In his first letter to them, Paul admonished the Corinthian church about their failure to commune at communion. They were eating and drinking, they were in the same place as one another, but they were still disconnected from each other.

When you come together, it is not the Lord’s supper that you eat. For in eating, each one goes ahead with his own meal. One goes hungry, another gets drunk. What! Do you not have houses to eat and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I commend you in this? No, I will not. (1 Corinthians 11:20–22)

Their Lord’s table liturgy also involved a meal of fellowship, which was fine, except that there was no fellowship. Honoring the sacrifice of Christ requires relationship, it requires us to consider one another, serve one another, love one another, because Christ did. Their worship looked more like a segregation than a congregation.

Together we eat and drink symbols of Christ’s sacrifice and this cannot be done rightly without sacrificing ourselves to God and for one another. Small sacrifices may include waiting patiently for someone else in front of you. It may look like getting the elements for someone else. It may look like watching another’s kids while they’re up front. It may look like singing your guts out in a song you don’t particularly care for.

It includes being thankful even when your last week was brutal and the upcoming week looks no better. It includes not thinking of yourself more highly than you ought, but realizing that each one of us is just a stone in the temple wall. When we eat the Lord’s supper, we fellowship with the other living stones as God builds us as a spiritual house.

So here we go, all together now.