Bricks and Mortar

Sermon for Sunday, September 6

1 Corinthians 11:27-32

Are y’all getting tired of things that “look a little different this year”? It’s been a struggle adapting to the “new normal,” and so much of our lives can feel uncertain and dark. The pandemic has been one more thing on top of a world that already divides us and makes us feel isolated. In “polite company,” we’ve been told for years, we shouldn’t speak about religion or politics. These are the things that cause tempers to flare and lead to strain in our families. But... how is avoiding these things working for us? If all we do is avoid them, I think religion and politics become the elephant in the room, and we create these dark spaces between us and the people we used to love. We are divided, not first by our anger, but by our inability to relate to each other.

And here we come to the Lord’s table. In just a few minutes we will eat and drink a meal called communion. We will celebrate our unity. It may feel strange to celebrate unity in a time of social distancing, where we are constantly reminded to keep 6 feet of distance between ourselves and our neighbors. It might feel awkward to celebrate unity in a world where we feel so divided, where facts have become politicized and Christians of good conscience often don’t see eye to eye on important things. But, that’s only true if we only accept unity on the world’s terms.

The original recipients of 1 Corinthians were a mess of a church. I don’t know how they got so out of sorts, but by the time Paul wrote this letter, they were in danger of losing the right to even call themselves a church. You see, a church is a place where the Word—the Gospel— is preached in sermons and rituals. We find out later in the letter that their preaching and spoken worship is falling apart, but Paul starts at the Lord’s Table. When I was growing up, this passage was interpreted a lot to mean that you couldn’t take communion if you hadn’t made a profession of faith and weren’t at least getting ready to be baptized. But Paul is talking to a bunch of people who pretty clearly believe in Jesus. Sort of. He’ll go on to address things that are wrong with their theology, but he starts with what’s wrong with their attitudes.

The Corinthians, like most early Christians, apparently took the Lord’s Supper pretty often. Except, Paul says, they didn’t. You see, when they would get together, the organizers wouldn’t worry about a time that worked for everyone. They would just say come when you can. So the rich people, who didn’t have to work as late and didn’t have to clean up after work, would show up first. And they didn’t have little cups and pre-portioned bread, so they would just eat and drink as much as they wanted. Well, by the time the poorer folks got there, the rich folks would be drunk with wine and carbed up with bread, and the poor folks wouldn’t have anything. So Paul told the rich folk that if they were going to behave that way they might as well eat and drink at home. The heart of 1 Corinthians is love, and in Corinth, love wasn’t evident at the Lord’s Table.

Paul sets down for the Corinthians a new way to do communion. He doesn’t do the preacher thing and just say, “Love one another.” It’s clear that the Corinthians don’t know how to do that, so Paul lays it out for them. Paul says, “Wait until everybody gets there to eat. If you can’t do that, eat some at home before you come!” This all seems very mundane for Scripture, doesn’t it? We want it to be this spiritual command. But Paul wants the Corinthians to do something, to embody their love for each other.

Love isn’t love, you see, if it doesn’t have skin on it. We can’t just make “I love you” something we say to each other. We have to back it up. And sometimes it starts as simply as this: just wait for each other. Wait until everyone is at the table before you eat.

So I’m going to set something simple in front of us today. Those of you out in the cars: wait around a few minutes before you drive home after we take communion. Let the folks from inside come out and say hello. Folks inside: share a wave and a smile (or some tears if that’s where you’re at) with the folks outside. Call somebody or send a card to somebody who’s not with us today, and tell them you love them. If you’re reading this online, call up another Christian and let them know you’re thinking about them.

Here’s the reason: there are so, so many things in this world that are threatening to divide us. There’s a real risk that we might become the church inside and the church outside. And there are some good reasons to be in either place. So today, to keep this supper the Lord’s supper, lets set aside everything that divides us and focus on what unites us: love.

I was thinking about a sermon I preached early in the summer about how we are being shaped into “living bricks.” It reminded me of a picture I saw in a book: an illustration of a brick wall. The author asked what it was a picture of, and anticipated the answer “bricks,” but he pointed out that one could just as easily say that the illustration was a picture of mortar. We look at the walls and think bricks are important. When we are on our best behavior we look at the church and we think the people are important. But today, we need to spend a little more effort to pay attention to the thing that unites us. What unites the wall is the mortar. What unites the church is our love.