1 Corinthians 11:27 - Homilies By R. Tuck

Sacramental unworthiness.

The special thought here is the evil of looking at the Lord's Supper as if it were a mere eating and drinking time. It is a symbolic time; it is a spiritually feasting time. It is a time when the wants and demands of the body are to be put wholly aside. It is a. soul time. He eats unworthily who stays with any bodily partaking of mere emblems, and fails to fill his soul with living bread—with him who is the "Bread of life." The following points are so simple and suggestive that they only need statement:—We eat, at the sacrament, unworthily;

1. When we eat without suitable remembrance. "The Son of man knew our nature far too well (to trust us without such. helps). He knew that the remembrance of his sacrifice would fade without perpetual repetition, and without an appeal to the senses; therefore by touch, by taste, by sight, we are reminded in the sacrament that Christianity is not a thing of mere feeling, but a real historical actuality. It sets forth Jesus Christ evidently crucified among us" (Robertson).

2. When we eat without spiritual insight, and so fail to recognize the holy mystery of the symbols.

3. When we eat without devout feeling duly nourished by preparatory seasons of quietness, meditation, communion, and prayer.

4. When we eat without thankful love cherished for him who gave his very life for us.

5. When we eat without holy resolves, to which gratitude ought to urge us. Impress the penalty of the unworthy eating.