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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Amen.)
As we heard in tonight’s Gospel Reading (Matthew 26:17-30), our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, instituted the Sacrament of the Altar, His true Body and Blood under bread and wine, for us Christians to eat and to drink and so, believing, to have the forgiveness of our sins. Some maybe twenty-eight years later, the Divinely-inspired Apostle Paul referred to our Lord’s institution of the Sacrament as St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians and to us about problems that he identified with the way that the Corinthians were receiving the Sacrament. As I pointed out last week in my paper for the Plano Study Group, various excerpts from First Corinthians chapter 11, verses 17 through 34, are appointed as alternate Readings and expanded options for Holy (or “Maundy”) Thursday, but not even the fullest-exercise of those options includes the full passage that, as a “free text”, we hear and consider tonight.
17 But in the following instructions I do not commend you, because when you come together it is not for the better but for the worse. 18 For, in the first place, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you. And I believe it in part, 19 for there must be factions among you in order that those who are genuine among you may be recognized. 20 When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. 21 For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
23 For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, 24 and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” 25 In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” 26 For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
27 Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29 For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. 30 That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. 31 But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. 32 But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. 33 So then, my brothers, when you come together to eat, wait for one another— 34 if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come. (1 Corinthians 11:17-34 ESV)
Apparently, the Corinthian Christians’ consideration both of available space in the house churches and of their usual social status led to their being divided, by time and by what was consumed, when they came together for the Sacrament of the Altar, in connection with a fuller‑meal usually called an “agape” (or “love”) meal, and so the Corinthians acted in such a way that led St. Paul to ask whether they despised the Church of God and humiliated those who had nothing. So, St. Paul repeats for them what he had received from the Lord and, in turn, previously had delivered to them about the Lord’s institution of the Sacrament. With a closed circle of His disciples, which may or may not have included His betrayer Judas Iscariot, the Lord gave them bread that was His Body and wine that was His Blood and told them to keep doing what He had done in remembrance of Him. In that remembrance, the Lord would be really, physically present, and, St. Paul adds, they would proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. The Lord and His disciples ate at the same time and, presumably at least had available to them equally, the same quality and quantity of food and drink. The Sacramental Body and Blood of Christ of which they all partook individually also involved their unity as the Body of Christ that is the Church (confer 1 Corinthians 10:16-17), and in Christ there are no divisions, such as those divisions between Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female (Galatians 3:28). If the Corinthians were discerning the Sacramental Body and Blood of Christ, at least some of them were not discerning the Ecclesial (or “Churchly”) Body of Christ, and so they were eating the bread and drinking the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner, were guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord, were eating and drinking judgment on themselves, and so many of them were weak and ill, and some of them had died. So, St. Paul commands: that individuals examine themselves; that, when they come together to eat, they wait for one another; and that those who are hungry eat at home, so that, when they come together, it will be not for judgment but for blessing, not for the worse but for the better.
In the time since St. Paul by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit wrote the letter of First Corinthians, the Church has separated the Sacrament of the Altar from any other fuller-meal, such as our Fifth-Sunday “blessed-pot meals” that follow the Divine Service and take place in a different room. Today’s church buildings generally have enough room for all those communing to be present in the same room for the Sacrament. And, even if there are successive tables for distribution, things are done decently and in good order (1 Corinthians 14:40), and “serving portions” of the Sacrament are equalized, not that one can even get “more” or “less” of the Body and Blood of Christ. Do all those changes since the writing of First Corinthians mean that we do not have to be concerned about individually examining ourselves or together judging ourselves, about our eating the bread or drinking the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner and so our being guilty concerning the Body and Blood of the Lord, about our not discerning the body and so eating and drinking judgment on ourselves, our suffering from weakness and illness, and even death?
The short answer (to that long question!) is “no”; those changes since St. Paul wrote First Corinthians do not mean that we are relieved of our responsibilities to avoid eating the bread or drinking the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner. We may not risk eating and drinking in precisely the same unworthy manner as the Corinthians, but that does not mean that we do not risk eating and drinking in different unworthy manners. For example, we may wrongly think that our worthiness depends on us, and so we may never think of ourselves as worthy, or we may always think of ourselves as worthy when we are not worthy of ourselves. We may not truly repent or believe, especially believe both that Christ’s Body and Blood are really, physically present in the Sacrament and that they give the forgiveness of sins. We may come to the Lord’s Table without being at peace with our brothers and sisters in Christ. We may commune at other altars where a different faith is confessed. Despite our best efforts to practice Closed Communion rightly, we may let others who in fact confess a different faith commune at this Altar, or we may keep from communing at this Altar those who should commune. Based on St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians and to us, we believe, teach, and confess that those who do not repent and believe increase, magnify, and aggravate their existing condemnation (Formula of Concord, Epitome, VII:18). They dishonor, abuse, and desecrate Jesus, Who is present in the Sacrament, as certainly as did those who laid their hands upon the body of Christ and murdered Him (Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, VII:60).
