Thank you Dave and team for leading us
so beautifully this morning.
Let's just express our appreciation to them.
Well, it was a beautiful week.
I hope some of you were able to
get out of doors and enjoy it.
Did anybody find yourself feeling a little ripped
off that winter was so mild this year?
Nobody, eh?
All right.
Do you feel like you didn't get your
money's worth?
It was definitely the mildest winter that I've
seen here and I didn't find myself complaining
at all.
It was lovely.
I'd like to turn you to 1 Corinthians
chapter 11 this morning.
Stephen preached on 1 Corinthians 10 last week.
Such full passages, more than I'll be able
to do justice to in a week.
And actually this passage, I think I might
break into a couple segments and preach part
of it next week.
And it's a much-beloved passage.
In fact, for people who wouldn't really even
know much about communion or the Eucharist, if
you were to ask them in the New
Testament to turn to one passage, the most
famous passage to them, it's either going to
be the Last Supper or it's probably going
to be this passage, the ones that they're
familiar with.
And yet for all our familiarity, we often
haven't spent probably enough time in these important
passages.
And I'm really looking forward to doing that
with you this morning.
So 1 Corinthians 11.
Let's take a reading from the 17th verse
and following.
Paul says, 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.
For in the first place, when you come
together as a church, I hear that there
are divisions amongst you.
And I believe it in part for there
must be factions among you in order that
those who are genuine among you may be
recognized.
When you come together, it is not for
the Lord's Supper that you eat.
For in eating, each one goes ahead with
his own meal.
One goes hungry, another gets drunk.
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.
For I received from the Lord what I
also delivered to you, that 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.
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.
This wonderful passage actually continues, but we're going
to stop there and just read that much
today.
So the Apostle Paul had a close relationship
with this church in Corinth.
He was the one to have brought the
gospel to this church.
And now he keeps in close contact with
it.
He sends it messages.
He writes letters.
He knows what's going on there.
And he writes in a very fatherly way
through 1 Corinthians.
And in the beginning of the 11th chapter,
he begins with a different note.
Now I commend you because you remember me
in everything and you remember the traditions that
I delivered to you.
And so there's words of commendation because really
important things that he passed on to them,
they kept hold of those things.
And so even after his absence, they didn't
stop following those teachings.
They didn't depart from those important traditions.
But here on the 17th verse, he says
the exact opposite.
But in this area, I have no commendation
for you.
And of course, if a father figure like
the Apostle Paul begins a letter with I
have no commendation for you, I'm sure it
makes the people cringe a little bit.
And so I want to take a look
at why do you use such strong language?
Why would he say I have no commendations
for you in this?
And first reason is this.
He says because I hear that there are
divisions amongst you.
Now when he talks about divisions, he's not
actually talking about theological divisions.
He's not talking about a breakdown between families
or marriages.
There's no open conflict going on in this
church.
So what kind of division is he talking
about?
As we follow through this passage, we're going
to find out that he's talking about social
divisions.
The kind of divisions that there were in
Roman society, class divisions that had infiltrated the
church and were beginning to play themselves out
in the church, just like they did in
Roman society, social divisions.
So when they gathered together as a church
in the early church, there were two parts
to their meetings.
And it's evident here in First Corinthians, there
was a common meal part.
Food was brought and enjoyed.
It was a real meal, a full meal.
And there was a sacramental part to their
meetings.
And there's different probably views on how those
were played out.
Some think that there maybe was a sacramental
part at the beginning that maybe had to
do with the breaking of bread, an official
beginning to the service.
And that maybe the common meal part played
out where people ate food and meals that
they had brought.
And then it culminated in a cup.
It culminated in the sacramental part.
Sometimes maybe people who are reading the ancient
documents think, well, no, there was just the
common meal first.
And then it culminated, all the sacramental part
was left till the end.
There's some different views on it.
But what we do know is this, that
amongst these two parts, common meal and sacramental
part, that the first part, the common meal,
was being played out in such a way
that it was completely undermining and degrading the
sacramental part of their gathering.
It was totally against it.
So what was happening in order to do
that?
Well, each family brought their own food to
this meal.
It might on first impression sound a little
bit like a potluck.
But in some ways it was the opposite
of a potluck.
