Come, Let Us Eat Together

Sacraments and Christian Unity

George Kalantzis,Marc Cortez

• Publisher: IVP Academic
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9780830887286
• Topic: Teología y religión
• Subtopic: Rituales cristianos y práctica

As Christians, we are called to seek the unity of the one body of Christ. But when it comes to the sacraments, the church has often been—and remains—divided. What are we to do? Can we still gather together at the same table? Based on the lectures from the 2017 Wheaton Theology Conference, this volume brings together the reflections of Protestant, Roman Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox theologians, who jointly consider what it means to proclaim the unity of the body of Christ in light of the sacraments. Without avoiding or downplaying the genuine theological and sacramental differences that exist between Christian traditions, what emerges is a thoughtful consideration of what it means to live with the difficult, elusive command to be one as the Father and the Son are one.

THE SUPPER
OF THE LORD

Goodness and Grace in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34

AMY PEELER

IT SEEMS FITTING TO BEGIN with a focus on the biblical witness for the supper of the Lord (κυριακὸν δεῖπνον, 1 Cor 11:20), which could comprise the story of the exodus and the first passover meal, or a close comparison of the various accounts of Jesus’ last meal with his disciples. I have decided to focus on Paul’s instructions about the Eucharist to the Corinthians because it is the earliest example of believers in Christ following Jesus’ commands to keep this meal and because, as Richard Hays says in his commentary, their “trouble serves for our instruction.”1 We can learn much about the meaning of this practice from Paul’s excoriation of their missteps.

In this chapter of 1 Corinthians, Paul is on a tirade against contentiousness (φιλόνεικος), or a party spirit, where one group is pitted against another; this, he says, has no place in the church of God (1 Cor 11:16). In the first part of the chapter Paul has been seeking to repair the gender divide, helping men and women to see the necessity of their mutual interdependence because of the creative glory of God manifest in creation and in the church.2 In the second half of the chapter, he turns his sights on the divide of class. God’s kingdom functions differently than the kingdom of the world and its ways; while the haves might acceptably distinguish themselves from the have-nots in society, Paul will not have that in the church.

My task in this chapter is two-fold: first, to describe as best as possible what interpreters can ascertain about the Corinthians’ practice of the Lord’s Supper and its dependence (or not) upon the words and life of Jesus. Second, I will suggest a few ways in which Paul’s exhortations for a meal that embodies Christlike compassion might inform our own sharing of the table. In these words of Scripture and the tradition, we realize both the cultural distance and the christological bond between the church in ages past and ourselves as we hear the call for faithful love and the promise of undeserved grace. My focus will admittedly be personal and local, but I hope to provide common commitments on which global and inter-denominational conversations could build. Paul’s admonition to the Corinthians remains true, I think, for all of us: this is the Lord’s Supper, and we rightly participate in it by remembering his goodness and grace.

THE LORD’S TABLE IN CORINTH

Paul approaches the Corinthians’ keeping of the supper of the Lord based on oral reports. He has learned this information neither by observation nor from the letter they have written to him but by hearing; someone has come to him and described a Eucharistic situation that Paul finds dismal (1 Cor 11:18). Whereas Paul had multiple instructions and explanations to give to them concerning gender distinctions during prayer and prophecy in the first part of this chapter, he opens that section by praising them (ἐπαινῶ ὑμᾶς) for keeping his traditions (1 Cor 11:2). But here in the next set of instructions, he says he will not offer any praise (οὐκ ἐπαινῶ, 1 Cor 11:17). Even if the first promise of praise is perfunctory or even ironic,3 the situation with the Lord’s Supper is such that even irony is not appropriate. He cannot praise them even in jest. For, he says, when they gather, people leave worse off than when they came (1 Cor 11:17), and he finds that true for both sides of the divided social structure: the poor leave shamed, and some of the rich leave—well, if I might speak as boldly as Paul—dead.

The problems occur when they come together “upon the same” (ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ, 1 Cor 11:20). Commentators suggest that this kind of gathering is not the typical occurrence.4 They might gather in smaller groups in multiple houses on a more regular basis, but they come together as a whole group “upon the same” less frequently. No matter what they think they are doing when they have this big gathering, Paul is very clear that they are not eating the supper of the Lord (1 Cor 11:20).

His issue of first concern here—which is the issue of first concern in the letter as a whole as well (1 Cor 1:10-13)—is that when they gather, they remain divided.5 He believes this report about fracture because he has already talked about the divisions that exist among them (e.g., 1 Cor 1).6

In the following verses, he gets more specific about the nature of these divisions. Their practice is not communion but rather each person for him- or herself. Everyone, he says, consumes their own meal (1 Cor 11:21). This statement could be a reference to the practice of eranos meals, where guests would bring their own picnic.7 Other first-century authors such as Plutarch recorded debates about taking individualized portions or sharing.8 A primary concern revolved around equality. Hesiod is quoted as saying, “But where each guest has his own private portion, companionship perishes.” Plutarch’s conversationalists assert, “This is true where there is not an equitable distribution.”9

Paul’s concern also seems not to be only with a rampant individuality but also inequality. He says that when they eat their own meals, someone goes hungry and someone else is drunk (1 Cor 11:21). It seems to have been a common and acceptable occurrence for owners of large homes to entertain their equals in their dining room, a smaller space called the triclinium, which on average would hold seven to nine people. Those below them in social class would have had to gather in the atrium, the grand entry room holding thirty to fifty people.10 There is also attestation that those outside the main dining room would have been served different, lesser food and would have even had to see and smell the more succulent dishes as they were carried into the triclinium.11 This is not a picture of unity.

