Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry. I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.
Consider the people of Israel: Do not those who eat the sacrifices participate in the altar? Do I mean then that food sacrificed to an idol is anything, or that an idol is anything? No, but the sacrifices of pagans are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to be participants with demons. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons. Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he? (1 Corinthians 10:14-22 NIV)
People long to be united. We don’t like to be alone. That’s why this past year has been so hard for us. We long to be together. United. That’s why people wear green and gold and sit outside in freezing temperatures for hours. It’s great to be part of something. That’s why people sit at bars and talk to whoever sits down next to them. Connection with others. We crave that. We want to be united—connected—with other people. That need goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden. One thing in the perfect Garden of Eden wasn’t good. Remember what it was? “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). Not for Adam. Not for us. We long to be united.
So how’s that going? Can I teach you a Spanish word? It’s “mal.” Can you guess what “mal” means? Bad. When it comes to unity, it’s going mal. Bad. Everywhere we look, there are efforts at unity. From community initiatives to commercials on TV, everybody who’s anybody is telling us to be united. To get along. To come together. To be kind. To stop letting anything divide us.
But it’s not working. Would you agree? Our world is not united. Because we refuse to admit the real problem that separates people. Do you know what really separates? Sin. Sin separates. The moment Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, what did they do? Hide. They hid from God. Why? Sin separates us from God! Think about this: Every time someone saw an angel, from Isaiah to Mary to the shepherds to the women on Easter morning, how did they react? Terrified. Sin separates. “Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you…” (Isaiah 59:2). What separates? Sin separates. See the problem?
But sin doesn’t just separate us from God. Go back to the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve hid. God found them, of course. He said, “Adam, what have you done?” What did Adam say? “It was the woman!” Sin didn’t just separate Adam from God. Whom else did it separate him from? Eve. His wife. What destroys our relationships with each other? Sin. Your sin. His sin. Her sin. Their sin. Sin separates. There can’t be real unity without first dealing with sin. We can paint our faces and put on the same football jerseys, but that doesn’t make us united. It’s not enough to just get people together on the outside. Something needs to be done about the real problem—about sin!
So Jesus did. On the night before he died, Jesus took bread and wine and said, “Take and eat. Take and drink. This is my body. This is my blood. Given for you. For the forgiveness of sins.” What was Jesus offering his disciples? What they needed most: Unity with God. The word we’re used to is “communion.” Communion with God. What did it take to unite us with God? It took the body and blood of Jesus. Jesus died on the cross to take away what separated us from God—our sins—and give us God’s forgiveness. Jesus loved us to death to unite us to God.
There was a very powerful way that God proved that unity. The moment that Jesus died, do you remember what happened in the temple? When Jesus died, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38). In the temple was a huge curtain that separated people from the Most Holy Place. The message was clear: Sinful people out there. Holy God in there. But when Jesus died, that curtain tore in two from top to bottom. Who’s the only one who could tear it from top to bottom? God! The Bible says, “We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body” (Hebrews 10:19-20). What’s the Way that unites us with God? Jesus’ body and blood.
That’s exactly what you get in the Lord’s Supper. Here’s how the apostle Paul describes it in our lesson: “Is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is not the bread that we break a participation in the body of Christ?” In Holy Communion, Jesus says to you: “I want to give you the very thing I used to save you. I want you to touch my body and taste my blood. When your conscience tells you to hide from God, you can know that God is your loving, forgiving Father because of what I’ve done!” When you sin, your conscience tells you what should happen. You should hide! Sin separates. But when you sin, the Gospel tells you what did happen. Jesus already forgave you. By grace, you’re united with God.
But the Lord’s Supper doesn’t just unite us with God. Remember whom else sin separates us from? Each other! When Jesus said the words, “Given for you,” the “you” is plural. Jesus’ connection to us connects us to each other. When we take the Lord’s Supper together, God is saying to us, “I am one with you.” And we are saying to each other, “I am one with you.” I am one with you in sin. I am one with you in faith in Jesus and his Word. I am one with you in the forgiveness won through Jesus’ body and blood. That’s real unity, isn’t it? Paul says, “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.”
