Communion Exhortation - 7/13/08

This Table sets the pattern for all other tables. This past week we found ourselves teaching our children about helping others at the table. If you are eating hamburgers, and someone asks for the ketchup, you have to look about you to see if the ketchup is near you, and your responsibility to pass. One of the central concerns of the prophets was for Israel to do justice and to love mercy. The fat, sleek, rich and powerful hoarded the goods and oppressed the poor. They did not discern the body. We must also be careful today to discern the body of Christ. This means knowing who you can reckon a Christian, and why. It means knowing when and how to help a fellow believer in their need. It means looking about you when that need comes to the surface. These are not things that we do here, but they flow from our table etiquette here, as we discern Christ’s body in faith. Jesus laid down His body to serve you, His people. So here, we receive from the Lord. But we then ought to turn & lay down our lives for one another.