Some ate too much; some got drunk
Please allow me an opportunity for a little levity concerning a very important subject.
Jon at “Jon’s Journey” has written a very good article looking at 1 Corinthians 11 concerning “The Lord’s Supper.”
As I thought about Paul’s admonition that some of the Corinthians were eating too much food while others were going hungry, I applied that to today’s practices. I pictured someone sneaking in and eating most of the little morsels of bread-like substance off of the plates.
Then, as I thought about Paul’s admonition that some were drinking so much wine that they were getting drunk, I also applied that to today’s practices. I pictured someone else sneaking in a drinking most of the wine (grape juice wouldn’t work in this case) from the small glasses and getting drunk.
For some reason, this was a funny image for me.
That is a funny image. I used to hear stories of some of my friends who were altar boys in the local Catholic church sneaking down to where they kept the wine and getting drunk. 🙂
Hey, you knock down 80-90 of those little plastic cups of wine and you start to get a buzz. I don’t know this from personal experience of course.
Fred, I wonder how much of those stories ate apocryphal!
But Alan, before Mass I have seen priests consume handfuls of unconsecrated wafers because they were “starving.”. Of course, I would never do that. It would break my Eucharistic fast!
Fred, that should say are apocryphal, not ate.
Brian, knowing the guys I heard those stories from, they are probably all apocryphal.
By the way, Alan. Love the picture of the little shot glasses.
My understanding of this passage is that the church gathered Sunday evening for this meal and in the Roman Empire at that time Sunday would have been a workday like any other day. The gentile believers didn’t necessarily keep the sabbath on Saturday or Sunday. (The Bible Almanac, p. 541) The Romans didn’t have weekends like we do but rather work was broken up by random holidays. Therefore the people coming late to the meal would have been the slaves and not the freemen who had their own trades and could control their worktimes more. Thus it would have been the poor among them who were going without enough food at the meals. Has any one else heard this take on it?
Fred and Arthur,
Wouldn’t work for Baptists, who only drink the same Welches Grape Juice that Jesus drank.
Brian,
Those are not shot glasses. Those are special Lord’s Supper cups.
Rod,
Yes, there are several books that discuss the passage in the manner that you mentioned. On in particular is Ben Witheringtons “Making a Meal of It.”
-Alan