Moreover, Paul’s words here show an interesting contrast. He does not say someone is hungry and someone is full. Paul certainly describes the difference in levels of consumption, but it is worth asking why he chooses food and drink rather than food and food. Possibly it is his way of previewing the discussion of the body and blood of the Lord, the bread and the wine, but could it also be that in addition to an inequality of food there is also an inequality of drink? This possibility adds to the widespread shame occurring at this meeting.

In verse 22 Paul begins a series of questions, signaling a slight shift in audience. Whereas he seems to have been discussing the situation with the whole church, the content of these questions indicates that he is now talking to the small group of elites: do you not have houses in which you can eat and drink? This seems a bit ironic because they are eating and drinking in house churches. This becomes an especially ironic comparison when he asks next: “or do you despise the ekklēsia of God?”—the ekklēsia, which must meet in one of the elites’ houses.12 Are you shaming those who don’t have food or such houses? The answers are clear. Those of you who do have houses in which you can eat and drink are despising the gathering of God because you are shaming those who do not have as much as you do. There are multiple suggestions for the specific situations here, but they all reach a very similar conclusion.13 The rich Corinthians have enough space, food, and wine when they gather for this meal, and the poor Corinthians do not. Therefore, Paul’s interrogating questions reach a climax in verse 22: “What should I say in such a situation? You think this deserves praise?” He says it again: “about this gathering, I will not praise you” (1 Cor 11:22).

Imagine for a moment the level of shame when this letter was read. He is calling out their divisions. Many contemporary audiences would be uncomfortable with the exposure of the fact that not everyone is in the middle class. Their economic situation is different. Maybe they would not be uncomfortable with the reality of divisions; that was an accepted part of their lived reality. To call out divisions would not be to name an uncomfortable unspoken reality, as it would be in many contemporary settings, but to do so is still a source of shame because Paul has to correct their misperception that what they are having is the supper of the Lord. They think they are having the supper of the Lord. Moreover, it might expose the hurt of some of the have-nots in the congregation who reported the divides but were not being heard by the haves. He is saying that these kinds of divisions that seem so normal are not commensurate with the Lord they confess. The owners of the houses are not sharing, and they are shaming their guests. In the process of becoming drunk on their own wine, they are bringing shame on themselves. The least of these are getting the least, and the rich do not seem to care. That is not how the church of God, the table of the Lord Jesus Christ, works.

THE LORD’S SUPPER

In light of this problem, Paul needs to go back to the basics to remind them of what he has already taught so that they can follow the pattern of this supper not just in form but also in content. Typically, scholarship gravitates toward the word received in verse 23 and asks, “How did Paul receive the instructions about the Lord’s Supper? Directly from God or through other Christians?”14 That invites a comparison with the Gospel traditions.

Differences certainly exist among the four evangelists. John has Jesus discussing the eating of his flesh and the drinking of his blood with the Jews, who puzzle over his exhortation toward what seems to be cannibalism (Jn 6:52), and that gives Jesus the opportunity to proclaim the eternal life found in this meal. Even among the Synoptics, all three of which portray this as a meal shared during the celebration of Passover (Mt 26:17; Mk 14:12; Lk 22:8), there are variations: Luke includes a cup before and after the bread, and only he (like Paul) has Jesus say that the bread is given for them. While noting these differences, we should nevertheless not forget that the similarities are what dominate. The bread is designated as his body, and the wine is associated with his blood and (by the Synoptics and Paul) the covenant. Overall, the New Testament witness of Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul shows an incredible consistency.

In addition to the word received, it might be equally important to pay attention to the word Lord. Whether supernaturally, eccesially, or a mix of both,15 Paul says that this information came from the Lord. He, the Lord Jesus Christ, is in charge of this meal and sets the paradigms by which it should be conducted.

Paul then sets up an interesting chiasm in verse 23:

I took from the Lord (παραλαμβάνω)

I gave to you (παραδίδωμι)

the Lord was given (παραδίδωμι)

The Lord took (λαμβάνω) bread

Using forms of the words λαμβάνω and δίδωμι, Paul’s actions of taking and giving echo the Lord’s. Βut, even more interesting, these words show that he mediates to the Corinthians the Lord’s self-offering. When Paul receives from the Lord, he does receive this story, but the story is not just about an evening meal in the past. Τhe body of believers takes the second-person plural “you” to refer not just to the disciples but to them. This would have been natural to do since the Passover meal was an invitation to all Jews to consider how God’s actions toward an ancient generation of Abraham’s children in Egypt redeemed them as well (Exod 12; 34:25; Lev 23:5; Num 9:2-14; 28:16; Deut 16:1-6; see also m. Pesahim...