are doing.” Was he thinking of Judas as well as the soldiers who crucified him, and the crowd who jeered at him?

Peter, because he allowed himself to be broken, was restored and given a new commission. Tragically, Judas never repented. Listen! Never think you have done something so bad, so shameful, that God would never forgive you. Never think that God is good, but not good enough to forgive you the worst you have ever done. Even Judas wasn’t beyond the pale. “Father, forgive…” He loves you, and nothing can separate you from his love – only your unwillingness to receive his mercy.

After the meal, events move very quickly. Jesus heads towards his favourite public garden just outside the city, called Gethsemane, which means ‘olive press.’ He invites his closest disciples, the ones he can really trust, to accompany him and watch with him through the night. They fall asleep. He suffers anguish and sorrow and mental torment. God presses the cup of his fierce anger against sin to his son’s lips, a cup that no one else can drink or even taste. Jesus drinks the cup dry.

Moments later, Jesus is face to face with Judas, who has come to hand him over. Three years of travelling together, of ministry together, of sleeping under the stars and eating at table together ends in a disorderly confrontation, and an awkward greeting… Face to face.

A bit later still, Jesus, chained up, his hands behind his back, steals a glance at his great friend Peter. Their eyes meet briefly across the crowded square. Peter has just called down curses on his head, swearing he has never met Jesus, adamant that doesn’t even know who he is. Face to face. All that awaits him now is a violent judicial murder. Relentless beatings, blood, humiliations, more blood, insults, more blood.

This meal, for us too, is a face to face encounter with Christ. Look Jesus in the eye with me this morning. Us in all our guilt. Him in all his blamelessness.

2) Present

Those are the events we recall this morning in breaking bread and pouring out wine. It’s an evocative reminder. It’s not like anything else on earth. But it’s not just about thinking back to the past.

Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, says v26 you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again. By sharing this meal together we publicly identify with the power of the cross and resurrection for us. Taking bread, sharing a cup is saying openly, “I believe today with all my heart that Jesus really died on a cross, that he carried my sin there in his body and because of him I can know God and be healed.” It’s a perfect opportunity to testify freely to those truths. Jesus didn’t say, “Watch this”, he said, “Do this in memory of me”.

We share this simple meal remembering the past, recalling to mind the agony of Christ on the cross. We also share it to express some profound things in the present; that we belong to a Christian family, that we are in Christ, and that his presence fills our life.

We belong to one another, we are members of one another as the Bible puts it. We, who are many, are one body, because we all share one bread. Meeting together at the same table is about belonging, not just to Christ, but to one another as well. This is a communion table.

That is why it is really important to be right with one another before we come to communion. Jesus said, “If you enter your place of worship and, about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you… go to this friend and make things right first.” This is why we share the peace.

But of course, we need to make sure we are right with God as well as right with each other. It is a holy communion.

There’s an important parallel between what it says about the Lord’s Supper in 1 Corinthians 8-11 and what it says there about food offered to idols. It says that meat sold in the market, having first been offered up to idols is O.K. It’s just meat. You can eat hallal, or in those Chinese restaurants with an idol statue by the front door, with a good conscience, even though the food may have been part of a non-Christian religious ritual.

It’s only food and anyway there is only one God. But it also talks about a spiritual dimension and that pagan sacrifices are offered to demons. Paul seems at first glance to contradict himself. But he is making two different and simple points; firstly, that food is just food; it’s not magic. But secondly, when we eat food in the context of worship, whether of God or of idols, we find ourselves in fellowship with hidden spiritual realities behind.

So when we break and eat this bread, it’s just bread. No more. It’s not magic. But by the power of the Holy Spirit, when we engage spiritually by faith, to us it’s more than just bread. It’s, as Paul describes it in 10.16, “a participation in the body of Christ.” The wine is real wine. If you drink it all, even ‘consecrated’ you won’t drive home legally! The physical ingredients do not change. But when we drink from that cup, in faith, submitted anew under Christ’s lordship and authority, it is the cup of salvation. In this bread there is healing and grace. In this cup, there’s forgiveness and abundant life. In this moment, by the Spirit, Jesus Christ is present.

It’s a bit like a window. You can look at the window; the frame, the handle, the size, the shape… Or you can look through the window and see much more. You can see just bread and wine if you want. But you can also, by faith, look through that and taste and see that the Lord is good.

Physically, we take bread into our bodies and we are nourished, given new energy and strength. Bread is good for you. Spiritually, what’s happening is that, by faith, as we give Christ our hearts, as we meet him, in our minds, face to face at the cross, we tap in to all the blessings that flow from his costly death. It’s the bread of life, the cup of salvation.

By eating this bread and drinking this cup I am saying to the world that Jesus is real and working in my life. He is alive in me. I am letting him work in me. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live is for the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up to die for me” (Galatians 2.20). I am saying, just as Jesus did in the garden, “Not my will, but yours be done.” I am trusting him to guide my life.

