Worship Wars

I Corinthians 11

As you can see, I have decided to slow down this study of I Corinthians. There is just too much material to handle it within a week. Expect me to continue this study two or three more days beyond tomorrow.

The contemporary church has been in turmoil over worship for 40 years. It is a symbolic fight, for the issue is really the reinvention of the Church. The worship wars in the Corinthian Church were more about invention than re-invention, but the question they were facing is not unfamiliar to us: “How are we to be the Church together in such a challenging and secular age?” The first thing to notice in chapter 11 is how much custom has to do with these conflicts. In a patriarchal society, for Paul, the woman wore a covering on hear head to show that she lived in submission to her husband, and females to men in general. But 11:11-12 helps offer some balance, especially when you consider how much men ruled women in Greco-Roman and early Church times

,“In the Lord, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman. For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman. But everything comes from God.”

We also notice that in the first century it was considered wrong for men to have long hair and for women to cut theirs. In the 1960's, with the emergence of the hippie culture, this passage was often cited to support that long hair for men was sinful. There are still fundamental churches today who do not allow women to cut their hair, based on this passage. This brings up the issue of how much of the biblical behavior guidelines are from the LORD and how much are reflections of custom. The role of custom is unavoidable. How much of a role does custom play a role in our own worship in today’s churches? Where are there collisions based on competing customs (in age groups, in ethnicities, in backgrounds)? How can we bring these customs out in the open so that competing groups can find common ground in Jesus Christ?

The Holy Communion presented in chapter 11 is likely the “love feast,” which was much more than broken bread and wine. It was an entire meal, more like the church potluck than our monthly communion observances. Tina and I were at a love feast in Matador recently. If you wanted to eat from the best desserts and the feature dishes, you might want to be near the front of the line. The truth is there was enough great food their to feed the congregation twice over. Talk about blowing your diet! Corinthian Christians used this feast as yet another place of competition and division, and had turned a holy gathering into something cheap and ugly. Paul reminds them of the real meaning of the Lord’s Supper, and invites them to examine their hearts before they take the sacrament. We regularly pray a prayer of confession at communion as a way of addressing that need, but it, too, can become perfunctory and empty. Failure to examine our hearts before taking communion and taking the sacrament in triteness or even with a sinful attitude is actually to bring judgment rather than spiritual feeding to ourselves.

Two illustrations come to mind. First, my dad was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church. One of their key responsibilities was to serve communion. One morning the crowd was larger than expected and they ran out of communion elements. Dad had to inform one of the patriarchs of the church that they were out of elements and he would not be able to serve him communion. Dad apologized, but he was not prepared for the other man’s response, “I’m sorry, too, because Holy Communion means a great deal to me.” While the man’s response made Dad feel bad, it was a gift. Dad began to examine his own attitudes about communion and how rote and trivial the sacrament had become. Since then, Dad considers it his highest privilege to receive and celebrate the Lord’s Supper with people. It is truly a celebration of the broken body and shed blood of Christ that feeds his soul.

Second, a young adult refused to take communion when we celebrated each month. I went up to Brian and said, “I noticed you haven’t been taking communion. You are a member of this church and we have an open table, so I wondered if there was something that you were dealing with. He said, “Nothing much, really. I just don’t feel worthy. I don’t always have the attitudes that I should and I don’t love everybody the way I should.” I said, “That could be said for all of us. And none of us are worthy to share in Holy Communion. This is a feast of grace. We come and celebrate communion because we don’t hit the standard of God’s love and need His presence and grace.” He then started to take the Lord’s Supper. So our examination of conscience is not to prove our worthiness, but rather to come clean with God about our need for grace.

Every generation of the church has had hang-ups about communion, sometimes over methods (passing the pews, kneeling at the altar, dipping bread in the cup, using only unleavened bread or using the yeast variety, etc) and sometimes over liturgy. John Wesley taught his sermon on “the Catholic Spirit” partly in response to conflicts over the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. One of the important benefits of communion is that it reinforces our unity in Christ. That’s why Paul is so offended that they have used the communion love feast as a place of division. John Wesley’s guidance in that sermon is important, “If your heart is as my heart, then take my hand.” The word “communion” has with in itself the words “common” and “community.” We celebrate the feast because we are one in Christ and our oneness in Him is enhanced and strengthened through the celebration itself, when our hearts and minds are right. There is also a need for balance. The feast is neither trivial or nor legalistic. It is the Lord's Supper, a holy feast for unholy people. What a special blessing it can be for us all.