Everybody brought food, but there was no sharing
of that food.
You just brought enough food for your own
family.
So we have enough challenges with our own
potlucks sometimes, making sure that there's enough food
to go around.
Or if my wife brings her famous curry,
it goes quite quickly.
I've even heard it rumored around that, like,
Sherry brought her curry.
And so you don't want to be at
the back of the line on those dishes,
because it could produce divisions in the church.
So in some ways it's far worse than
the worst potluck.
And that is every family is bringing their
own food, but they're hoarding their food and
they're not sharing it with others.
And so because of the great social disparity
in the Roman Empire at this time, there
were some members had plenty of food, more
than they could eat, and some had either
little food or next to nothing in the
same room.
And so the divisions Paul's talking about is
actually a division between the haves and the
have-nots.
It's a division between the rich and the
poor.
And the problem is they can't see anything
wrong with this.
But Paul, on the other hand, is greatly
distressed by this, because it is contrary to
everything the Lord's Supper was about.
So remember two parts.
There's a meal that culminates in a sacramental
part, a breaking of bread and the sharing
of a common cup, and they can't see
that the way they're doing this common meal
is meant to represent the sacramental part.
It's meant to embody it.
And instead it's completely undermining it.
It's against everything the Lord's Supper represents.
So the Lord's Supper is about unity.
Last week Stephen expounded chapter 10 where we
heard these words, we are one body because
we eat of one bread.
So this is where the oneness of the
body, the body comes together.
And we don't just celebrate the oneness that
we already have.
Every time we come together for the breaking
of bread, the potential is that the oneness
is magnified.
Our oneness is increased.
It's better.
It's improved upon.
We are one body because we do what?
Because we eat of that sacramental meal.
Because we eat of one bread, our oneness
is strengthened and reinforced.
And so here these people come from a
deeply fragmented society, and if they're not careful,
they will carry those fragmentations right into the
church where we're meant to be one.
And they're having a deeply fragmented meal in
preparation for a sacramental meal that's all about
oneness.
And they couldn't see the wood for the
trees.
Secondly, the Lord's Supper is a picture of
self-sacrifice.
So we say these words every time, this
is my body which is given for you.
And those people every time they gather hear
those words and they receive the free offering
of Jesus to them.
This is my body which is given for
you.
And yet in the meal that leads up
to this, it's got nothing to do with
giving.
They're hoarding.
It's got nothing to do with self-sacrifice.
They're self-serving.
They have more food than they know what
to eat and will not walk across the
church gathering to someone else and give it
to someone who's hungry.
So Paul is, how could you come to
the Lord's table where Jesus gave everything for
you and you couldn't share your food with
the guy across the room?
Do you see how the Lord's table acts
like a check and balance on us?
It has a way of bringing us back
to what's important.
It's a plumb line that goes right through
our soul.
It examines all our practices and helps us
understand where the things of the world are
creeping into the church.
It helps us to say no to those
things.
And it brings us back to what's true
and important and good and holy.
And so they can't see this.
So the Lord's table is a picture of
unity.
It's a picture of self-sacrifice.
It's also a picture of separation where Jesus
ransomed a people, purchased them with His own
blood, set them apart for Himself, drew them
apart from the world in which they live,
that they would belong to Him and be
His own holy people.
And yet here's a picture of people that
are not separate from the world.
The world is influencing them more than Christ
is because these practices are quite contrary to
Christ.
So in Roman society, of course, house meetings
were common, meals amongst wealthy families.
We can assume that this was the house
of a wealthy family.
It's the only place that would have had
space enough for this type of event and
this kind of people.
And so in Roman society, it was common
to have a room at the center of
a larger house called a triclinium.
It was like, we would call it a
dining room, but it was a place where
hospitality was shown, where you would treat your
guests well.
And so there was comfort provided, a place
to recline.
But your guests that you didn't consider to
be as important would be in the atrium
with no comfort or there wouldn't be any
place to sit.
They could sit on the floor.
And less consideration, if any, taken for them.
And so Roman society thought, particularly the wealthy
part of society thought nothing of the poor.
So it wasn't uncommon for people to be
having lavish meals, and of course they got
poor people serving them every single time they
eat.