3) Future

So we share this meal looking back to what Jesus did. We come to this table too looking in to the present reality of our relationship with God, and looking around at of our unity with one another. But we also eat together looking forward to all that God has promised us. The Bible is extremely clear about this. Holy Communion will one day be obsolete. In eternal terms it has a very limited shelf life. God will one day abolish it. Soon, in fact. If Jesus comes back tomorrow the Communion we share in this morning will be our last. For in taking bread and wine we proclaim his death until he comes again, and only until then.

When one of your loved ones is away you might look at their photo to remind you of them, but not the moment they return. Why treasure a photo souvenir when you have the real thing? When Christ comes back, we shall see him face to face, and we won’t need shadows and symbols any more.

So this is why we eat and drink with one another at the Lord’s Table. But what about verses 27-31? I remind you that Paul says, without any ambiguity, the following words: “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. We ought to examine ourselves before we eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For those who eat and drink without recognizing the body of the Lord eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep. But if we judged ourselves, we would not come under judgment.”

Who is not puzzled or troubled by these words? What do these verses really say? What does it mean to examine yourself before eating and drinking?

Clearly, it means that taking communion is a serious business between you and God. You don’t do it lightly. It is a time to remember Jesus’ death and what it cost him to free you from sin. It’s a time to remember his resurrection, his presence in your life, his return. And the prayer we say at communion is designed to focus on those things.

But what if you don’t “recognise (or discern) the body of the Lord?” Does the Bible really say here that if you take Communion insincerely or absent-mindedly you can fall ill and die? It seems a bit extreme doesn’t it? Paul’s words in v30-31 are plain. “Those who eat and drink without recognizing the body of the Lord eat and drink judgment on themselves. That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have died.”

And there’s an example of this you are all familiar with. Someone who ate bread and drank from the cup, who shared communion with Jesus and his followers, without having examined his heart? Someone who died very soon afterwards? Judas Iscariot; the one disciple who fell away. Peter, that same night betrayed Jesus too, but he turned back to Christ in tears of repentance, went on to bear much fruit.

Ending

So let’s come face to face with Jesus this morning. Let’s humbly accept Jesus’ forgiveness like Peter did, and not despair in self-pity like Judas.

Let’s eat and drink as an expression of faith; that we might go on to bear much fruit as well.

Let’s eat and drink with gladness - not because we must, but because we may.

Let’s eat and drink not because we love him a lot, but because, like Peter, we so easily discover that we love him only a little. Let’s share this meal to say we want to love him more.

And finally, let’s eat and drink with one another proclaiming the cross with our brothers and sisters on the same journey. Until he comes again.


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 27th June 2010

No Compromise (Judges 6.25-32)

Introduction

An atheist turns up on a Rabbi’s doorstep one morning with a dead parrot and says, “Good morning, Rabbi. My parrot died yesterday and I’m looking for someone to do the funeral. Do you think you could do the ceremony and bury him in your Jewish cemetery?” So the rabbi scratches his head and sys, “In thirty years at this synagogue that is the most outrageous request I have ever received. There is no way on earth I would desecrate holy ground with your dead bird. Now get off my land!” Seeing that the rabbi’s answer was pretty clear-cut the guy says, “O.K., I’m sorry for the offence. But do you think the Anglican vicar down the road would do the funeral for £2000?” So the Rabbi says, “£2,000? Why didn’t you say your parrot was Jewish?”

My grandmother was Jewish, and I loved her very much. It's the kind of joke she would have enjoyed. She would have found nothing offensive about it and I would suffer that kind of humour at my expense as a Christian without getting upset at all. But it is a bit close to the bone. And I told it because tension between religious factions is no laughing matter. In Pakistan and Indonesia and Sudan people have been killed for their faith in Christ this year by Islamist extremists. Churches are burnt down in Nigeria. Shiite mosques are targeted in Iraq. Hindu temples are destroyed in India.

On the 1st of March 2001 the Taliban blew up two enormous 1,500 year old statues of Buddha, carved in the cliffs of the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan. The whole civilized world was shocked at this ignorant provocation. Our media showed us ‘before and after’ pictures of the event that was described as a crime against the cultural heritage of the world. A part of history has gone, lost forever, all because of a group of small-minded fanatics with anti tank grenades.

But, at first sight, what we had read to us from Judges chapter 6 - that is to say the vandalising of a religious artefact at a holy shrine - seems to come from the same mould. It’s just another radical group that can’t stop itself smashing up someone else’s sanctuary. In fact, you could even say that the Gideon story is worse than the Taliban one. At least the Taliban had the courage and conviction to destroy those statues in broad daylight and without apology. But Gideon did what he did under the cover of darkness so he didn’t have to face the music.

