Monday, October 7, 2019
673 - Table of Grace
Spirituality Column #673
October 8, 2019
Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary
Table of Grace
By Bob Walters
"Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup." - 1 Corinthians 11:28, the Apostle Paul correcting communion practices at the Corinthians church.
As a civilization we Westerners tend to think of commerce and transaction ahead of everything else. We give something, we get something. We behave well we are rewarded; we behave badly we are punished. Our behavioral expectation is Newtonian and scientific; we presume symmetry and predictability. Our standards are simplistic and binary along the lines of: Is this, that, or whatever “good” or “bad”?
So when Christians
are told to “examine” something – such as ourselves in preparation for communion
– our cultural predisposition goes right to personal worthiness. We weigh “good”
against “bad” in pursuit of some sort of resolution or apology in order to
square the account into balance on the side of “Good.” Maybe, on a good day, we seek to land in the
realm of “Justice.” All’s well that ends
well. Let’s eat.
But if that’s what we’re doing as
we approach the Communion Table of Christ – trying to decide if “I’m a good
enough person” – we misidentify Jesus, misread Paul’s instruction, errantly
focus on “me,” and bruise a beautiful opportunity for fellowship.
Paul was simply trying to bring
about the unity and inclusion of the Corinthian congregation, which it did not
have when it came to communion. Some
were eating a feast, some were getting drunk, some had nothing at all, nobody
was thinking about each other, and the “church” was a divisive mess of
conflicting practice and factions.
The point of communion, Paul was
saying, was to focus on Christ – “do this
in remembrance of me” (vv. 23-25) – not on themselves, and was modeling
that “to love others” meant to celebrate “together.” They were to examine if they were “together,”
not if “I am worthy.” Only Jesus is
worthy; we are only worthy when we are in Him.
This is sort of shocking to our
Western commercially-baselined personal value systems. We all kind of tend to go our own way. How wonderful and truly stunning it is when
we see a large, public display of how the grace of Jesus Christ is supposed to
work, and we saw it in spades last week in a Dallas Courtroom.
When we take communion, we are
often told to think of all the Christians in the whole world with whom we join
in the Body of Christ. And I for one
won’t soon forget the media bomb detonated last week when Christian grace
paraded through the courtroom of Dallas Judge Tammy Kemp. Convicted and sentenced murderer Amber Guyger
was publicly forgiven and hugged in the name of Christ by the victim’s brother
Brandt Jean. The touched and tearful judge
then got her own Bible from her chambers, also hugged Guyger, and gave Guyger
her Bible which was opened to John 3:16.
Wow. Most of the media early on declined to report
the part about the judge’s Bible gift, but thank God for the atheists who soon
protested the Judge’s “outrageous abuse of the separation of church and
state.” The media had to cover that. Suddenly everyone knew about the grace of
Jesus and the saving message of the Bible.
That is a demonstration of true
communion to share, celebrate, and remember.
Praise God, and thank you,
Judge. Some see black and white. I see Jesus.
Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) noticed the media dropped the story,
perhaps figuring the grace was just too great and the protest was just too
silly. Checkmate.
0 comments:
Post a Comment