We are here primarily to eat and drink. This do, our Lord said.
Now it is important for us to remember certain things as we do this, of course, but we are not here primarily to remember. We can do that without the bread and wine.
We should of course be clean from all known sin, but that is not what this portion of the service primarily is. We should have confessed our sins before we got here—if we didn’t we should now, but that is not the central point.
Eating and drinking constitute this meal. But with the way God made the world, we have to recognize that eating and drinking are never raw, mechanical acts. To the extent we try to make them so, we are dehumanizing ourselves. You eat and drink with your people.
When Jesus established this meal, He was creating a new people, a great congregation. In short, we eat and drink together.
If you were a medieval baron with your own private chapel and your own private priest, and you went to Mass all by yourself on a daily basis, it may have been really devout, but it was also completely at odds with the point of the communal meal. If you are a modern evangelical, and when the bread and wine come to you, you withdraw to the private chapel of your heart, find a priest in your emotions, you are doing the same thing—missing the point.
Table fellowship establishes loyalties. But in the New Testament sense, it is not possible to be loyal to Christ without be loyal to one another. If we walk in the light, as He is in the light, the Word says, we have fellowship with one another. It is not possible to be on good terms with the Lord and be a loner. Depending on the extent of the problem, there is something significant there to be repented and corrected.
This meal, which we observe weekly, is a good place to do that. As you partake, look around. These are your people.