It wouldn't have even crossed their mind if
it was this person eating today.
So their conscience on this matter had been
seared that they didn't think there was a
problem with feasting while there's people in the
perimeter who have went hungry and are starving.
Enormous disregard for the poor.
So this week as I've thought of this,
I've wondered how.
How is this true of us?
Because that situation maybe would be unlikely to
repeat itself in exactly that same fashion.
We head off to Africa in three weeks.
I've went once or twice a year.
For many years.
And I just don't find I can eat
a meal with hungry kids around me.
Just everything in me feels this has got
to be wrong.
Now Wilson is our African leader and he's
teaching me how to do it better because
two visits ago now I caused something that
was near to a riot.
Seriously, that almost ended up destroying buildings.
And I'm a seasoned at this.
I've been doing this for 30 years and
it started out with just a handful.
Oh come on, I told him there's no
way I'm going to lunch with hungry kids
here.
And so I thought I was being so
careful and discreet and anyways before I knew
it there were hundreds and hundreds of people.
And it got quite aggressive.
So I'm getting better at finding good ways
to do this.
But I never want to lose that out
of my heart.
The instinct that says I'm not going to
sit and eat a meal in front of
people that are going hungry.
And I think probably most of us feel
exactly the same.
But I think there are other ways in
which we could heed Paul's words.
What are the things about Canadian culture, not
Roman culture?
What are the aspects of Canadian culture that
have come in with us and we're like
them.
We barely detect it.
It's all we've ever known.
We're so familiar with it.
It's just inside of us.
Just like these people could eat these lavish
meals, poor people.
Never even think twice about it.
Complete disregard for the poor because they're so
immersed in their Roman culture.
It's just all they've ever known.
And if we're not careful, we can think
that we are exempt from that.
So every time I brought Canadians for example
to England, they're always interested in accents.
But Canadians never think they have an accent.
And so people went and said, well I
like your accent too.
How many times have I heard, well I
don't have an accent.
But we read the passage and said, well
that's a very, that's a great problem that
you would take Roman society and bring it
into the church like that.
But that doesn't happen in Canada.
Really?
Well, I'm not so sure.
I think it does.
We live not just in a country, a
continent that is deeply deeply materialistic.
Deeply materialistic.
Where our sense of goal in life, we're
just almost consumed with the accumulation of things
and the underscoring supposition that we'd be so
much happier if we could accumulate more.
And so we live in what's been called
the consumeristic society.
We just feel like we've got to consume.
And even once we buy things, it puts
on the shelf and our attention turns to
the next thing.
Because it didn't make us happy or assure
the kind of happiness that we thought it
would.
And yet there's a deep addiction to it.
And I wonder how does it affect church?
How does it affect community?
How does that part of society affect how
we think of each other?
How we treat each other?
How does it undermine unity amongst us?
Because if that is our mindset, if some
way that works inside of us and even
relationships are the next thing to be consumed.
Even I knew church is the next thing
to be consumed.
Church shopping.
And we'll try relationships out for a while,
but once we've gorged ourselves, which is actually
some of the language in the Greek behind
their eating.
Once we've satiated ourselves, people get discarded.
They get dropped.
I wonder if we treat Christ like that.
I'm convinced we do in our country.
Which is I'm into Him so long as
He satiates me.
As long as I can use Him as
another place to consume.
And interestingly, once Jesus puts a hand up
and said, I love you more than you
can ever imagine, but I can't buy into
that.
I'll feed you, but you can't consume me
in that way.
I'm not just something to be bought and
sold.
I'm not just something to be picked up
and put down.
And once He says I can't play that
game, then actually part of our heart feels
in dearth.
And so here we come to the Lord's
Supper.
And how does it play out?
Less and less so.
But I've seen a generation, I've seen for
the last 30 years, people come to the
Lord's Supper who know all the teaching about
the Lord's Supper.
They know full well that this is a
table of unity.
And know full well that there's people in
the congregation that they don't want to speak
to, that there is conflict.
They know full well they should go around
and probably remedy that and fix that.
And yet week in and week out, some
stubborn part of their heart from our Canadian
culture, not a church culture, it's the opposite
of Christ's culture.
