Lessons from the Daily Lectionary – Thursday, April 9, 2009
Psalms 23, 79; Jeremiah 20:7-18; 1 Corinthians 10:14-17, 11:27-32; John 17:1-11
Meditation: Today is Maundy Thursday. I used to think it odd that we would have a Thursday conflated with another day of the week – “What’s the deal with Monday-Thursday?” Either at seminary or one probably at a church I learned differently, that Maundy means “Commandment.” We call this Maundy Thursday because it was at the Last Supper that Jesus gave his disciples a new commandment: “Love one another” (John 13:34).
It is fitting that this new commandment is given at the table, Jesus with his twelve disciples for the last supper. Christians have carried this commandment forward at tables ever since. Two undying characteristics carry through history in churches. One, we sing. Two, whenever we gather we bring food! In other words, history records that table is a metaphor for the love and fellowship which marks Jesus’ continuing presence with us.
Our readings from 1 Corinthians have this in the background. Yes, there’s a hullabaloo going on there at First Church of Corinth. Paul seems almost threatening in how he writes about it. “You have not discerned the body of Christ, so some of you have become sick or are even dying!” If we were magically minded we would say that some of the Corinthians weren’t pious enough about receiving the Lord’s Supper. Magical mindedness about the elements of bread and wine becoming the body and blood of Christ lead to a misunderstanding of the issue. If we go back to the meaning of “Maundy” (Commandment) Thursday, we better understand Paul’s point. In other words, we need to be clear on Paul’s precise point about not “discerning the body of Christ.” He means that they are not living up to the commandment to love one another in the body of Christ. He’s saying: “You’re not taking care of one another well enough – so some have become sick and even died.”
The early church celebrated the Lord’s Supper in a setting not unlike how we will share it tonight for our Maundy Thursday dinner. We will come bringing our appetites and some will bring food and drink. In the early church, congregations met for worship at potluck suppers. They were called “Agape Feasts.” “Agape” means “love.” In the Corinthian church, some were bringing special and ample foods and drink to these love feasts, but exclusively for themselves and their own. They were not sharing what they brought with other church members. Can you imagine the gall? How would that be a fulfillment of the commandment to love one another? It wasn’t.
Here’s what we are invited to see, then. If the Corinthians embodied a negative example of Maundy Thursday, we are invited to embody a positive example of it. Imagine our tables as a gathering anticipating the great banquet when all God’s people will sit down to eat and drink together in a fellowship of love and joy. This is the great banquet that is hoped for. We taste this hope even now at our own fellowship gatherings. Come join in on the festival of love. Make this a way that the whole church gathers together to eat and drink lovingly with one another.
Prayer: God of hope, you give us the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper at a table. We are invited to come with thanksgiving (eucharist), not only for the elements on the table which renew the message of Christ’s loving self-offering in us, but also with a thanksgiving for our fellowship, with marks of love that we exchange with one another. May the whole world find a way to this great banquet, that all may be discerned as a body, as Christ’s body, broken and yet risen to be shared with those who hunger and thirst. Bless you, Lord. Amen.
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