1 Corinthians 11:23-24
For I received from the Lord
what I also passed on to you:
The Lord Jesus, ///
on the night he was betrayed,
took bread,
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.”
Break is such a striking word, we use it for so many different situations.
When we want to stop working for a bit we take a break on the job
When a relationship comes to an end or we are disappointed we experience Heartbreak
Break boards for martial arts test
We says you are Breaking up when you they have poor reception on a cell phone
Breaking bones when people are injured
In Football huddles they say break.
The sun rises we call it the break of day
Something can break a fall
Break bread - stop and dine together
Break camp - pack up and leave
You can break the law
You break barriers, sound barrier,
You break records.
Whenever the word break is used, there is an interruption a pause, something different is happening. All the synonyms for the word lead us to that same understanding. Crack, gap, hole, breach, cleft, discontinuity, rupture, schism, split, tear, and so on and so on. Whether good or bad, when something breaks, it is changed.
Paul was trying to change some things in his letter to the church at Corinth, written about 53-54AD the church had some issues and Paul addressed them in his letter. One issue Paul addressed was that the church had divided itself into groups, and those groups decided they didn’t need to eat together for communion. Those who had means could get to the church first, have their meal and those who were still working got to church later and had nothing left to eat. Paul was not happy, Paul said in verses 17 though 22:
17 Now in giving these instructions I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse. 18 For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. 19 For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you. 20 Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. 21 For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. 22 What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you.
Paul was clearly not happy about the division in the church and how they are treating each other. I can imagine the handwriting getting harder and harder on the letter as Paul is writing. They had separated themselves. We have churches that don’t look anything like the neighborhood they sit in, and may only interact with the neighborhood for missions projects. We break from others not like us where we live, where we eat out before the pandemic, where we socialize, where we worship.
Paul didn’t like for the church members to think they are better than one another and separating because they are different. Paul said when they separate, it is not for the better but for worse. Paul says if you are not going to eat that special meal together, you might as well stay at home and not come at all. Sounds strange to read this in the Bible close to 2000 years ago and then I look at our churches. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said
Unfortunately, most of the major denominations still practice segregation in local churches, hospitals, schools, and other church institutions. It is appalling that the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, the same hour when many are standing to sing: "In Christ There Is No East Nor West. - Martin Luther King.
The break in the Corinthian church probably could have developed because of culturally engrained practices that had wormed their way into the faith community. For example, those accustomed to eating with others who, like them, had plenty of resources, continued to do so when they assembled as the church. In other words, some church members had allowed their socioeconomic differences to transform the Lord’s meal into just another common, everyday meal in which their taken-for-granted boundaries excluded other believers.
We confuse being unified with being same. We have differences that should not be ignored. My lived experience is just as real your lived experience, I don’t want you to ignore my differences I want you to see them, acknowledge them, and respect them, definitely not exclude them.
Paul tells the church the what they are trying to exclude from others is not actually theirs to exclude. The church got it from Paul, and Paul got it from Christ. Paul said that we need to break our routines because Christ broke himself for us.
What the savior did
He gathered the disciples together for a communal meal knowing that he was going to be betrayed. All together gathered in this room to have a communal meal together. All were at the table none excluded. This one of the earliest recordings of communion in scripture. Everyone together in one accord.
Jesus was giving them a visual example of what he was going to do and told them to remember it, practice it, use it experience Christ all over again. Sacred.
Bob Stamps said - A sacrament is God coming to help us by means of a created thing. Faith needs something to touch, faith needs something to do.
The Christian experience was never meant to be a solitary one, with everyone just wanting to work on just his or her own spiritual relationship away from everyone else. The writer of Hebrews said, “And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching” (10:24-25).
One of my seminary professors, Dr. Jamie Clark-Soles said that you cannot be a Christian outside of community.
Scripture tells us over and over again that this lived experience is supposed with others.
James 1:25-25
Matthew 22
What the savior said
Jesus told them that just like this bread they were sharing together was broken, Jesus was was going to be broken like that for them. For all of them, not a few, not the ones from the same neighborhood, or spoke the same language, or had the same level of income, or had the same education. Jesus was going to break himself for all of the people.
Christ gave himself for all, and all means all. Jesus came with a body, to a body, for a body, and broke the body the save everybody. Jesus said that he gave himself up for us, some translations say that he gave himself up on our behalf.
We need something to touch sometimes to experience God. Jesus had the disciples come together and gave them a cup to share and bread to break to give them a visual, tangible reminder for the disciples back then and the disciples today to practice to remind them of what Jesus did for them. We need to break ourselves from our usual understanding in life, we need to be broken from what makes us comfortable, we need to break ourselves from a thinking that we are better than anyone else. We need to allow ourselves to be broken and we need to allow ourselves to come together.
That’s the idea of the church. The church isn’t solitary Christians in our own cubicles; it’s a fellowship of followers of Jesus Christ. Paul wrote his letter almost 2000 years ago. Just as Jesus broke the bread he broke his body. We are the body of Christ and believe there is something he wants to break in us. Create a Crack, gap, hole, breach, cleft, discontinuity, rupture, schism, split, tear, and so on and so on in us, that we may be one in Christ for the transformation of the world.
Communion, the common meal of the church, reminds us of the importance to our own spiritual experience of the community’s experience of faith. In that sense, what we do when we come to communion in church is “eat out.” We get spiritual sustenance in the company of others. We need to break our habits of isolating because Jesus broke some things when he broke himself with the work of the cross. The work done on Calvary, the work done in the borrowed tomb, the work done when he rose from the grave, and the reason we wait on him because he is coming back again. Jesus broke us.
Jesus broke the penalty, power, and presence of sin
Jesus broke the bondage of death and the grave
Jesus broke the barrier separating us from eternal life.
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