Christ's culture would say, before I go to
the Lord's table or straight away afterwards, I'm
going to go fix that one.
I'm going to go forgive.
I'm going to go lay down my offense.
I'm going to repair that relationship with that
person.
And yet our Canadian culture says, no, it
makes me uncomfortable.
It's awkward to do that.
Of course it's jolly well awkward.
You think when I do it, it's fun,
but when you do it, it's awkward?
No, it's because there's a clash of cultures
taking place.
And if Paul was here today, he would
speak and say, there's more important things than
your culture.
That's why we celebrate the Lord's table, because
it wasn't actually a picture of comfort.
He didn't put his own comfort ahead of
us.
It was far from comfortable.
The cross, we could say this, it was
a bloody mess.
And so when we come in with our
culture and it confronts this culture, one of
them has to go.
And everyone who truly loves Jesus in their
heart will realize, Oh yeah, I brought in
stuff and I will lay it down because
this culture has got to reign supreme.
This culture, a culture of the cross, a
culture of real love, a love that persists,
a love that would die for us.
Not a love that just comes along.
Jesus doesn't come along to you and consume
you.
Well, I just like this person until they,
till my, my sense of loneliness goes away
and then drop you.
He won't even love you until he sees
something wrong with you.
Everything wrong with me, he knew it in
advance.
I mean, and so interesting, the love that
all our hearts are yearning for, sacrifice, costliness.
It's the antidote.
Every single one of you that wonder, am
I worth something?
The answer is found here.
Am I valuable?
Guess where the answer is found?
Here.
Do I matter?
It's found here.
Am I really worth loving?
It's found here.
Not in our Canadian culture.
And so when we gather together, we ask,
we lay down it.
There's a clash and one of them wins.
So Paul goes on and says these words,
for I received from the Lord what I
also delivered to you.
That's a weighty sentence.
So do you know why this culture wins?
Because he says, I received it from the
Lord.
That's why this has to trump everything else.
We're not exactly sure how he received it
from the Lord, whether he received it by
supernatural revelation.
He spent 12 years in prayer in the
deserts of Arabia.
It was rich with revelation.
Is that where he received it?
By direct revelation?
Or does it mean that the apostles that
were with Jesus at the last supper, when
these words were first said, now faithfully communicated
that to Paul.
But when apostles say something, it is still
from the Lord.
They got it from the Lord.
And so it is authoritative.
So however he comes by this, it's secondary.
And the truth still stands.
This is from the Lord, has authority.
I received from the Lord what I also
delivered to you.
How that the Lord Jesus Christ on the
night in which he betrayed, took bread.
And when he had given thanks, he broke
it and said, this is my body.
These are the words spoken at the last
supper.
So the last supper became the Lord's supper.
And the exact words that Jesus used have
been said aloud every Lord's table from that
day till this, through all of history.
And so when we do that, it binds
us with him, the one that said these
words.
Do this in remembrance of me.
It binds us with the Christians who have
said these words through the entire of church
history.
Two thousand years, every communion, these words are
said.
It binds us with them.
It's a sign of our unity with them,
but it binds us with each other.
And so imagine a church who celebrated the
Lord's table and every single week allowed a
Canadian culture to flush out and they allowed
the culture of the cross to reign supreme.
So every single week offenses were cleansed away.
How bad could relationships ever get?
They just get better and better and better.
How deep would they become?
How deep and profound would the unity be?
Because you could never keep a long slate.
You could never build a whole slate of
offenses against somebody, whether that was your child
or whether that was your friend or a
colleague or someone across the church or your
spouse.
You could never build a large record of
wrongs.
And our unity would be such that Jesus
would be able to look down and say,
that's what I paid for.
Look at these beautiful, look at the kingdom
of heaven, right there on earth, they're doing
life like nobody around them.
Look at their separation.
They live in the world, but they're not
of the world.
They have my culture in them.
And they left their consumeristic ways behind as
well.
And they've taken my nature on them.
They're self-sacrificing for me and they're self
-sacrificing for one another.
So I love things when things happen in
the church.
Keep your antennas up all the time for
people who have needs.
Keep your antennas up all the time.
You're going to buy a new car.
You're going to trade your other one off
and they're going to give you a fraction
of a price.
