So not only are we forced to begin considering having “a careful regard for the body” in the mode of the body of believers, we are also forced to deal with the idea that Paul’s delineation of the parameters of the Lord’s Supper, or the communion table, are offered within the context of a grave concern over what is being put on display, or conversely, what is not being put on display by the meal practice of the Corinthian church. Paul is quite concerned with the fact that love, true love as demonstrated by compassion and mercy, which should be reflected by image-bearers that are supposedly claiming Jesus as their Lord and living by the precepts on offer by Him in both word and deed and which are part and parcel of the celebration of the communion, is being left off the table. This is in the wake of understanding the communion as a microcosm of the messianic feast by which it is confessed that Jesus is Lord, and in which the in-breaking of God’s compassion and mercy for this world is looked to and celebrated, with this having taken place by and through the Christ-event.
Now ultimately, Paul is not critical of the fact that there is a celebratory meal taking place. Paul does not necessarily rail against the institution of the symposium or the convivium itself, nor does he express opinions on the nature of eating and drinking, except when he enters into a dissertation on practices of eating that are rooted in the need for the community to operate with a compassionate love and sensitivity. Clearly, with the symposium in view, he has concerns with some things that take place at this portion of the meal, but he does not appear to have a desire to alter the fact that it takes place. Rather, his concern seems to lie with the fact that love, and the preferring of one another that will come with the modeled-out love of Jesus, is not being shown forth through the various activities that lie within that view. It appears that Paul, understanding the example of Jesus at meals, while tying in the messianic banquet (rule of God) aspects of Jesus’ meal activities, sees the tremendous importance of the meal, especially as a force within society. Therefore, he wants to see this powerful force re-shaped in a way that will cause it to reflect the priorities of the kingdom of God.
The more damning aspect of the activities of the church is that, with the powerful social forces that are at work, this church seemed to be participating in activities at their meal and related symposium, with the requisite divisions that one would expect in that day, thereby making their celebrations (meal and symposium taken together) indistinguishable from any other such celebration that might be taking place in Corinth. This, while they referred to it as the Lord’s Supper, calling it their messianic banquet. This is highly problematic, especially if the very forces that deface and defile God’s creation, and which dishonor and defame divine image-bearers for the pleasure and amusement of another set of divine image-bearers, are on display. If the first were making sure that they were still first, while also making sure that the last were still last, and if they were doing so within the event that was supposed to be a tool that would mark them out as being a very different community in which preferring one another was the order of the day and in which the first shall be last and the last shall be first (humbled exalted and exalted humbled---a flattening out of society in which there was neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, but in which all were one in Christ), then this was not the Lord’s Supper, and this was most certainly not representative of the kingdom of God.
Considering whether or not this is a legitimate approach to take in our attempt to understand Paul’s concerns, the larger movement of the letter to the Corinthians, and the singular importance of the meal to the early Christian communities, we revert now to the fifth chapter of the letter, that we might continue to build the structure of the mounting argument that takes place within the letter and perhaps culminates in the Paul’s communion dissertation of the eleventh chapter. Bearing in mind the short discussion of the historical facts of the symposium that has been previously presented, while also keeping in mind that Paul’s letter will be read to the gathered church, and perhaps strategically read in the midst of the meal that will eventually devolve into the symposium (which some in the church were probably imagining to be an example of the messianic banquet), we attempt to hear the Apostle in the same circumstances in which his initial hearers found themselves. As we saw in our reading of much of the sixth chapter, when read in the light of the meal and the symposium, a great deal of illumination comes our way when we find words such as “Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast affects the whole batch of dough?” (5:6) The mention of bread could function as an indicator that Paul wanted this letter read in conjunction with the church’s meal, while the mention of boasting calls attention to the boasting that was a regular component of the symposium.
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