I live my life by the Bible. I believe that this book contains the words of God himself, that every page is God-breathed. (Well, maybe not the index. Or the maps...) But I believe that the Bible, all of it, is trustworthy and reliable. I believe that God will bless those who read it and live out its message. And, yes, I take passages like Gideon smashing up an altar to a foreign idol as the word of God for me. That is non-negotiable and has been ever since I gave my life to Christ when I was 17.

And yet the very idea of rounding up a gang of thugs to help me blow up a Hindu temple or flatten a synagogue or desecrate a mosque doesn’t enter my mind. Christians should respect the holy places of all other religions, whatever they are, however compatible or incompatible with our faith in Christ. Have I sold out?

These are really important questions for us because the conflict between religions is one of the biggest issues of our generation. And one of the greatest objections to the Christian faith in our day centres on a disgust for passages like this one. Some people can’t get over the seeming contradiction between what they read about God’s anger in the Old Testament and what they read about his love in the New. And it’s a real problem. And in order to try and resolve it, at least as far as this passage goes, with integrity, we need to answer two questions.

Firstly, we know that Gideon demolished an altar that was set up for the god that is called Baal, but what was Baal worship exactly? When we get to the bottom of that we’ll see Judges 6 in a new light. And secondly, in what ways was Gideon’s world different to ours? When we understand the differences in context we’ll have a better understanding of the issues. The answer to both questions will give us the key that unlocks the problem of Gideon’s attack and God’s authorization (indeed God’s commissioning) of it.

Baal Worship

In v25-26 God says to Gideon, “Tear down your father's altar to Baal and cut down the Asherah pole beside it. Then build a proper kind of altar to the Lord your God on the top of this hill. Using the wood of the Asherah pole that you cut down, offer a bull as a burnt offering.”

What was this altar? What did people do on it? What was the pole? What was it for? What was it about these objects that God found so offensive?

Baal worship at this time in Israel’s history was quite developed and certainly widespread. It had priestly leaders and sanctuaries on every hill that were (unimaginatively) called ‘high places.’ And the magnetic power of Baal was particularly strong in the time of the Judges. That’s why many of the stories in this book begin with an expression like, “The Lord’s people turned away from him and bowed down before the Baals and Asheras.” Notice that Baal and Asherah were often talked about in the plural. That’s because they both gathered together under one figurehead many cult gods and goddesses, from Babylon, Egypt and elsewhere. It was a kind of nebulous, unfocused, post-modern mishmash of a religion, a bit like the New Age movement in our day. Many different, and even contradictory, ideas, each promising happiness and wholeness, and none demanding any moral commitment.

Quite the opposite. One the features of Baal worship was its runaway eroticism. On each high place there were icons and sometimes sordid statues of Baal, sacred poles, which were phallic symbols, and incense altars. The Baal cult was excessively tawdry. Prostitutes, both male and female offered sexual favours - it was more like a Roman orgy than any worship service we’d recognise. So, there were confused, mixed-up gods, lustful, licentious ceremonies, and to top it all off - barbaric rituals. Baal worship promoted the abomination of human sacrifice.

God talks about this, in Jeremiah 19.5, in these terms; “They have built the high places of Baal to burn their children in the fire as offerings to Baal - something I did not command or mention, nor did it enter my mind.” These macabre rituals became commonplace all over the land as people even burnt alive their own children to secure the blessings of fertility and prosperity from these idols.

That’s the truth about this cult and that’s why God got so upset about it. Can you understand now why his righteous anger burned so passionately against Baal worship? Can you see why it is not possible to talk in terms of tolerance or moderation or respect in this situation? Gideon’s demolition of Baal’s altar and his setting fire to the Asherah pole were not the reckless and ignorant lashing out by a fanatic but a responsible and prophetic stand for justice and decency.

God’s Warning

But there’s another reason why Gideon’s actions were right. Some years before the period of the Judges, perhaps 30 or 40 years before Gideon’s birth, the nation of Israel lived in the desert in tents. They were a nomadic, homeless nation, with no land and no inheritance. And it was at that moment that Moses gave a solemn warning to his compatriots who were about to enter Canaan, the Promised Land, where Baal worship was established. And this is what Moses said at that time, in Deuteronomy 11.16-17; “Be careful, or you will be enticed to turn away and worship other gods and bow down to them. Then the Lord's anger will burn against you, and he will shut the heavens so that it will not rain and the ground will yield no produce, and you will soon perish from the good land the Lord is giving you.”

In other words, mixing the Baal cult with worshiping the one true God will result in drought, in famine, in want, and in exile. It will bring a curse on the land and on the people. That’s what happened. Conversely, faithfulness to the Lord will mean abundance, rain, good harvests, peace and prosperity. This is the thing: Gideon’s sabotage of Baal’s altar brought Israel back on course for a blessed future. We shouldn’t be in any doubt about this. It wasn’t that Gideon insulted the respected religious communities of his day. No. The destruction of that pagan shrine redirected his rebellious generation towards the model that God had established for it.

