The Lords Supper Banquet

Excuse the lack of apostrophe in the title. It messed up every time I tried to put it in there. 

I recently finished reading a book that spoke on the Lord's Supper and other banquet meals of the ancient Roman period. The book is titled From Symposium to Eucharist by Dennis Smith, and it shows how the Eucharist (Lord's Supper) was a product of the environment where Christianity began. That isn't to deny the originality of the Lord's Supper or to diminish its meaning for Christians, but to say that it was something that was easily incorporated into the Christian lifestyle. As I will argue, we cannot understand communion, or the rest of the Bible , without understanding the culture and traditions that it grew out of. As such, I hope to show that we know that the Lord's Supper was a banquet and is often misunderstood to be a crumb of bread and a thimble of juice. I don't understand where we get this, but I believe it diminishes from the meaning of the Lord's Supper. From Symposium to Eucharist explains the tradition in the first century very well, so I got much of the information in this post from it. I won't give too much away because you NEED to read it. Some of this doesn't line up with our traditions, so it will surprise some people.  But I hope you enjoy, learn something, and leave me some feedback. Please go forward with an open mind and heart and read what I am saying. Thank you. 

Greek literature like Plutarch and Plato's Symposium gives an idealized model of the banquet meal and carries with it some common motifs. It is good (tedious) reading if you want to read Plato's Symposium or Plutarch to get a good idea of how these meals were ideally supposed to go. Jews also had versions of the Messianic Banquet or the eternal meal of the messiah (or gods if you were Greek). Jews and Greeks had certain traditions and if you read the gospels, you can see some of the literary motifs in any of the passages where Jesus was eating (i.e. the uninvited guest, eating with tax collectors, eating with sinners, etc.). 

Meals provided social boundaries in the first century. Who you ate with was who you were associated with. Jews and Gentiles had a problem with this and refused to eat with one another. Jews had disdain for the Greeks because they ate unclean animals and meat sacrificed to idols. Many Jews even sought out a vegetarian diet because most meat offered in the market had been offered up to gentile idols (1Cor8:13). Even eating with a Gentile would taint you socially. Who you shared food with was who you were (at least almost) equals with. Jews believed they were better than Gentiles because they had God on their side. This so permeated their culture that when Gentiles began to obey the gospel, many Jews that had obeyed the gospel turned back to the law. This is also part of why the church in Corinth had such a hard time getting the rich to eat with the poor in I Corinthians 11. 

Speaking more on meal customs, it is important to note that Deipnon does not just mean any meal. It was a specific type of meal taken at a specific time of day. It isn't simply the same as the word "Supper" in english. It is closer to our word, "banquet".

Deipnon= banquet. leisurely meal. Social meal. Evening meal. 

I like the phrase "Lord's Banquet". 

The Greeks had these deipnon (the word for supper in the phrase "Lord's Supper") for entertainment, to talk about philosophy, to meet about important affairs, and to put on airs. They did this pretty often, This evening meal was the most important meal of the day. It was a important to make a big deal about the meal. Plutarch wrote, "I have eaten, but I have not DINED today." At the meal they would recline like Jesus did at the last supper. This is significant when Jesus does this because it was only for free or upper-class citizens to recline. Either way, ask yourself why the writer of Luke, writing to Greeks, included that detail. As guests came in, servants would be there to wash their feet and hands and get rid of the filth of the day. Jesus takes this place of servant at the Last Supper in John 13. They would lean on their left (dirty) elbow and eat with their right. They would eat on couches around the walls while the meal and the wine were prepared in the center of the room. Typically the host would sit in the corner of the room with the guest of honor on his right and the second highest honor on his left. We know that John was on one side or the other of Jesus, at a place of honor (John 13:23). They ranked everyone else according to their social stature, but there was a movement to make all places equal by the time of Jesus. You can see this social ranking at work in Luke 14, speaking about going to a wedding feast. You can see a move toward equality by all sharing one cup at the last supper. 

Here comes the important part. These Greek banquets consisted of 2 distinct courses. "The first course was the Deipnon proper"(Smith 27).They would eat and enjoy. The second part was the wine ceremony or for the Greek world, the "drinking party", also known as the Symposium. Romans would add appetizers at the beginning and a dessert at the end of the meal, but it always ended with the symposium. At the transition from meal to symposium, they would offer a blessing to the god of wine, Dionysus or Zeus Savior, depending, and mix wine.The Jews instead, prayed to God and blessed him before beginning the symposium. The introduction of the wine symbolically marked the transition from meal to symposium. This was followed by merrymaking of whatever type they decided on. For some it was prostitutes and games. For the classy folks it was listening to the flute girl or dismissing her to speak on weightier matters like philosophy as in Plato's Symposium. For Jesus and the apostles (and the first century church) they sang a hymn and discussed. There were different types of banquets.The Lords Supper is very much like the banquets done in Roman temples and clubs. There are certain differences in types of banquets they had like wedding feasts, funerary banquets, club meetings, etc., but they all had the same basic pattern. 

