Something we have said here many times is that this meal is not a reward for being good. This is not an awards ceremony. We sometimes draw this false conclusion from the practice of church discipline—if someone can be excluded from this meal, which excommunication most certainly does, then weren’t they excluded for being bad? And doesn’t that mean that we are included for being good?
No
. When someone is disciplined, as happens from time to time, we should not think of it as someone being expelled from an honors society. Think of it rather as an event where one patient in a hospital ward began behaving in a disruptive manner, making it impossible to treat the other patients. Being expelled from a leper colony is bad, but it is not exactly the same thing as being expelled from Phi Beta Kappa.
But there is more. The Church is not a gathering of people who have their act together, and so God has determined to reward them with bread and wine. But at the same time, God has made us kings and priests on the earth, and He is using these instruments (and others) to grow us up into the nobility of Jesus Christ. So we are not being rewarded for being good; we are being made good.
If you were being rewarded for being good, then if you sinned this last week, that would be a problem. If you sinned big this last week, that would be a big problem. But if we are being made good, sin in our lives does not disqualify us. What disqualifies is an obstinate refusal to let the Word and the Spirit get at that sin. What disqualifies is never weakness, but rebellion.
Are you assembled here in rebellion? I warn you as a minister of Christ that if you come to the Table in that frame of mind, you are asking God to contend with you. Are you gathered here as sinners? Are you assembled here aware of your weakness and frailty? Tell me something new. Don’t worry about it. Take and eat—this is for you. Take and drink—it is especially for you.