Empty Your Pockets First

Transcript

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[0:00] And our sermon text is from 1 Corinthians, and we're continuing on in 1 Corinthians. We're doing a sermon series on Corinthians. I think we'll finish up in about two or three weeks. It'll be good. I'm not going to totally recap everything that we've gone through before. I want to remind us of the sermon both two weeks ago and last week. Two weeks ago, we talked about the body being really a lot more holy and a lot more spiritual than we actually think a lot of the time. And that really is related to the body of Jesus Christ, who was a human body, and the resurrection of Jesus. So a lot of that's very important. And then last week, Victoria preached about Christian freedom when it came to this issue of eating food that had been sacrificed to pagan idols. And just because somebody understood that it really wasn't anything about it that was bad, if there was somebody who wasn't as far along in their faith, whose faith would be troubled or even compromised by that, then the right move then is to actually not. Eat that thing, not to exercise that freedom, because your freedom ends where the needs of a vulnerable brother or sister start. And so you have to look out for the needy among you. And that's really related to today's lesson, too, which is about the Lord's Supper.

[1:10] But it's also about a defect in this church. And that's really the overall background is a church that was defective, dysfunctional, kind of toxic, really messed up. You know, our church is better than that. I'm going to say, you know, if you've got a report card, they get a D minus. You got a D minus. You guys get like D plus. No, I'm kidding. It's much better than that. It's much better than that. No, we don't have these problems. But, you know, these problems, two things, they can creep in. We're going to talk about that. The other is that I thank God for the problems that this particular church had in Corinth, because it became an opportunity for Paul to teach about a great many things that we needed to learn about. And one of the things he says is when you have the meal together, he said some people, you know, brought a lot of food but didn't share it. Other people were hungry and didn't have enough food at the meal. This was like doing the Lord's Supper together. And it reminded me of, this is a bit by introduction. When I was a little kid, we had some family friends, lived across the street, the Wilkes family. Katie and Christopher were like, I was sandwiched in between them in age. They had like one of those little blow up pools in their backyard.

[2:23] And in Tucson, where I grew up, you know, on hot day, their dad, Jay, would fill up the pool and we'd be playing out there. And Penelope was the mom, or Penny, and she would bring out all the bowls, all the Tupperware bowls from the kitchen, and we'd be playing with the bowls in the water and just playing. And then Hans-Erik, who's Hans-Erik, is like, this is fun, but what's more fun would be to take these bowls and treat them like a Frisbee and throw them over the wall into the desert, because there was just desert behind their wall. And after a while, like all the bowls disappeared and Penny comes out like, where are all my beautiful? Tupperware bowls. Tupperware. Tupperware is the top of the line back then, you know, Tupperware.

[3:02] And I think the other kids were like, well, Hans-Erik was just throwing them over the fence. And Jay said, you got to go home. You ever get kicked out of a friend's house? It's really painful. It's really memorable. You get kicked out of a friend's house for being a rotten kid. So Jay's like, Hans-Erik, you go home. And he said, you throw bowls at your house. You don't throw our bowls. You don't throw Penny's bowls. You throw your own bowls into the desert. So that was what, and I still remember that. I'm like, go home and do that at your own house. And this is what Paul says to the Corinthians. You're going to do that. You're going to get drunk. You're going to Lord it over other people that don't have any food. Go do that at your own house. Don't do it at the Lord's house. So that's a good reminder. So pay attention to those little sort of like something you would tell a child. This is what Paul is saying to the church in Corinth. So that's something to pay attention to as we listen. Let's go ahead and let's start with the reading. Verse 17 from chapter 11, the apostle Paul writes this, but in the following instructions. I cannot praise you for it sounds as if more harm than good is done when you meet together.

[4:04] First, I hear that there are divisions among you when you meet as a church and to some extent I believe it. But of course there must be divisions among you so that you who have God's approval will be recognized.

[4:16] When you meet together, you are not really interested in the Lord's supper. For some of you hurry to eat your own meal without sharing with others. As a result, some go hungry while others get drunk. What? Don't you have your own homes for eating and drinking? Or do you really want to disgrace God's church and shame the poor? What am I supposed to say? Do you want me to praise you? Well, I certainly will not praise you for this. For I pass on to you what I received from the Lord himself. And this is how holy the meal is, right? On the night when he was betrayed. The Lord Jesus took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and said, this is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he took the cup of wine after supper saying, this cup is the new covenant between God and his people and agreement confirmed with my blood. Do this in remembrance of me as often as you drink it. For every time. You eat this bread and drink this cup, you are announcing the Lord's death until he comes again.

