St. Paul Explains The Eucharist

We now look at St. Paul’s explanation of the Eucharist in 1 Corinthians 11:17-34.  Paul is disturbed by some practices that had crept into the “Lord’s Supper” and that contradicted the very meaning of our unity in the Lord.  He spares no words in chastising the Corinthian Christians.  It is worth reading in its entirety.

 “Now that I am on the subject of instructions, I cannot say that you have done well in holding meetings that do you more harm than good.  In the first place, I hear that when you all come together as a community, there are separate factions among you, and I half believe it – since there must no doubt be separate groups among you to distinguish those who are to be trusted.  The point is, when you hold these meetings, it is not the Lord’s Supper that you are eating, since when the time comes to eat, everyone is in such a hurry to start his own supper that one person goes hungry while another is getting drunk.  Surely you have homes for eating and drinking in?  Surely you have enough respect for the community of God not to make poor people embarrassed?  What am I to say to you?  Congratulate you?  I cannot congratulate you on this.

 For this is what I received from the Lord, and in turn passed on to you:  that on the same night that he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took some bread, and thanked God for it and broke it, and he said, ‘This is my body, which is for you; do this as a memorial of me.’  In the same way he took the cup after supper, and said, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood.  Whenever you drink it, do this as a memorial to me.’  Until the Lord comes, therefore, every time you eat this bread and drink this cup of the Lord, you are proclaiming his death, and so anyone who eats the bread and drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will be behaving unworthily toward the body and blood of the Lord.

 Everyone is to recollect himself before eating this bread and drinking this cup; because a person who eats and drinks without recognizing the Body is eating and drinking his own condemnation…

 So to sum up, my dear brothers, when you meet for the Meal, wait for one another.  Anyone who is hungry should eat at home, and then your meeting will not bring your condemnation…”

 Several points to consider:  1) in Paul’s day, the Lord’s Supper was celebrated during a “pot luck” dinner usually on Sunday evenings – this will gradually change because of the mentioned abuses, and because the growing Church membership made it impossible to connect a supper with the Eucharist (our Eucharist is now a “stylized” meal with bread and wine); 2) Christians are called to recollect what they are doing at the Eucharist even before gathering – a good habit for us today; and, 3) the Eucharist celebrates our unity in Christ (“in Christ there is neither male nor female, slave nor free, rich nor poor”) – yet the Corinthians did not practice the true meaning of the Lord’s Supper when they treated some with disdain by excluding them from sharing their food, getting drunk and being gluttonous while some went hungry.  This was not a celebration of their unity in Christ.

 Paul does not provide us with Jesus’ complete prayer from the Last Supper.  However, since the people relied more on oral tradition than the written word, we may presume that the people knew the prayer’s structure of praise, the words of institution, and supplication.