You want unity? Then find a group of Christians who share your faith in Jesus, and you’ll find a unity that you won’t find anywhere else. I’ve been blessed to experience that unity by traveling to other countries. When I’ve been in Mexico, there is so much that divides me from everyone else. I’m a foot taller than everybody. They eat grasshoppers. They think football is really soccer. But when I’ve talked with Mexican Lutherans about their faith in Jesus, do you know what I’ve realized? We’re the same. United! Because Jesus is what unites us. Just like I look at you and see people who are very different from each other, and yet are united in what matters most: Jesus.
The fancy word for all this is “fellowship.” Christian fellowship is the unity we have in Christ. It’s helpful for me to think of this as a cross. A cross starts with a vertical beam—up and down. Jesus first connects us with God by faith in his body and blood. But a cross has another beam too—a horizontal one. When we’re connected to God, Jesus connects us to each other. Right in the middle, right where those two beams meet, is Holy Communion. United with God. United with each other. United in Jesus! “Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all partake of the one loaf.” True unity is a beautiful thing in our divided world!
But the very thing that unites us—Jesus—also divides. Think back to the first Maundy Thursday. The Lord’s Supper united Jesus and his disciples. But not Judas. Not the Jewish leaders. They hated Jesus. They arrested Jesus and killed him. True unity also divides. It divides you from anything that’s against Jesus and his Word. The Christians in Corinth were struggling with this. Religion in ancient Greece was very inclusive. Sound familiar? There were lots of gods: Zeus. Apollo. Athena. That inclusive attitude was hard for new Christians to shake. Instead of “Jesus, Jesus, only Jesus,” it was tempting to have “Jesus and…” “Jesus and Zeus….” Why not eat the Lord’s Supper on Sunday and an idol feast in a pagan temple on Monday? Unity is good, right?
What did Paul say? “No!” Actually, he used an even stronger word: “My dear friends, flee from idolatry.” Flee! What does flee mean? Run away! I think of Jurassic Park. Ever seen one of those movies? When the dinosaurs get loose, what do the people do? Flee! When we think of sin, when we think of false teaching, we tend to try to get as close as we can. How close can I get without going over? That’s the wrong way to think about sin. Flee! Get away from it. Have nothing to do with it! “My dear friends, flee from idolatry.” Run from anything that pulls you away from God.
Here’s why: “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of demons.” Do you understand what that’s saying? You can’t play both sides. You can’t say you believe in Jesus and participate in activities that war against Jesus at the same time. True unity divides. To be united to Jesus and to his Word must divide you from anything opposed to Jesus and his Word. If you say “Merry Christmas,” you can’t say, “Blessed Ramadan.” You can’t! If you have communion with Jesus, you can’t take communion in a church that denies that Jesus is the only way to heaven. If you believe in the truth of the Bible, you’re not united with those who don’t. True unity divides.
It’s good to want to be united. But it’s wrong to emphasize unity between people at the expense of unity with God. You can’t really unite people together without first uniting them to Jesus. Remember that cross illustration? What happens to the horizontal beam on a cross if you take away the vertical beam? It comes crashing down! Paul said, “I speak to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say.” We want people to be united. But it has to be unity based on God’s Word. That’s why before someone takes Communion at our church, we ask that they study God’s Word with us. So that when we finally take Communion together, we’re really united.
How important is this? Note how our lesson ends: “Are we trying to arouse the Lord’s jealousy? Are we stronger than he?” Whenever anyone or anything pulls us away from God, how does God feel? Jealous. Why? Because he loves you! Jesus loves you so much that he never, ever wants to lose you! After all that God has done to save us and unite us to him, he doesn’t want anyone or anything to ever pull us away from him. “I have loved you with an everlasting love,” God says. “I have laid down my life for you… I have prepared your room in heaven for you… Surely I am with you always… I don’t want anything to get between you and me!” That’s love!
In a divided world, unity comes from Jesus. You take the bread—Jesus’ body, given for you, and you can know: I am never alone. I am united with Christ. You take the cup—Jesus’ blood, shed for you, and you can know: I am never alone. I am united with God’s people who through generations and wars and pandemics and false teachings have fled the world’s lies and trusted in Jesus. United. Unity is not found in programs or policies. It’s not found in ignoring differences. It’s found in the body and blood of Jesus. Given for you. You are not alone. You are united.
Comments