Jewish feasts typically followed this model as well, with the exception of the Passover. There are a couple different versions of the Passover Seder that we have evidence of, but they all consist of 4 cups of wine, an appetizer course, recitation of scripture, and specific benedictions over the day, the wine, the bread, and the paschal lamb. After the second cup, the youngest person eating there will ask the oldest a series of questions about why that night was different than any other night, and this would begin their symposium. Jewish blessings for the bread went as follows : "Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d, King of the Universe, Who brings forth bread from the earth." For the wine: "Blessed are You, L-rd our G-d, King of the Universe, Who creates the fruit of the vine." This would be repeated at every Passover and you can see it being done by Jesus in Matthew 26 and other Last Supper accounts. 

So, why is this all important? Because the Lord's Supper was instituted when Jesus was celebrating Passover. And because the Lord's Supper was a meal that took center stage in the Christian liturgy of the first century. 

In Matthew 26, starting at verse 26, Jesus institutes the Lord's Supper. Knowing that they blessed the bread typically at the Passover, you can see that Jesus inserts his own symbolism and let's them know that he is the new Passover lamb. He took bread and blessed it and said "take, eat, this is my body." He then took the cup and gave thanks and told them all to drink it. You can see after this ceremony, they break into a hymn. In Matthew 26, we know that the bread was broken during the meal, and from 1 Corinthians 11:24, we know that the cup was lifted after supper (deipnon proper). We usually just read over this part and move on, but it is significant because this is when the important discussion among Jesus and his disciples begins.

In Luke 22:14, Jesus reclines with his apostles at the table. Here, it becomes a problem for some that Luke gets it out of order and there are 2 cups. But when pictured as the Passover meal, we know it was at the second cup that discussion began. Each gospel puts things in a different order, and for me the disorder of what he says makes no difference. Luke is filled with ambiguity and he does it on purpose for his Greek readers. This allows them to put in terms of their Greek banquets.It is his literary style. He again, does the blessing over the bread and applies it to his broken body. Once the second cup was blessed and applied to his sacrifice, he reveals that he will be betrayed by one who is eating and fellowshipping with him. They then have a discussion, a symposium, over who will be greater in the kingdom.  Also in Luke, the discussion over Peter's denial happens at the table instead of at the Mount of Olives. Luke seems to put this into more of a Greek setting so that it fits their culture a little better. 

Apart from the Gospels themselves, I Corinthians 11:17ff gives the best, most complete definition of the Lord's Banquet itself. This is because not only do we get an example of what is to be done, but we get criticism from Paul to the Church at Corinth because they were doing it wrong, but not in the way that people usually USE this passage. I blame this mostly on the fact that we don't read it as one paragraph, but we separate the bible into short snippets of information, 

 He first criticizes them for having divisions. Through the communion we are to be united together with Christ. There is no room for division in the Lord's Supper, so they aren't taking the Lord's Supper. They are making it into a pagan feast. This division seems to be mostly between rich and poor, but it may also be between Jew and Gentile. One would get drunk while another goes Hungry. We see here the one, single verse that people will twist to mean we shouldn't have a meal. Verse 22 says, "What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in?". If they were going to go on with their own meal without waiting on the others, they could have done it in their own household instead of meeting everyone else to do it. By eating these lavish meals in front of everyone, they humiliate those who had gathered and had nothing.  

Then we have the example of Christ to follow, and the statement that every time we eat that bread and drink that cup, we show the Lord's death until he comes. 

So, those who eat and drink "in an unworthy manner" are those who are eating and drinking without "discerning the body", the rest of those in the Lord's church. For that reason, many at the church in Corinth fell ill. It almost seems as if God cursed the food they ate to show them not to be greedy or look down on those who had nothing. "34 if anyone is hungry, let him eat at home—so that when you come together it will not be for judgment. About the other things I will give directions when I come." Don't come together to merely have another meal. If you are hungry, eat at home. You come to this banquet to share and meet with your Christian brothers and sisters, not to rush to the front of the line so that you get your fill before others. Clearly, they were having a meal, and Paul does not tell them not to do it. Paul tells them not to do it without considering one another. 

In Acts 20:7, the church met on the first of the week for the purpose of breaking bread. This would have coincided with the evening of the first day of the week, not during the day as we do today. That's all I'll say about that for now. They came together to break bread, but after the meal, Paul talked to them and continued his speech until midnight. To me, this is the first example we have of the church's regular meeting. They did it on the first of the week and it was for the purpose of a meal. What isn't mentioned is that they came together to "have church" or to meet and worship. They came to break bread. This tells me that the banquet was their main focus and the focal point of their worship. As the Greeks were accustomed to doing, this banquet ended in symposium. In this case, the entertainment or philosophical discussion was headed up by Paul. Paul got up and spoke to the congregation until midnight, then healed Eutychus who fell out of the window.  

The a banquet for those in the first century church needed no further explanation. It was part of their culture that imbedded itself into their minds and lifestyles. Coming together to worship your god was nothing new. What was new was that it was a Christian god, and there was unity among those who worshipped. There was no longer Jew vs Greek or rich vs poor. It was not even this god against another god. There was one way. There was one community that met regularly to have a meal and to talk about, sing about, pray about, and preach about their savior. If we truly want to emulate the first century church as they worshipped, this is what we should do as well. 

Thank you for reading. 

Jeff.