Thanks be to God the Father both that His Son Jesus died on the cross for such and all sins and that His Holy Spirit leads us to repent of such and all sins and to receive God’s forgiveness of such and all sins for Jesus’s sake. In St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians and to us, we hear Jesus say that His Body is for us. In some sense, everything that Jesus did is for us, on our behalf and in our place. As we confessed in the Nicene Creed, for us and for our salvation, the Son of God came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man. Also for us, He was crucified under Pontius Pilate, suffered, and was buried. The third day, He rose again; forty days later, He ascended into heaven; presently He sits at the right hand of the Father; and on the Last Day He will come with glory to judge the living and the dead. All of that is for you, for me, for the world—out of God’s great love, mercy, and grace. In tonight’s Old Testament Reading (Exodus 24:3-11), we heard of the people of Israel’s confirmation of the “old” covenant with God, including the leaders’ eating and drinking in the presence of God. In tonight’s Epistle Reading (Hebrews 9:11‑22), as well as in the Gospel Reading and in St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians and to us, we heard of Jesus’s securing an eternal redemption by means of His own blood, mediating the “new” covenant in His own blood, the shedding of which blood was necessary for the forgiveness of sins, and which Blood and forgiveness we receive in the Sacrament of the Altar.
Largely on the basis of St. Paul’s words to the Corinthians and to us, the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod has long taught and practiced, arguably wrongly, that only children of a certain age, mental ability, and understanding should receive the Sacrament of the Altar. However, earlier in its history, the Church did not have that understanding or that practice. Just as Israelite boys who were circumcised—and Israelite girls who were born to a circumcised man—participated in the Passover liturgy and ate and drank of the Passover Meal, so those Christian boys and girls who were baptized also were communed. The Church communed the baptized with good reason. St. John’s Divinely-inspired Gospel account records Jesus’s similarly saying both that, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he or she cannot enter the Kingdom of God (John 3:5) and that, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you (John 6:53). Based solidly on Holy Scripture, our Lutheran Confessions say that children are baptized and thereby received into the Church and so should enjoy the fellowship of the Sacrament (Large Catechism V:87). We believe, teach, and confess that the baptized have saving faith, presumably the same faith that trusts Jesus’s words “Given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins” and so makes them truly worthy and well‑prepared to receive Christ’s Body and Blood (Small Catechism VI:10), as our God-given faith makes us truly worthy and well-prepared to receive Christ’s Body and Blood.
Neither the Corinthians’ nor our judging ourselves is simply the sum-total of our individually examining ourselves, for the Apostle Paul clearly takes a role in the Corinthians’ practice of the Sacrament of the Altar and writes to the Corinthians and to us of the role of the “stewards of the mysteries” (1 Corinthians 4:1), who are pastors today. Individuals, their congregations, and especially and ultimately their pastors have responsibility in our judging ourselves, in an effort to avoid the Lord’s judging us, His disciplining us so that we may not be condemned along with the world. We do not know to what extent, if at all, young children can “self-examine”, but until they can “self-examine” and we know that they can “self-examine”, the judgment of others arguably is sufficient, and at least one author suggests that the others need judge only whether those communing are manifestly or provably non‑Christians (Pieper, III:388). For those older, the examination of private Confession for the sake of individual Absolution serves a good purpose in that regard, supplying evidence both of an individual’s repentance and of his or her knowledge of the Ten Commandments, Apostles’ Creed, and the Lord’s Prayer, so that an individual can be admitted to the Sacrament of the Altar (Augsburg Confession Latin XXIV:5-6; Augsburg Confession German XXV:1; Apology of the Augsburg Confession XV:40; XXIV:1, 49). We do not want to force those who are unready to use the sacraments (Apology of the Augsburg Confession XI:5), but we also do not want to deny the Sacrament of the Altar to those for whom Christ has instituted it.
Our Lord Jesus Christ, on the night when He was betrayed, instituted the Sacrament of the Altar. Some maybe twenty-eight years later, the Lord worked through the Apostle Paul to correct the Corinthians’ abuse of the Lord’s Supper. And, still today the Lord gives His true Body and Blood, under bread and wine, for us Christians to eat and to drink and so, believing, to have the forgiveness of our sins—our sins against the Body and Blood of the Lord, or whatever our sins might be. With repentance and faith, confident of our worthiness in Christ, let us come together here at this Altar, not for the worse but for the better, not for judgment but for blessing.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +