The Lord's Supper in Corinth

A dining room full of laughter and good food. Plates piled high. And outside, in the courtyard, a few tired workers arrive late, straight from their jobs. By the time they get to the table, there is nothing left.

The believers in Corinth met in homes, often in the house of a wealthier member who had room for a crowd. They gathered for a shared meal, and as part of it they remembered Jesus with bread and wine, as he had told them to. But Corinth was a city where rank mattered. Masters and slaves, rich and poor, all sat in the same church now. And the old habits had crept in. Paul has heard reports about what goes on at these meals. And he is not pleased. When you come together, he writes, it does more harm than good.

First, Paul says, I hear there are divisions among you. When you meet, it isn't really the Lord's Supper you are eating. Because each of you goes ahead with your own meal. “And one is hungry, and another is drunken.” Some people are stuffed and have had too much wine, while others go home with empty stomachs. “What? have ye not houses to eat and to drink in? or despise ye the church of God, and shame them that have not?” If you just want a feast, Paul says, eat at home. But don't humiliate the people who have nothing. What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you for this? No, I will not.

Then Paul reminds them what this meal is really about. He takes them back to a night they all knew about. “For I have received of the Lord that which also I delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread: And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.” After supper, Jesus took the cup in the same way. “This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.” Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, Paul says, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

A meal that remembers Jesus giving his body for everyone cannot be a meal where some are pushed aside. So, Paul says, anyone who eats the bread or drinks the cup in an unworthy way is treating the Lord's body and blood lightly. Let each person examine themselves first, then eat and drink. Paul even says that some of them have grown weak and sick because they did not recognise what they were doing. If we would judge ourselves honestly, he says, we would not need to be judged. And then comes the simple, practical answer. “Wherefore, my brethren, when ye come together to eat, tarry one for another.” Wait for each other. And if you're starving, eat something at home first, so your gathering brings blessing, not judgment.

Archaeologists have uncovered Roman houses in and around Corinth. The scholar Jerome Murphy-O'Connor studied one villa and calculated that its dining room, the triclinium, could hold only about nine people reclining, while perhaps thirty or forty more could fit in the open courtyard, the atrium. He suggested that a wealthy host might have seated his friends in the dining room with the best food, while everyone else ate in the courtyard. If so, the house itself helped divide the church.

The Lord's Supper in Corinth. You'll find it in First Corinthians chapter eleven, verses seventeen to thirty-four. A church that forgot the hungry at its own table, and a reminder of the night Jesus broke bread for all of us. So here is a question to carry with you. When you share a meal, how can you make sure no one is left out?