[5:34] So anyone who eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord unworthily is guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. That is why you should examine yourself before eating the bread and drinking the cup. For if you eat the bread or drink the cup without honoring the body of Christ. You are eating and drinking God's judgment upon yourself. That is why many of you are weak and sick and some have even died.

[6:06] But if we would examine ourselves, we would not be judged by God in this way. Yet when we are judged by the Lord, we are being disciplined so that we will not be condemned along with the world. So my dear brothers and sisters. When you gather for the Lord's supper. Wait for each other. If you are really hungry, eat at home so you won't bring judgment upon yourselves when you meet together. I'll give you instructions about the other matters after I arrive. Let's pray.

[6:40] Father, thank you for this word. And we ask that you would add your blessing to it. In Jesus name. Amen. When I lived in Norway for a while, I studied there. I took a tour, a visit of the countryside. I went to the the tour guide and I went to this historic church and the tour guide was telling us about the church and we noticed that on the pews, we don't do this yet. No, I'm kidding. We won't. There were plaques with people's names on it. So you always knew where to sit, you know, and here we notice that if somebody's sitting in the wrong place, we really notice it like it's very jarring, especially if it's your spot, you know, like you have your spot, but so maybe right now we should make you move just to kind of deprogram ourselves. But basically there was a name on the pew. But it was for a particular reason. And they said the people whose names were on the front pews, you sat closer, were the people with the biggest farms in the area. And further back were the smaller farms. And way in the back were the unlanded people, the people who didn't own anything, but they were maybe renters or they were farmhands or they were, you know, people who didn't own land at all. And and I was amazed. I was like, how?

[7:50] How could a church? I mean, I could understand this anywhere else, like a restaurant, right? You would get that at a restaurant, you know, the good seats. You definitely get it at an NFL game. You got the skybox, you know, but the church, how could you do this in the church? These class and wealth distinctions on open display in the church, memorialized by a plaque on the pew. It's like it's part of the institution, you know. And so how does this happen? Well, remember our pockets? I keep talking about our pockets. And next week, if you haven't done this today, I want you to do it. I want you to bring something in your pocket as a reminder. So we bring stuff with us into the church. We don't really notice what it is. So today I thought I'd get a little bit creative in this pocket. I know I have another gum wrapper. OK, just another gum wrapper. And I might use it later. I'm holding on to it. I'm a bit of a hoarder. It could come in handy. And then in this pocket, I thought I would do some fun things. So this is a you can't zoom in, but this is a little red 3D printed axolotl. It's really adorable. I'm going to leave these things up here. You can come look at them later. And then this is from the Gem Show. This is some kind of course.

[8:56] I have no idea. Some smart person will know what it is. But it's in my pocket. But you bring things in your pocket. You bring them into the church. I'm not talking about physical things. I'm talking about the practices of the world. And they come into the church, and somehow they come out of our pockets, and we start treating them as normal. And I'll tell you one thing. Class and wealth distinctions are absolutely part of the world. Yeah. If you were to take 100 people and strip away everything, you gave them all the same clothes, gave them all $100 in their pocket, took away all their degrees and education, just put them in some sort of bubble like a spaceship or something, and sent them off to another planet. And this is like a great sort of almost a communalist or communist experiment. And they're like, oh, these people are perfectly equal. They all have the same amount of money. They all have the same clothes. They all have the same education. OK? How long would it take before that society would develop a strata? How long? Not very long at all. Like, probably 30 minutes. Like, really. Like, as in 30 minutes in, they'll be like, who's in charge here? I think it should be. I mean, it's like, so what is it going to be on?

