1 Corinthians 11:17-34 is well known and of particular importance, since it is the only time when Paul (in conjunction with some verses in chapter 10) directly refers to the practice of “the Lord’s Supper.” Thus, it is frequently the main text that is used in our observance of communion or the Eucharist. However, while it is the subject of numerous theological debates over the relationship of the bread and the wine to Christ’s body and blood or the proper liturgy that ought to accompany the performance of this ordinance, seldom do we address Paul’s main concern in this passage—namely, the gulf between the rich and the poor within the church body.[1]
The Problem
Part of the reason we largely miss what Paul is saying is because we often have little sense of the social and historical context of his words. To begin with, the Corinthians are gathering together as a “whole church” (11:18; cf. Rom 16:23)—or in larger gatherings as opposed to smaller gatherings in apartments. This explains the presence of persons representing a variety of socioeconomic groups.[2] Furthermore, unlike our usual practice of celebrating communion as a liturgical ritual within a separate church building, the first-century church most likely celebrated the Lord’s Supper as part of a group meal, or “love feast.” This meal took place in the private home of a wealthier believer. These homes typically contained a larger dining area for entertaining guests, which was separated from the outer courts.
The essential problem that Paul is concerned about is summarized in verses 20-22: Again, we need to imagine the social and cultural context of his readers as we try to reconstruct the scenario that he describes:
When you come together, it is not the Lord’s Supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not.
While the meaning of Paul’s word is not entirely clear, recent archeological investigations help us to reconstruct the sequence of events. The typical dining room (triclinium) in Corinth could accommodate only nine persons; other guests would have to sit or stand in the larger space outside. It is likely, then, that the host’s higher-status friends and associates have been invited to dine earlier in the triclinium, while the lower classes and slaves who arrive later are relegated to the outer court. Essentially, the wealthier believers are treating the meal like a regular symposium or dinner party, with its emphasis on status, drinking, and entertainment. Typically, the better food and service are provided for guests of higher status while those with lower social status are served in the atrium or outside area with scraps of food. Thus, the wealthier converts indulge in alcohol and get drunk, while the poorer latecomers are ostracized and have to scrounge for leftovers.[3]
In sum, the Corinthian believers are acting in ways that obscure and distort the meaning of the Supper so thoroughly that it no longer points to Christ’s death and resurrection as the decisive event in history through which all things are made new (2 Cor 5:17).[4]
Some Implications for Today’s Church
Like the Corinthian church, today’s church is plagued by various divisions—including walls between congregations and denominations over what are ultimately trivial differences in theology or worship styles; divisions rooted in varying personality preferences, differences of race, culture and class; and conflicting political and social agendas. But perhaps the biggest challenge facing the contemporary church is the racial divide, which is intertwined with social inequality and the separation of congregations along ethnic, cultural, and geographical lines. Let me begin by placing the issue of race in our society within the larger historical context.
The Gospel Torn in Two
In Reconstructing the Gospel, Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove recounts his experience of visiting Saint Matthew’s Episcopal Church, a quaint chapel in Hillsborough, North Carolina.[5] The chapel was built by North Carolina’s elite in 1824. One prominent member of the church was Paul Cameron, who by the end of the Civil War was the wealthiest man in North Carolina, owning most of the land in what is now Durham County and nearly 1,000 slaves. The priest of the chapel showed Wilson-Hartgrove and the other visitors the balcony which was added to the church in the mid-nineteenth century to segregate its enslaved members from the landed gentry below. These southern gentlemen considered themselves to be the great fathers, and they frequently wrote in their personal letters about “our family, black and white.” But they and every enslaved person knew that the entire plantation economy rested on a common understanding of the difference between being slave and free.[6]
While the visitors were standing at the front of the chapel, looking up at the balcony in the back, one of them turned to the Communion rail behind him and asked, “Were masters and slaves segregated when they came forward for Communion?” “Oh, no,” the priest responded. “They had very good sacramental theology. ‘One Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.’” According to the priest, one of his predecessors waxed eloquent on how during one Easter service a master and slave knelt together at the altar, receiving the body and blood of Christ. This was to him a notable image of the reconciliation that Christ makes possible.[7]
The cruel irony is that the Christian slave owners who referred to their slaves with whom they shared Communion as “family” also treated them as property and assessed their value and worth based on their age, health, and market demands. In the slave markets, the slaves were carefully examined, as horses are, by those who intended to buy them.[8] Through every phase of their lives and even at death, enslaved people were given an economic value as human commodities. Children were routinely separated from their parents and siblings.[9] And when the slaves died, some of their bodies were sold to medical schools for human anatomy courses at major institutions throughout the north and south.[10] Like the Corinthian believers, the Christian slaveholders were blind to the fact that their treatment of slaves and their zealous support for an institution from which they profited financially contradicted the very meaning of the Lord’s Supper, which they so faithfully observed.