And by the way, notice that God’s promise to bring his people into a land of milk and honey had a proviso. God’s promises always have conditions attached. I like claiming God’s promises. “I will be with you to the end of the age.” That’s nice isn’t it? But check out the small print before claiming it! “Go into all the world and make disciples of all nations.” If I’m not doing that I have no business claiming the promise that is attached to it. In Isaiah 41.10 God says this; “I am with you for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” But that promise is invalid without the disclaimer; “Do not fear, and do not be dismayed.”

Smashing Down Altars in Our Society

If we lived in a land that God had given to us, if our families were abandoning God for degrading practices, sacred prostitution and child sacrifices, the message for us would be clear. But we live in a secular and pluralist nation where there is a multiplicity of different faiths.

Our situation is not like Gideon’s. It’s more like that of the first Christians in the first century. In Acts 17, for example, Paul, even though he burned with irritation at seeing how Athens was full of idols, he didn’t go around smashing up the Acropolis at night. What did he do? He dialogued. He listened. He asked questions. And he spoke with conviction and consideration about the resurrection of Jesus in the most engaging and eloquent terms possible.

Our world isn’t Gideon’s world; it’s more like the one known by the young Christians in Colossae, to whom these words were written; “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” In other words, learn to speak about the Lord in a way that will be attractive to people around. No harshness, nothing judgmental or opinionated but gracious and appealing.

Our society isn’t like Gideon’s; it’s more like the one that the recipients of Peter’s first letter lived in; they were a Christian minority in an overwhelmingly pagan and superstitious world. And this is what the Apostle Peter wrote to them; “Be ready to speak up and tell anyone who asks why you're living the way you are, and always with the utmost courtesy. Keep a clear conscience before God so that when people throw mud at you, none of it will stick.” (1 Peter 3.15-16, the Message). In other words, work at defending your belief in Christ when it is attacked, but especially to do so courteously. People are more likely to agree if we are more agreeable.

So is there a word from God to us from Judges 6? What are the altars that God would have us demolish? And how must we demolish them? I believe the combat zones are the same as those in Gideon’s day; muddle and confusion about who God is, the temptations of the body and the devaluation of life. But our battle is not against flesh and blood. It’s not a physical conflict, it’s against principalities and powers. Our fight is spiritual; the theatre of our warfare is in prayer and fasting, in acting in obedience to God’s word. And it’s in the power of the Holy Spirit that God will bring down strongholds.

Smashing Down Altars in Our Lives

In a way, Baal still lives today and this passage is terribly modern. If Gideon’s generation had to smash the altars of confusion, of sex and of child sacrifice, so does ours.

Vast numbers of people in our land run after the shallowest ideas (look at the body, mind and spirit section in any bookshop and count the number of books offering a sane, biblical approach, then compare it with the number peddling occult practices and New Age muddle. It’s an altar to Baal.

Take a walk round any red light district or gay quarter in any of Europe’s cities and study the tortured faces of men addicted to every pleasure and perversion, the majority unable to sustain any kind of committed or meaningful relationship. These are altars to Baal.

In Britain, the most dangerous place to be is not a black spot on the A1 in fog or in Toxteth or Moss Side after dark – but in your mother’s womb. Look up on the Internet the statistics for pregnancy termination or child abuse in this country. The laws of our land side with the aspiration for a comfortable lifestyle more than they protect the chance of an unborn child to see the light of day. It’s an altar to Baal.

Ending

And when these values penetrate our own thoughts and ideas, always very subtly, we need to fight them with strength and conviction, like Gideon did. When Jesus said that the kingdom of God is forcefully advancing, and that only aggressive men lay hold of it (Matthew 11.12) He had this kind of spiritual battle in mind.

Because it’s not those who just weakly accept the values of this world who are going to go forward in Gideon’s commission and anointing. It’s those who resist against the spirit of Baal with all their strength. Are you one of them?

Are you going to oppose, with all your might, the compromise which corrupts true faith and weakens Christ’s lordship in your life and in the Church?

Are you going to be one of the militants who look Satan in the eye and say, “We will fight you in our minds, in our hearts, in our homes, in our churches, in the streets… We will never surrender one inch of ground to you.”

God calls you, like Gideon’s generation, to discover and pursue wholesome, passionate, biblical faith.

God calls you, like Gideon’s generation, to purity and faithfulness in sexual relationships, mirroring his brilliant holiness and his enduring faithfulness.

God calls you, like Gideon’s generation to love life, to nurture it, to protect the powerless, especially the young.

When we respond to that call, the altars to Baal will crumble, in our lives and in the Church - and altars of high praise to the Lord will spring up in their place.

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 6th June 2010