[10:12] It's going to be might be by their appearance, might be by their charisma, their riz. There's a lot of riz lately. Some have more riz. You know? And they can be persuasive. You know, the introverts are probably going to end up at the bottom. The extroverts are going to end up at the top. Praise God for the extroverts. They need to run the world. And the introverts can pay all our taxes. I'm not. I'm neither. I'm like halfway in between extrovert and introvert. I'm like right on the line. Sometimes, ah, sometimes I ought to be alone. OK? So in that society, I'd be like right in the middle. I'd be, oh, we can kind of count on him for a few things. But at the time, he's a sheep, you know? And it would not take long at all. This is our human nature. We're going to build a ranking of who's on top. And who's on bottom. And that was, that came into the church in Norway in somebody's pocket. And it became part of life. It happened in the Corinthian church at the meals. Some people had really great food. Some people brought tri-tip. Other people brought peanut butter and jelly. Right? They didn't share with each other that peanut butter and jelly. People were like, that looks really good. I guess I like peanut butter and jelly, you know?

[11:12] But that looks really good. And then there were other people that had nothing. Nothing. And they're watching the other people. This is the Lord. This is the Lord's Supper. They're watching the other people going, wow, food. I sure would like some food right now. That was the Lord's Supper. Now, how does this happen? Something so blatant like that church in Norway. And my answer is, I'm going to ask you this. Zach has to answer last, okay? Is, in what's the timeframe for how either an individual or a company goes bankrupt? Has anybody heard this? What's the timeframe? Five generations? No. Close. No, not close at all. You weren't close at all. Sorry. What's the timeframe?

[11:53] Slowly and then instantly. Like, slowly, slowly, slowly, and then very fast. Is that right, Zach? That's true. Yeah, it's true. Okay. All right. I keep reading this in financial things. We don't read the same books. Oh, good for you. That's good. So, you know, you're not bankrupt. You're not bankrupt. You're not bankrupt. You're bankrupt. And then you're bankrupt. And this is the church. This is like the screw tape letters at C.S. Lewis wrote. It's like, let's not overwhelm people with this sudden sinfulness. Let's just slowly pick away at virtues and get rid of them one by one. And so I think that Norwegian church, it wasn't like one day they're like, let's have this system where the wealthy are given more honor. That didn't happen overnight. It happened in small little compromises all along the way until there was just enough sort of critical mass for that to happen. And the courageous people who would have spoken up to it, maybe they even tried, but they were in a minority and they were kind of swept to the side and they said, no, this is how we should do it. And I think that's how churches get compromised. And I think that's kind of a warning to us is like when it creeps in, it's like kind of like boiling a frog, right?

[13:09] Until it really is dead. It's just kind of small little stuff. It's just steps. And then it's gone. And honestly, you can look around, look in the phone book. There are some churches in this few zip codes around us.

[13:26] I'm not sure if I could call them churches anymore. I'm not sure what they're teaching there. I'm not sure what practices they're allowing. And so we have to be vigilant. So that's kind of a side note is we have to be vigilant about what happens.

[13:38] So I'm way off my notes here, but that's okay. Actually. It just means that I had this memorized, which is pretty good because this is all correct here. Okay. So that's what was going on in Corinth, right?

[13:52] Then the reading speaks for itself. When they came to do the Lord's supper, some of the people brought food for themselves, but they didn't share. It wasn't like, I don't think potlucks had been invented yet, which is a shame. I love potlucks.

[14:05] And the meal was the have-nots watching the haves eat, which is really strange. And so Paul's like, okay, I see what's going on here. You have turned what was supposed to be holy into something that's just really looks just like the rest of the world. This is just how you would, this looks like a restaurant basically now.

[14:26] And he says, I think I need to go back a step and tell you what the Lord's supper is, right? And so the Lord's supper was supposed to be a time of unity instead of a time of emphasizing differences. And it was supposed to be a time about unity. And so Paul's like, okay, I see what's going on here.

[14:45] Right? Right? Right? Right? So Holy Communion is this very incarnational sacrament. And we'll have to look at that someday, this idea between the relationship between the incarnation of Jesus and the sacrament of Holy Communion. That's actually, those are very related things. And we can talk about that some other day. But as Paul says, you're not really honoring your own body if you don't take care of it in a spiritual way. You're also not honoring the body of Christ when you come and have a meal together in this way. You're treating something holy in a very mundane way. All right? And that word mundane actually means worldly, doesn't it? You're importing the world into this meal. And by the body of Christ, we might mean the assembly of believers, but really it's the actual body of Jesus who was put on the cross for us. And so here's this holy body. It's broken for our sins. And some people were remembering it by getting drunk at the meal, right? So, oh, there's wine? Oh, that's good. That's good. That's great. One more cup. One more cup. No, no, no, no, no. This isn't, it's not like that. It's not that kind of drink, you know? It takes, especially the wine they had back then, it took several cups for somebody to actually get drunk. You know, the little ones we have here,

