Sermon Excerpt

On Thursday, March 24th, I preached a sermon entitled, "Not Just As I Say, but As I Do". Here is an excerpt:

In our New Testament reading in First Corinthians, Paul is talking with the church at Corinth. Bringing to their attention the divisions than began to creep into their practice of the faith, Paul was concerned that the early church wasn’t practicing their faith in a way that honored everyone. Being both practical and parental, Paul gives the early church a different perspective of the Last Supper in order to facilitate a greater sense of justice. How did he do this? Like any good southern or northern matriarch, he blames them and makes them feel guilty. He does so by interpreting Jesus’ Last Supper to mean something more than it probably meant to Jesus himself. Paul tells the early church,

"So, if anyone eats this bread or drinks this cup unworthily, that person is guilty of sinning against the body and the blood of the Lord. If you eat the bread and drink the cup unworthily, not honoring the body of Christ, you are eating and drinking God’s judgment upon yourself." (1 Corinthians 11:27-30)

He then says that those who are sick and who have died in the Corinthian church are those who have brought God’s judgment upon themselves because they took advantage of the spiritual implications of the communion meal. In other words, God killed them because they dishonored the Lord’s Supper.

later, I said...

Re-interpreting events to give them new meaning may often strip the original intent away. For instance, Communion was once a meal that Jesus shared with his disciples with great intimacy. For Jesus, he wanted his disciples to remember him, remember what he said, and to live the Good News. Did Jesus have in mind that his supper was a meal in which his disciples must first confess their sins before Jesus passed the bread and cup? Probably not—and yet, ironically as it may sound, the meal that the church today has reinterpreted may indeed have great spiritual blessings—yes blessings developed by the church can still be rich and rewarding too.

To read the sermon in its entirely, go to http://www.bwayucc.org/Sermons.html