Separate But Equal?
We recoil in horror at such stories. We like to think that we have come a long way from this dark chapter in the history of our nation and the church. But today, instead of white and black Christians sitting in separate pews in the same church, the vast majority of us attend different churches entirely. As we have seen, the Corinthians were doubtless preserving this type of homogeneous grouping, and it is precisely this which Paul condemns![11] James similarly rejects any practice of partiality and physical segregation of believers within the church (Jas 2:1-4).
Most white evangelicals today consider racism and racial segregation to be a thing of the past. But according to recent studies, our churches are ten times more segregated than the neighborhoods in which they are located and twenty times more segregated than the public schools of their neighborhoods. In our country, the average wealth among whites is eighteen times that of Hispanics and twenty times that of blacks—a statistic which has doubled since the 1980s.[12] As Wilson-Hartgrove states, “To be white and Christian in America is to be, on average, more segregated than your unchurched neighbors, whatever the color of their skin. How could this be?”[13]
Uniracial congregations (particularly all-white congregations) are often justified on the grounds that this is the most effective approach for multiplying churches through evangelism and growing healthy, vibrant congregations. In addition, many minorities (African-Americans, Latinos, and Asian-Americans) favor uniracial congregations as a way of protecting themselves from what they perceive to be white domination and racism and preserving their own culture.[14] But racial separation itself breeds misunderstanding, mistrust, and prejudice. In Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America, Michael Emerson and Christian Smith maintain that we live in a racialized society in which “race matters profoundly for differences in life experiences, life opportunities, and social relationships.”[15] They further argue that racial divisions perpetuate inequalities of power that disadvantage racial and cultural minorities.
Racial practices that produce racial divisions in our society are increasingly covert and invisible to most whites. When confronted with the issue of race in our churches, most white evangelicals today will say that they are “colorblind.” The present reality of all-white or predominantly white congregations in the United States is rarely justified by using the racist rhetoric of the past. In that sense, we are far removed from the days of Jim Crow. But racism or racial prejudice does not have to be overt or even intentional. We can be blinded by our own cultural values and practices. Despite our good intentions to promote racial reconciliation we can unwittingly perpetuate racial divisions by not recognizing the structural and institutional sources of inequality; failing to promote patterns of leadership that are racially diverse; and promoting principles of “church growth” such as the “homogeneous unit principle” that, “People like to become Christians without crossing racial, linguistic, cultural, or class boundaries.” Tony Evans, the African-American senior pastor of Oak Cliff Bible Fellowship in Dallas, Texas, maintains that “the racial division of its members and the resulting classism is the greatest problem facing the kingdom of God.”[16] Wilson-Hartgrove is right when he states:
The systemic nature of racial inequality is complex. . . . But long before we get to public policy, the bald face of inequality exposes how white supremacy is ultimately about who we love and who we listen to, who we long to be with and how we interact with the so-called other. It’s about the pattern of our daily life and the desires that are tied up with them. . . . For any Bible-believing American who is heartbroken by racial strife and offended by the crude bigotry of the alt-right, [the pattern of segregation in our churches] is a serious reality to grapple with. Everything we know to be true suggests that Jesus is the answer. But the gospel of white evangelicals hasn’t interrupted our racial habits; it has reinforced them.[17]
Christians are often reticent to talk about the issue of race. But when the topic does come up, one of the most common errors that occurs in the church is the tendency to frame the conversation almost exclusively in terms of individual morality and personal responsibility. Granted, these are factors that need to be considered. But when the problem of racial conflict is reduced to individualistic explanations and “personal sin,” what goes unaddressed is the social context—the structures of society and social sins which perpetuate patterns of racial segregation. Study after study has shown the close connection between inequities in housing, education, and transportation and what amounts to “racial apartheid” in our nation. In countless ways, those of us who are white have benefited from this segregation. Despite our good intentions, many of us in the church have passively accepted and participated in patterns of inequality and exclusion which characterize the communities where we live.[18]
David Leong’s thought-provoking book, Race and Place: How Urban Geography Shapes the Journey to Reconciliation, describes the “theology of geography.” Patterns of exclusion are perpetuated by walls, fences, boarders, and boundaries—both literal and symbolic—which divide us. When it comes to the issue of race, our preaching of the gospel often does not have the effect of tearing down the “walls of hostility” between Christians (Eph 2:14-16). Kids, both white and minority, learn early on that there are certain boundaries or geographic markers that one just doesn’t cross. The “social logic of homogeneity” becomes embedded in our collective psyche. We find comfort and safety in settings where people are familiar to us. Clustering into groups of similarity affirms our own sense of identity and belonging. The unfortunate result of these patterns of social homogeneity, which are masked by platitudes like “separate but equal,” is the perpetuation of privileges for many (a home mortgage, home equity, and upward mobility) and dead-end cycles for others (public housing, generational poverty, and institutional dependence). Geography accomplishes what Jim Crow laws enforced in the past. “After decades of an uneven playing field and the ongoing entrenchment of racially biased policies,” says Leong, “is it any wonder that today’s suggestions of colorblindness reek of hypocrisy and ignorance?”[19]
There are multiple ways of breaking down the barriers of race, social class, and status that involve sharing resources and promoting unity within the body of Christ. Churches should think creatively about how they can apply the principle of cruciform love which Paul enjoins in 1 Corinthians. More affluent churches are to be commended, for example, when they seek to help poorer communities, particularly when these efforts involve real cooperation between churches in ways that transcend racial, class, and cultural differences. But, a movement of multiracial congregations is the best answer to the racial and cultural divide in the United States.[20] For the most part, the congregations of the early church included people from across lines of race, economics, gender, and culture which divided first-century society. In 1 Corinthians Paul urges the Corinthian church to be authentically inclusive. When possible, then, local church bodies in the United States should strive to become multiethnic or multiracial congregations. Granted, this goal is not easily achieved. And it may not always be possible in the present age of the “now” and “not yet.” But it should be the ideal.
