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Chapter 4, Economic Relationships among the People of God

After making the case that God has a particular concern for the poor, Sider turns the lens inward to the church. What principles ought to govern the behaviors of Christians towards one another?

Sider begins by reviewing some distinctive traits of Torah economic law, specifically the Jubilee Year, the Sabbath Year, triennial Tithe, and the prohibition on gleaning. Next he looks at the example of the early church found in the Gospels, Acts and witnessed to in Paul’s letters. Sider’s thoughts are well summarized with this statement from a later chapter: “The essence of Christian community is open accountability to and far-reaching liability for our sisters and brothers in the body of Christ.”

His assessment can be summarized by the previous statement from that later chapter: “I am thoroughly convinced, however, that the overwhelming majority of Western churches no longer understand or experience biblical koinonia to any significant degree.” The grand statements of transformed Kingdom-economics that flow throughout the Biblical texts are a slap in the face the modern, Western church.

Again, allow me to close with an extended quote from Sider’s treatment of 1 Corinthians. (My emphasis of the last sentence in bold.)

Why was Paul so concerned with the financial problems of the Jerusalem church? Because of his understanding of fellowship. Koinonia is an extremely important concept in Paul’s theology. And it is central in his discussion of the collection.

Koinonia means fellowship with someone or participation in something. Believers enjoy fellowship with the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 1:9). Experiencing the koinonia of Jesus means having his righteousness imputed to us. It also entails sharing in the self-sacrificing, cross-bearing life he lived (Phil. 3:8-10). Nowhere is the Christian’s fellowship with Christ experienced more powerfully than in the Eucharist. Sharing in the Lord’s Supper draws the believer into a participation (koinonia) in the mystery of the cross: “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation [koinonia] in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation [koinonia] in the body of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16)

Paul’s immediate inference is that koinonia with Christ inevitably involves koinonia with all the members of the body of Christ. “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread” (1 Cor. 10:17; see also 1 John 1:3-4). As seen in Ephesians 2, Christ’s death for jew and gentile, male and female, has broken down all ethnic, sexual, and cultural dividing walls. In Christ there is one new person, one new body of believers. When the brothers and sisters share the one bread and the common cup in the Lord’s Supper, they symbolize and actualize their participation in the one body of Christ.

That is why the class divisions at Corinth so horrified Paul. Apparently wealthy Christians feasted at the Eucharistic celebration while poor believers when hungry. Paul angrily denied that they were eating the Lord’s Supper at all (1 Cor. 11:20-22). In fact, they were profaning the Lord’s body and blood because they did not discern his body (1 Cor. 11:27-29).

But what did Paul mean when he charged that they did not discern the Lord’s body? To discern the Lord’s body is to understand and live the truth that fellowship with Christ is inseparable from membership in his body where our oneness in Christ far transcends differences of race or class. Discernment of that one body of believers leads to sweeping availability to and responsibility for the other sisters and brothers. Discernment of that one body prompts us to weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Discernment of that one body is totally incompatible with feasting while other members of the body go hungry. Those who live a practical denial of their unity and fellowship in Christ, Paul insists, drink judgment on themselves when they go to the Lord’s table. In fact, they do not really partake of the Lord’s Supper at all.

Once we understand the implication of Paul’s teaching on discerning the body in the Lord’s Supper, we dare not rest content until the scandal of starving Christians is removed. As long as any Christian anywhere in the world is hungry, the Eucharistic celebration of all Christians everywhere in the world is imperfect.

I venture Sider was gentle with the word “imperfect.” He could very easily have laid judgment similar to that which Paul passed on the Corinthian church; and he would not have been wrong.

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