That passage is actually the first written record we have of the Last Supper because Paul wrote his letter in the mid 50s AD, some five years or so before the first gospel (probably Mark) was set down on paper.
Yet it was not a happy context in which Paul mentioned the Last Supper and as we explored why we came across what had gone wrong with the Corinthian church since Paul left Corinth.
It seems from Paul's letter that the sizeable and diverse Corinthian church was meeting in one of the larger villas in Corinth, yet when they shared the Lord's Supper they did so in a divisive way, with the rich eating and drinking more in one room and the poor going away hungry from another. Although they were one family, they were living out all the old social and economic hierarchies.
Paul is horrified. For him it is another example of what has gone wrong since he left Corinth, namely that the believers in that city have conformed to the pattern of the city in which they live rather than the gospel they believe. They were 'walking in a worldly way' (1 Cor 3:3). They were more Corinthian than they were Christian. All the problems Paul sought to address in the two Corinthian letters that we have (immorality, law suits, leader-worship, disorderly ship) stem from this root problem; since Paul left the church had sought to follow Jesus but using a Corinthian value-system of competition, self-reliance, image and success.
Paul's value-system could not be more different; his world was shaped not by success or image but by the cross of Christ. The Corinthians wanted him to boast in his successes which would reflect well on them; Paul boasted in the things that showed him to be weak because that reflected the gospel of the crucified Jesus.
And so this afternoon, mindful that we too run the risk of being shaped more by the values of our prevailing culture rather than gospel values, there was the opportunity for all of us to share that meal Paul talked to the Corinthians about almost two thousand years ago. A 'cross meal' for it helps us remember Jesus' death for us; a 'together meal' for we do it together, as brothers and sisters in Christ, as sinners forgiven through the blood of Jesus, as children of God adopted by grace. And it was a service I will never forget.
The Corinthians loved to boast, but in our service we sang of a very different kind of boasting altogether, one which the apostle Paul modelled all those years ago
Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast
Save in the death of Christ my God.
All the vain things that charm me most
I sacrifice them to his blood.
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