What then was the
injustice inside this church? Has Paul mentioned it to this point? Of
course he has. He has already written “For when it is time to eat,
everyone proceeds with his own supper. One is hungry and another becomes
drunk… are you trying to show contempt for the church of God by shaming those
who have nothing?” (1 Corinthians 11:21,22b) This may seem trivial at
first glance, but when placed in perspective, the fact that there is an element
of injustice at work can be easily perceived, and it is being perpetrated by
the members themselves. It should most certainly be the case that inside
the gathered body of Christ, and especially as they were coming together for a
meal that carried a considerable amount of theological weight, that all share
equally in the meal.
If the church itself
was unwilling or unable to feed those inside the body, and if the church itself
was unwilling or unable to be sure that those that were counted as brothers and
sisters of the kingdom of the Creator God did not go hungry, then how could it
possibly find itself in a position to do the same thing for the world?
Some members of the gathered congregation eating and drinking and doing so to
their fill while others went hungry, with this hunger and thirst occurring
within plain sight of those that ate and drank to their fill, who were
themselves in a position to exercise a very small amount of the
self-sacrificial love that took Christ to the cross by sharing so as to insure
that nobody went hungry, was nothing short of an injustice that has no place
inside the church.
Indeed, Paul was
right to bring up the issue of shame. If the church was not the example
that it needed to be in modeling out a different kind of living, and if it did
not put that different mode of living on display at the meal table in recognition
of the demands of its Lord, where it could be easily recognized by those both
inside and outside of the church (no divisions, no separations, no
stratifications, no inequality), then how was that church going to inspire the
viewing world to change its mode of living and to recognize its true Lord?
If those that were supposed to be representing the end-time kingdom of the
Creator were more than happy to eat and drink while their very own brothers and
sisters in the covenant went hungry, then they were certainly not operating in
love.
Now, this is not to
say that there is anything wrong with eating and drinking, but it is to say
that those that lay claim to a confession of Jesus as their Lord, who are
ambassadors for the existing kingdom of heaven while serving in anticipation of
its consummation, are called to a position of conscientious love. Believes
are very much within their rights to enjoy that with which they have been
blessed (in food and drink and in all other areas), but this enjoyment should be
done in a way that is tempered by an understanding that there are those, perhaps
through no fault of their own, who go without much of that which is basic to
life.
Perhaps the position
here called for is to offer praises to the Creator God for His bountiful
provisions, while also offering a lament for the evil that is active in this
world (in so many ways) and which is working against the proliferation of the
provision of the God that shows forth His rule through the Lord Jesus and
through His church (His body) that is active in and for the world as an
extension of the Creator’s care. Of course, it is not enough to praise,
and it is not enough to lament. Both suggest a call to dutiful action by
the church, for the world, in humble and loving service to its Lord and its God.
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