10-02-16 Everyone; Come to the table!

Scripture   1 Corinthians 11:23-26
          Fantasy Football – I had to pull someone off my bench for someone else who had a bye. Imagine a football game – the other team has the number one defense in the country and it is game time and the quarterback takes the field. He lines up behind the Center but the Offensive guards sent a text saying they were held up in traffic because they didn’t leave soon enough, the Offensive tackles messaged on facebook that they were sore from running into people all the time and needed a day off, the tight ends and wide receivers forgot about the game, and the running backs called laughing while saying they had left the stadium to run some errands but they would soon be running back. The center hiked the ball and the quarterback threw it to him down field – it was intercepted and run back for a touch down.

          I guess that would not be called Fantasy football but Nightmare football.

It seems absurd to picturing that happening but the Apostle Paul saw that such a thing could happen with the church that Jesus is so passionate about building.     

          Let me read a familiar passage but from the MESSAGE which may make it more clear:

1 Corinthians 12:4-27

God's various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful: wise counsel, clear understanding , simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, interpretation of tongues.

          All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. He decides who gets what, and when.

          You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts — limbs, organs, cells — but no matter how many parts you can name, you're still one body. It's exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain — his Spirit — where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves — labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free — are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive.

I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so? If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it.

          19 But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn't be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, "Get lost; I don't need you"? Or, Head telling Foot, "You're fired; your job has been phased out"? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way — the "lower" the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it's a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn't you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair?

25 The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.

          27 You are Christ's body — that's who you are! You must never forget this. Only as you accept your part of that body does your "part" mean anything.

NIV 27 Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.

CHURCH IN THE ALPS story with lanterns.

Here we are – each member of the team. Every family with their lantern in place. The table is set and it is meal time. But not just any meal – it is time to celebrate Passover in a new light – at the table with Jesus…

1 Corinthians 11:23-26

For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24 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."  25 In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."  26 For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.

The Last Supper, which took place hours before the Lord’s crucifixion—was a Seder (Passover observance). Previously, the feast’s symbols had only pointed back to the Hebrews’ redemption from Egypt. But that Thursday night, Jesus revealed the messianic significance of two symbols: bread and wine.

In a Seder, a cloth bag with separate compartments holds three sheets of matzoh, or unleavened bread. The middle matzoh is removed and split. One half is broken and distributed; the other is wrapped in a napkin, hidden, and bought back after it is found.

Breaking the bread, Jesus said, “Take, eat; this is My body” (Matthew 26:26). In Scripture, leaven symbolizes sin, so bread without yeast represents holy God. In the divided bag, matzohs are unified yet distinct—a picture of the Trinity. The middle bread signifies the Son, who left His Father’s side to dwell among us and was broken for mankind (Isaiah 53:5 “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,…”), wrapped in a burial cloth, hidden in a tomb, and resurrected. Our redemption was, indeed, costly.

Wine, the other symbol Jesus used, is poured four times at a Seder. Scholars believe it is the third cup—known as the cup of redemption—that He called “My blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:27–28).

When we come to the table symbol is so important. The symbol points to a greater reality. For example: 1 Corinthians 5:6-7 says, Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast works through the whole batch of dough? 7 Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast — as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.