Where's the Party?

Monday of the Twenty fourth Week in Ordinary Time

Readings for Monday of the 24th Week in Ordinary Time

Reading 1 1 Cor 11:17-26, 33

Responsorial Psalm Ps 40:7-8a, 8b-9, 10, 17
R. (1 Cor 11:26b) Proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes again.

Gospel Lk 7:1-10

Reflection:

Beyond the fact that Paul speaks of Jesus in the reading from Corinthians and Jesus is healing in the Gospel from Luke there is not a central theme today. Because we struggle with the same divisions that Paul fought against in Corinth, let’s see what he can tell us today.

Paul does not paint a very pretty picture of the Church at Corinth. He speaks of factions and divisions within the community, this time centered around the worship of the Eucharist. From the sound of things, in the very early Church at Corinth, the celebration of the communal meal was something of a pot-luck where everyone brought the bread and wine to be broken and shared.

As we have been seeing in Corinth, however well intentioned it began, the gathering had become divisive instead of unifying. People were not sharing, others were going hungry, and still others came just for the drinking.

Paul refines their understanding of the Eucharistic meal. He sums up his reiteration of the meal in the upper room with, what can only be the reminder of the purpose of the gathering, our gathering;

“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes”

The author of the lectionary adds a line at the end that is almost confusing if you did not pay attention to the fact that they left out six verses. The six verses relate to taking the communal meal for the wrong reasons.

Let’s visualize what was probably happening here. First one of the leaders calls for a worship service in a given home. They have established a tradition of everyone bringing something for the symbolic meal. (I say symbolic here because the fact that Paul is writing them giving them directions about the Eucharistic celebration tells us that they were not celebrating true Eucharist – rather it was an evolving understanding of what happened at the last supper.) Some, who had a lot brought a good deal of bread. Others who had little came, not because they wanted to worship, but because they were just hungry.

In the same context some people came bringing wine, others just to drink – like it was a party not a worship service. Impressions of what was taking place must have been confused and when communication breaks down and expectations are not clear, everyone was getting upset and factionalized. We can imagine the two competing perspectives. One camp was thinking that we get together in a pious and prayerful setting to share a symbolic meal. The other would argue the gathering was social and the meal nothing more than a meal.

Paul set things to rights, although things were still somewhat blurred if we ad the missing verses.

The bottom line for us is this; that we are one body sharing in Christ’s sacrifice, which is also a communal meal. It makes us one with him and one with each other. The important thing is that we share that meal as often as possible because; “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes”

Pax7