As Jesus invited tax collectors and sinners and those that
would have been rightly identified by observers as being outside of the covenant
to join Him at His tables, and as He did so with thoughts of the long-hoped-for
messianic banquet clearly in the background, and as believers today (along with
the early church) view the communion table in that light, it would seem
ridiculous to raise such onerous limitations and boundaries that are productive
of fearfulness and ultimately exclusion, around that which allows us for the
mimicking of Jesus’ table practice and its associated and seeming inherent
power to show forth the kingdom of heaven.
When these words from the
Apostle Paul are read, and as the communion table is considered, the thoughts
that must be dancing at the forefront of the mind cannot be consumed by a
concern for a personal salvation. Rather, those deterministic thoughts
must be the kingdom of heaven and its manifestation and advancement. If
the communion table is going to be correctly approached, the focus cannot be on
the self, but on what the table and what happens there communicates about the
kingdom of heaven.
Based on what has been said to this point, it seems that
this approach may be the right one, and that it is in approaching the table in
this way that a better interpretation and understanding of Paul’s treatment of
the subject is to be found. Not only that, but bearing in mind the
kingdom of heaven, and doing so in the context of the meal practice of the
early church rather than one’s personal salvation, allows an observer to
understand why it is that Paul even brings up the subject in the first place.
Most unfortunately,
context is quite often neglected when it comes to Paul’s treatment of the communion
in his first letter to Corinth. So often, when the passage is referenced
or quoted, the reference picks up at the twenty-third verse of chapter eleven.
There, Paul writes “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you,
that the Lord Jesus on the night in which He was betrayed took bread, and after
He had given thanks He broke it and said, ‘This is My body, which is for
you. Do this in remembrance of Me.’ In the same way, He also took
the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood.
Do this, every time you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ For every time
you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He
comes” (11:23-26). These are the words that are regularly shared for the
purpose of creating the familiar setting in which one partakes of the elements
of the table.
When this happens,
the words of the Apostle are treated as if they were some type of instruction
manual on how to engage in the church’s meal practice. In a sense that is
true, but that is only a part of the story. In the regular time of
communion, is it the case that the opportunity is taken to look at what
precedes the “instructions”? Sadly, no. As is the case in so many
other exegetical situations, there is a tendency to simply pull things out of
context and use them for the purpose that is immediately at hand---reading into
the text that which one desires to see.
Making reference to
the “instruction” portion of chapter eleven without making reference to what
comes before or after, forces an analysis or exegesis into the unfortunate
situations of being ahistorical and subjective, thereby causing the hearers of
the exegesis to miss out on the aspects of the kingdom of heaven and on the
reference to Jesus’ meal practice that was so instructive and important for the
early community of believers.
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