I'm in that, looking at cars I rez.
Go give it away to somebody.
We've got tons of young families.
You're going to get a fraction for it.
Next time you order a bunch of food,
go take a third of it and take
it to some other that you know is
right now in a tough month.
Think of each other.
That a culture of self-sacrifice would be
amongst us like it was in our Lord.
As often as you eat this bread and
drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death.
You revel in it.
You exult in it.
You proclaim the Lord's death.
You sit under that.
You let yourself be affected by it.
You keep it central, the cross.
You keep it central until he comes.
And so as we transition in a minute
to the Lord's table, it would be fitting
for us to say, Lord, I realize that
maybe we have more of an accent than
we think.
Maybe Canadian culture is more subtle, but it's
in us.
And there's ways of doing things out there
that has affected us more than we think
in here.
Because Canadians don't like confrontation.
They don't like feeling awkward, uncomfortable, because we
are the world's nice guys.
We've been described as that in many countries
I've been.
That's not a bad reputation, but
we could examine what parts of that culture
are clashing with, and inferior to the culture
of the cross.
And we could lay those down.
Just before Todd leads us to the table,
just a couple of words for those of
you who are new to Christianity or new
to our church.
One of the things we hear often, Todd
and I were up for lunch a few
weeks ago, and we met a waitress who
said she wanted to come to our church.
And her biggest fear was, she felt disqualified
from coming to church.
She thought her life was too broken.
She'd made too many mistakes, messed up too
many times to come to church.
And which, in hearing that, our response is,
that's what all of us are.
We want you to come be a part
of this.
But part of what I think needs to
be communicated to you is that we're a
place that we do make mistakes.
We do fail.
We do fall short.
We do sin.
We do break things, and even break relationships.
But what you have here is a community
and a family of people that every week
we have a solution to those mistakes.
We have the good news of Jesus, the
cross of Jesus, that removes from us our
mistakes.
And so what it kind of could create
for you is what the church should be
is one of the safest places on earth.
Not because we don't make mistakes against one
another, but because we have a solution to
those mistakes.
And so what I just want to welcome
you into today is that we want you
to come be a part of this.
That you would know that you cannot make
too big of a mistake here.
That this is a safe place to make
mistakes.
And that you join us in coming and
receiving Jesus's work and cleansing and salvation from
those mistakes.
Okay, so please feel like you're a part
of this, that you would come and share
in it, even if you're not a baptized
Christian yet.
Okay, Bishop Todd.
When I was many years ago the president
of a Bible school, and when I had
finished that and moved on, moved to Scotland,
I had the great pleasure of spending some
time one day with a person who had
been hurt by a Bible school, or felt
that they had been hurt.
I had never been their leader, but because
of my story I could stand in that
place, and I could say this, I'm sorry.
As a past president of the Bible school
I could say, I repent if you've got
hurt.
I could offer the deep repentance.
I didn't know till a few years later
that that was that person's journey back.
So as we move into the time of
communion, not only dealing with our own shortcomings,
I also want to say this for your
entire story, however old you are and however
long you've been around, here or anywhere, any
country If you were ever hurt by the
church, then I would like to stand in
the gap and say, I'm really sorry.
If you ever received a treatment that was
just so much less than what you deserved,
and so maybe as we're as we're meditating
in a few minutes, your heart could say,
Lord that that's me, and that's what's kept
me from bonding to community.
And you could let that go, and you
would find a new liberty in your heart.
So if at any time through your entire
life you were hurt by a church, would
you allow me to humble myself, and to
stand in the gap and say, I'm really
sorry.
If you fell overlooked, misunderstood, maybe what Ryan
was saying is it's a place where we're
meant to be forgiven, and it's okay that
we're a bit flawed, but if you were
ever treated like that was okay for everybody
else but not you, that your flaws were
singled out and judged, I'm genuinely sorry.
I'm not so sure how it happens that
Christ's church can get so separate from Christ
at times, but he's bringing it back.
And maybe in our time, in a few
minutes of confession, maybe you could receive that
into your heart, and let that anger and
offense go.
All who truly turn to Christ, and repent
of their sins, all who seek to be
reconciled in that unity with your neighbors, and
to accept the Lord as your Savior.