[16:27] I don't think there's any, it is, even with regular wine, there's really no chance. But we don't even serve wine. And I think that's good. That really actually goes back to the idea about food sacrifice to idols, is we could serve real wine here, when Lutheran Church I grew up in, they did serve real wine. If you grew up Catholic, they served real wine for sure. But that could lead somebody astray. And so we give up that freedom to serve real wine and we'll serve grape juice. And that's okay. Because it's really is about honoring the body of Christ. And we don't even want to use the meal as an opportunity for somebody to lose some sobriety that they have under their belt, right? So we, all these things actually come together. It's very interesting. So Paul says, I don't commend you for this sort of thing. And so what is the answer for Paul? The answer for them is to treat the meal with reverence, because it's a holy thing, and not some really mundane thing. And he says to receive the meal worthily. Did you see that word worthily is not a very common word in the English language. We don't often use this word. Some translations have, a worthy manner. And there's some, there's some differences among theologians about what this

[17:47] means. And think of it this way. In one sense, worthily could mean you have to be worthy to receive the meal. Now we might reject that right away because we think you can't be worthy to receive the meal because you're a broken sinner. You come to the meal with your unworthiness and the meal makes you worthy and holy and just. That's great. But the other way of thinking of it worthily would mean not you being worthy, but the manner in which you receive the meal. That, that is something that you could be worthy. So I actually prefer that translation. Martin Luther and John Calvin argued about this. That's another time, obviously we'll talk about, we know we won't even talk about that, but it's very interesting. What does worthily or worthy manner mean? But from the context, the immediate answer is that, it says, a person should examine themselves before they take the meal. So even the immediate context really is going towards the person's own attitude and the manner in which they receive the meal, not their own worthiness itself. We understand their worthiness isn't there at all. So that could mean, do I truly understand the holiness of this meal? Do I understand the holiness of the body of Christ?

[19:00] Do I understand the holiness of my own body? Do I understand that Christ gave Himself so that we could eat this meal? Is this a really casual meal? Or is this a very holy and sacred and important meal, right?

[19:15] It could also mean, have I examined my own life? So not just understanding the holiness of the meal, but to take the meal in a worthy manner might mean to examine my own life before I take it. So I understand the reasons why I need to take the meal. That could mean, have I confessed my sins? So that I come to the Lord. I come to the table not with pride, but in humility, and I would call spiritual poverty. And that's tough for us because we like to come with confidence and strength and all sorts of American things like individuality. But this is a meal where we're made equal in the sight of God. And this is a meal in which we ultimately humble ourselves and tell God, we come to you as poor, broken sinners who need your grace. Now it used to be a practice in some churches, we're so really worried about people taking this meal in an unworthy manner because of the warning. Did you see the warning? I should have maybe, your ears might have pricked up a little bit when I said that. The reason some of you are sick and some of you have died. Did you catch that? Some of you have died is because you have been taking the meal in the wrong way. Now in the Greek, it says some of you have fallen asleep.

[20:30] Doesn't mean they fell asleep in church like some of you are doing right now, because I'm joining on a night. It. That sleep was almost always in Greek a euphemism for dying. And so, holy cow, like what's going on? Is there a transmutation of the bread and the cup into poison? If you haven't examined yourself, we don't know. I mean, there's one of those mysteries. Who died? How'd they die? They took the meal on the wrong way. They died. But evidently this had been happening. And so Paul's like, this is like the third rail. You don't touch it unless you know what you're doing, unless you're a licensed electrician. Like, don't. Be very careful with this meal. This is a big deal.

[21:06] Don't take it in an unworthy manner. You could die, you know? And so there are some churches that they were, they would really, what we say, fence the table off and they'd be really careful not to let anybody take communion who didn't understand this or who hadn't examined themselves. And so one thing they would do is on Saturday afternoon, the pastor's door would be open. This is more of a Catholic thing, but also some kind of hardcore Lutherans. And he would be open. The door would be open and you go into the pastor's office. And you would confess your sins. And then you get a little white card, took that with you home, came back on Sunday when it came time to communion. It was your ticket up to the table. And you couldn't come up to the table without that white card because you had not confessed. We don't do that. But you know, I'm not saying that's the worst thing in the world either because they were taking very seriously how holy and important the meal was and that nobody under their watch at least would come to the table without really examining their own conscience and come in, you know, in a worthy manner.