Conclusion
The problem of race, ethnic, and class conflict is, of course, not limited to the U.S. It can also be seen in places like India where the lowest class—the “Dalit,” or “untouchables”—are shunned by the upper classes; and Europe, where the Gypsies (or Roma) are systematically excluded from the larger society. Wherever prejudice and discrimination rears its ugly head the church is called to exhibit the “Magna Carta” of humanity that, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal 3:28). In one form or another, we have heard these words preached from the pulpit numerous times. But it is one thing to preach these words, and quite another to practice them. This oneness in Christ is not merely spiritual; it is to be an objective social reality that is evident in a whole new set of attitudes, reactions, and behaviors.
A story that is often heard in the church comes from John 4, which describes Jesus and the Samaritan woman. As one wise advocate of true racial reconciliation reminds us, “One can talk about Samaria, theologize about Samaria, preach about Samaria, liturgize about Samaria, sing about Samaria . . . but one can do all these things and still not walk through Samaria.”[21] The road through Samaria is a rocky and difficult one. But it is a journey that Jesus calls us to take. The church exists not only for the conversion of individuals, but also as a “prototype” of a new order that has been called into being through Christ.[22] The celebration of God’s reconciling grace at the Communion Table rings hollow when it is not accompanied by the fellowship and friendship of equals, regardless of class, culture, or racial background. Race is an issue that continues to conquer and divide, both in the church and in our society. My hope and prayer is that God will give us the grace, courage, and imagination to follow a different roadmap and practice a different story.[23]
[1] See Blomberg, I Corinthians, 228-33. [2] Johnson, 1 Corinthians, 204. Johnson states; “Individual church groups in the city may have developed different social habits in their gatherings. When they came together, these differences were incompatible with their unity and equality as the body of Christ, and thus the Lord’s Supper was being nullified.” [3] See Hays, First Corinthians, 195-96; and Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord, 268. [4] Hays, First Corinthian, 200. [5] Wilson-Hartgrove, Reconstructing the Gospel, 12-15. [6] Ibid. [7] Ibid., 13-14. [8] Berry The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, 71. [9] Ibid., 33-57. [10] Ibid., 3, 148-93. [11] Blomberg, 1 Corinthians, 239. [12] These statistics are from a presentation, “Racialization and the Church in the U.S.” (2018) given by Michael Emerson at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, IL. [13] Wilson-Hartgrove, Reconstructing the Gospel, 79. [14] DeYoung et al., United by Faith, 113-27. [15] Emerson and Smith, Divided by Faith, 7. [16] Quoted in Gushee, The Future of Faith in American Politics, 109. [17] Wilson-Hartgrove, Reconstructing the Gospel, 78-9. [18] See Leong, Race and Place, 63-67; 101-103. Leong gives a helpful summary of how the construction of our highway system and “white flight” to suburbs, redlining, an unequal educational system, gentrification, and public housing have contributed to segregation and the problem of race in our country. [19] Ibid., 179. [20] See DeYoung et al., United by Faith, 181-86. They define an “integrated multiracial” congregation as one in which minority groups reach at least 20 percent (169). [21] McNeil, Roadmap to Reconciliation, 9. [22] See Longenecker, New Testament Social Ethics Today, 30-31; 96 [23] Daniel Hays concludes on the basis of his detailed examination of key Pauline texts that: “Individual prejudices and cultural-societal structures that divide Christians into groups based on skin color or other ethnic distinctions are contrary to the teaching of the New Testament.” See From Every People and Nation, 200.
コメント