Communion / Lord's SupperProgressive~15 minClaude Opus 4.6

The Open Table: Communion, Radical Hospitality, and the Politics of Bread

1 Corinthians 11:23-26 • Luke 22:14-20

Communion as radical hospitality — the open table of Jesus, sharing bread in a world of inequality, economic implications of the Eucharist

Progressive / Social Justice

Social justice and inclusive theology

Tradition vocabulary:open tableradical hospitalityeconomic justicebread for the worldCorinthian critiqueSocial Gospelwho Jesus ate withbody of Christ

Who Jesus Ate With: The Scandalous Table

The Pharisees' accusation of Jesus was not "he healed on the Sabbath" — though he did. Their deepest scandal was this: "This man welcomes sinners and eats with them." Eating together in first-century culture was a declaration of social solidarity. To eat with someone was to declare them your equal, your friend, your community. Jesus ate with tax collectors, prostitutes, Samaritans, Gentiles, lepers, the poor — everyone the religious establishment had written off. The Lord's Supper is the institutionalization of that scandalous table practice. "Do this in remembrance of me" — remember how I ate. Remember who I ate with. Remember that the invitation at my table was never limited to the respectable. This is why the progressive tradition insists on the "open table" — communion extended to all who come, regardless of membership status, theological correctness, gender, sexuality, or any other boundary the church has historically used to exclude. Jesus ate with sinners. His table should look like his table.

Luke 15:2Luke 19:1-101 Corinthians 11:20-22

The Banquet and the Excuses

In Luke 14, the banquet host sends his servant out to the roads and lanes — "compel them to come in, so that my house will be full." The people who should have come made excuses. The people who were brought in were the poor, the crippled, the blind, the lame. The open table of Jesus is this banquet: the unlikely guests, the forgotten people, the ones no one else invited. An open communion table declares: this congregation has been to the roads and lanes. Everyone is welcome.

Source: Luke 14:15-24 / Open table theology

You Are Not Really Eating the Lord's Supper: Paul and Corinthian Injustice

Paul's sharpest critique of the Corinthian church was about their communion practice. "When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, for when you are eating, some of you go ahead with your own private suppers. As a result, one person remains hungry and another gets drunk." The problem at Corinth was economic. The wealthy members arrived early and ate their fill. The slaves and poor members arrived late — after their work — and found nothing left. The communion table had become a reflection and reinforcement of social inequality rather than its subversion. Paul's judgment: "It is not the Lord's Supper you eat." The meal can have the right words and the right elements and still not be the Lord's Supper — if it excludes the poor, if it reinforces hierarchy, if the wealthy eat well and the poor go hungry. The Lord's Supper is constituted not only by the elements but by the practice of sharing. No sharing, no Lord's Supper.

1 Corinthians 11:20-22James 2:1-7Acts 2:44-45

Bread for the World: Communion and Economic Justice

Walter Rauschenbusch, the great Social Gospel theologian, argued that the Lord's Prayer — "give us this day our daily bread" — is not an individual prayer. It is "us." It is not asking for my bread. It is asking for the bread of all. And the communion table is the enacted form of that prayer. Every time we gather around this table, we declare something about the distribution of bread in the world. We receive bread together. We share a cup together. And then we go into a world where 800 million people are food insecure — and the question is whether the communion table shapes how we live in that world or whether we treat it as an island of justice in a sea of indifference. The progressive and liberation tradition insists: communion has economic implications. If you receive the broken bread of the Lord's Supper and then go home to a world of broken economic systems and do nothing about it, you have eaten and drunk judgment on yourself in exactly the way Paul warned about — failing to recognize the body.

Matthew 6:11Luke 4:18-19Amos 5:21-24

Applications

1Ask yourself: does our communion table look like Jesus's table? Who is missing? Who have we made unwelcome?
2Practice economic communion. After you receive the bread and cup, give. Feed someone. Share bread in the world as you have received it here.
3Advocate for an open table in your congregation. The progressions who Jesus ate with were not members of the synagogue.
4Connect worship and justice. The bread we receive here is connected to the bread that is denied people in our city. Let that connection motivate action.

Prayer Suggestions

Jesus, You ate with sinners. Your table was scandalous. Make our table look like Yours.
Forgive us for the times we have turned Your table into a club. For the walls we have built. For the people we have excluded.
Give us the courage to practice the economics of the Kingdom — to share bread as freely at the world's tables as we receive it at Yours.
We pray for all who go hungry today. Their hunger is our communion responsibility. Make us generous. Amen.

Preaching Toolkit

Movie Analogy

The Hundred-Foot Journey (2014)

The film is about food as bridge — the table as the place where cultural divisions are crossed, where enemies become friends, where the unexpected guest is welcomed. The open table of Jesus is this kind of table: not a closed club for the religiously correct, but a gathering of the unlikely around the bread and wine that changes everything. The best tables are always the ones that welcome the unexpected guest.

3 Voices

Classic

Jesus ate with sinners. The Lord's Supper institutionalizes that practice. If our table excludes people Jesus would have eaten with, we are not eating the Lord's Supper.

Pastoral

The Corinthians had the right elements and the wrong community. Paul said: it is not the Lord's Supper you eat. The table is not just about the bread and cup — it is about who is sharing them and how.

Edgy

Paul said the Corinthians were eating and drinking judgment because the wealthy ate and the poor went hungry. If our communion practice doesn't address economic injustice, we are Corinthians in the worst sense.

More Titles

The Open Table: Communion, Radical Hospitality, and the Politics of BreadWho Jesus Ate With: The Scandalous TableThe Corinthian Problem: When Communion Reinforces InequalityBread for the World: Eucharist and Economic JusticeIt Is Not the Lord's Supper You Eat: Paul's Challenge

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Frequently Asked Questions

What is "open table" communion theology?

Open table theology extends communion to all who come — regardless of membership, theological correctness, gender, sexuality, or any other traditional boundary. It is rooted in the observation that Jesus ate with "sinners and tax collectors" and the belief that the Lord's table should reflect Jesus's own table practice of radical inclusion.

How does Paul's critique of the Corinthian church relate to economic justice?

In 1 Corinthians 11, Paul condemns the Corinthians because wealthy members ate their fill while poor members went hungry — turning the Lord's Supper into a reinforcement of social hierarchy. He says "it is not the Lord's Supper you eat." Progressive theology reads this as a mandate: the Lord's Supper requires economic sharing, and a table that reinforces inequality is not truly the Lord's Supper.

This Sermon in Other Traditions

See how 16 other Christian traditions approach the communion / lord's supper sermon.

Traditional Christocentric Reformed Baptist Dispensational Wesleyan Lutheran Catholic Eastern Orthodox Anglican Pentecostal Charismatic Black Church Liberation Anabaptist Missional

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