I’m saying eat and drink
I mentioned in the exhortation that we are the people of God and God is our God. This means that we live in the presence of God, knowing this to be true all the time. The Holy Spirit is always and constantly telling us that we are his friends. Jesus called us friends (Jn. 15:14) and so we are.
Friends hang out together. The more intimate, the more friends hang out. The more we spend time together the better we get to know one another, and the more we get to know one another the more we become like one another. Presence changes things. Since God is God and can’t change, presence—God’s presence—changes us. We become more like him as we spend more time with him.
When we spend time with Jesus, together with one another, we not only become more like Jesus, we also become more like one another. And this ties in nicely with the fact that we are the body of Christ and he is the head of the body. We are him walking around on the earth, we are his incarnation—we incarnate God. When the world looks at us, they see God’s representative—they see God.
In 1 Corinthians 11 Paul made a big deal about the Corinthians participating in the Lord’s supper in an unworthy manner. Apparently, some were leaving others out of the feast, others were getting drunk, others were rudely eating everything they could get their hands on. Overall, they were misrepresenting Christ to the watching world.
We have solved some a few of the problems by serving portions that are too small to get drunk on or be glutinous with. But we can still besmirch the Lord’s Supper. We can eat and drink while being out of fellowship with our fellow Christian. You may not have kept them from the table, but you did snub them at the party last week. You didn’t get drunk here, but you did drink a bit too much the other day and said some hurtful things to your sister. You may have been wronged by someone and are having difficulty letting God take it and deal with it in his own way—you have become bitter and are angry.
I’m not saying that you should abstain from eating and drinking now. I’m saying eat and drink, but as you do, resolve to repair and restore any broken relationships you are responsible for—right after the service. As soon as we are finished here, go to anyone you have sinned against and make your relationship right. Keep short accounts with one another.
Remember God is our God, we are his people. God wants to spend time with us and we want to spend time with him and this includes and is especially true of this meal we eat together each week. When we’re finished, if you need to, make things right. For now, come and eat. Come and drink. To the glory of God.