[22:05] Now how do we understand it? We understand it in a more sort of a more free way than that. But we, in the meal itself, we try to explain what the meal is. And in our own denomination's history, we've made an agreement with ourselves not to fight too much about what the sacraments mean, the sacrament of baptism, nor the sacrament of Holy Communion. So we don't do that. But that doesn't mean we can't read things like this and go, you know, we really ought to take this seriously. We really ought to examine our own conscience before we come. That's why part of our liturgy when we do do Holy Communion is a prayer of confession. That's really heartfelt, I think. And it really is like, Lord, forgive me for the things I've done and the things I've left undone, the things I don't know I should have done. It kind of covers it all.

[22:51] So to come in a worthy manner, I think, is not about my own worthiness because that's not there. All I have inside of me is this dark void of emptiness. You know, the human heart is deceitful above all things. What can save it? Nothing, except for Jesus Christ. But I can come in a worthy manner. I can come in humility. I can come confessing sins.

[23:18] And if the meal is holy, it's set apart. It's a world away from this world. And one way I would think about it is actually to empty your pockets before you come up from the meal. Maybe of cultural things that you brought with you from the world, but to empty your pockets of besetting sins that you somehow think you don't need to confess or that God is okay with or he won't notice. Like all of those things are fallacies. God can actually notice all those things. He knows when we're trying to do this. Set aside your pride. Set aside the pride of thinking you know a lot. Like this is what we say. We don't come up to the table to offer an opinion. This is not a place for a debate between Luther and God. This is not a place for Calvin or anyone else. This is not a debating room up here at the table because we agreed not to debate, but also because that's that gnostic impulse that the more you know, the more spiritual you But you come to the table and you become equal.

[24:17] The only way to equality at the table is by all of us kneeling in front of it and saying, I'm a lost and broken sinner and I'm here to receive the grace of Jesus Christ. And its holiness is so great. And my holiness is so limited. I'm so little. That's the only way. And that's what totally equalizes us. And that's what takes the plaques off the pews. Right? That's what that's what equalizes the church. And so I would maybe argue even that that Norwegian church that had those pews, they were they probably weren't really understanding what communion was. Because if they came to the table with humility and said, I'm a poor, broken, lost sinner in need of God's grace. When they came back and they received grace at the table, when they came back, they wouldn't want to sit back in that pew again, the way it was.

[25:07] So something was going on. This is again, one of the issues I have is churches get so wrapped up in human things and human traditions and human ways of ordering the world that they totally lose sight of the cross and they totally lose sight of the gospel.

[25:22] So maybe you've noticed that I'll do my best to not let that happen here, but you all need to help me. You know, I can't I can't run it all. You know, I mean, I can't I'm only one voice, really, honestly. So we won't we have to be vigilant. And that's kind of how I come at all these things. And I think that's what Paul's saying is, wow, you guys have since I've been with you, you guys have really lost the plot. And now I have to send some really tough words back to you. And hopefully when he came back and found them again, they had cleaned all this up.

[25:52] But maybe he was surprised at how quickly it happened in his absence. You know? So let's end. Oh, it's oh, my goodness. Look at the time. All right. Next time we serve you communion, and I'll remind you of this is someday we'll speak about the incarnation of the Lord's Supper. That's for another time. But today is enough to say that the meal is this gift that we take. We need to set aside the temptation to bring our own human knowledge to it and our rankings of ourselves and others and our persistent unrepentant sentence to the table. But we confess all those things and examine our own conscience. And at the table, we will receive the opposite of all those things. We'll be truly equal with each other at the table and we'll be united and we'll be humble about our lack of knowledge and we'll receive this gift of grace and forgiveness. And that's truly what makes it holy and beautiful is the gift we receive from it. Let's pray.

[26:47] Father, thank you for this word. And thank you for the Apostle Paul correcting the church and Father correct us as small things might slip in. Keep us vigilant. And we ask it in Jesus' name.