Communion by Numbers?

Check out this link over at fide-o and the link it references about 'communion by numbers' and then come back – I’ll wait.

I started off by saying in my post over on fide-o that I’m speechless. I still am – I don’t really know where to start.

I want to echo LeeC’s comment

Communion, and Christianity as a whole, is not about you, or about me.
It is about God, and His glory and worshipping Him the way HE demands,
not how we like.

First let’s take a look at 1 Corinthians 11:17-29

17Now in giving these instructions I do not praise you, since you come together not for the better but for the worse. 18For first of all, when you come together as a church, I hear that there are divisions among you, and in part I believe it. 19For there must also be factions among you, that those who are
approved may be recognized among you. 20Therefore when you come together in one place, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper. 21For in eating, each one takes his own supper ahead of others; and one is hungry and another is drunk. 22What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you in this? I do not praise you. 23For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; 24and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” 25In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” 26For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes. 27Therefore whoever eats this bread or drinks this cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord. 28But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. 29For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the Lord’s body.

Paul starts off with a rebuke to the church in Corinth in vs 17-22. From what we can gather from the text the celebration of the Lord’s Table had descended into something man honoring and not God honoring. The things that they were doing in the name of the Lord actually were only serving their own selfish desires.

In vs 23-29 Paul reminds us who established the Lord’s Table and why we observe it. Jesus himself gave us this sacrament to bring to mind everything that He did for us – not the other way around.

I pulled this little tidbit out of “The Right Observance of the Lord’s Supper” a sermon by Charles Spurgeon:

We learn, first, that the Lord’s supper should begin with thanksgiving. So the Master himself evidently commenced it: “He took bread and gave thanks.” All through the supper, the emotion of gratitude should be in active exercise. It is intended that we should give thanks for the bread,— at the same time giving still more emphatic thanks for the sacred body which it represents; — then we should also give thanks for the cup, and for that most precious blood which is therein represented to us. We cannot rightly observe the Lord’s supper unless we come to the table, blessing, praising, magnifying, and adoring our Savior,— praising him even for instituting such a festival of remembrance,— such a memorial ordinance to help our frail memories; — and praising him yet more for giving us so blessed a thing to remember as his own great sacrifice for our sin.After the thanksgiving, it is very clear that our Divine Lord broke the bread. We scarcely know what kind of bread was used on that occasion; it
was probably the thin passover cake of the Jews; but there is nothing said in Scripture about the use of leavened or unleavened bread, and therefore it matters not which we use. Where there is no ordinance, there is no obligation; and we are, therefore, left free to use the bread. which it is our
custom to eat.

When the Master had broken the bread, he gave it to his disciples, and said, “Take, eat;” and they all participated in eating it. And this, mark you, is essential to the right observance of the Lord’s supper; so that, when the priest, in celebrating mass, takes the wafer, which is not bread, and which he does not break, but which he himself eats whole, there is no Lord’s supper there. Whatever it may be called, it is not the Lord’s supper. In the eating of the bread, there must be the participation of such a number of faithful, godly disciples of Christ as may be present, or else it is not the ordinance which the Lord institute.

That being done, the next thing was that, “After the same manner also he took the cup;” that is to say, after the same manner of thanksgiving, blessing God for the fruit of the vine, which was henceforth to be the emblem of his poured-out blood. Even so should we do. It is no vain thing to praise the Lord, though we do it twice, thrice,— ay, and ten thousand times. Well did the psalmist say, “Praise ye the Lord: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for it is pleasant; and praise is comely.” Specially comely is it for us to praise our God when we are calling to remembrance the unspeakable gift of his only-begotten and well-beloved Son. Then came the partaking of the cup,— the fruit of the vine,— of which the Master expressly said, “Drink ye all of it.” Hence, when the Church of Rome takes away the cup from the people, and denies it to them, there is no observance of the Lord’s supper, for another essential part of the ordinance is left out. It may be the mass, or it may be anything else; but it is not the supper of the Lord. There must be a participation by all the faithful in the cup, as well as in the bread. Otherwise, the Lord’s death is not shown, or proclaimed, according to Christ’s most holy and blessed command

Further, in order that this may be the Lord’s supper in very truth, it must be observed in remembrance of Christ, who said to his disciples, “This do in remembrance of me.” From which we learn that only those who know him must come to his table, for how shall we remember what we never knew? And how shall we remember him with whom we have never spoken, and in whom we have never believed. You are not to come to the Lord’s supper to get faith; you must have faith first, or else you have no
right to draw nigh to this sacred spot.

It is with that last point that Spurgeon makes that I want to close. The true worship of those in the faith.

At my church we celebrate the Lord’s Table on the last Sunday of any month that has 5 Sundays (around 4 or 5 times a year). We have the little ¼” square crackers and little cups of Welch’s grape juice. The things described are traditions that we have become comfortable with but they are just that – traditions. It is my prayer that the reality of the Lord’s Table is not lost in our tradition.

I make it a point to read the previously mentioned passage of scripture and explain it every time we take of the Lord’s Table. I plead earnestly with my congregation with the hope that they have given themselves over completely to the Christ and are worshiping Him in Spirit and Truth. In all of those Sundays between the celebrations I try to teach them about the Christ and to accept Him as Lord and Savior.

When I hear about all of these ‘emergent’ and ‘seeker sensitive’ ideas I just think that perhaps we are missing the boat here. Again – it’s not about us and what makes us happy, it’s about God.