Back in the early church it sounds like they had a meal and the whole shuh-bang during communion. Tons of food. Almost like a potluck.
Now days most do communion by handing out a lil bread and a lil bit of juice.
It was customary to have a meal before the Lord's supper in the early church. It was in this meal where they gorged themselves and got drunk, not communion itself. This made them unfit to practice the Lord's supper afterwards. The Judaizers among them did this because they believed Jesus ate the passover before the supper. The problem was this pre-supper (whether paschal or otherwise) grew in importance over the Lord's supper, and so people were feasting themselves according to their own desires, and not with the true meaning of the Lord's supper which was
communion.
But I think it does show the casualness of early christian communions, and it was little like the highly ceremonised and tightly controlled mass of the Catholic Church and what transferred to many protestant traditions. Normally we have a pot luck meal
after church, and perhaps it is done this way to avoid the problems that the early church had.
So I think it changes the focus of what Paul is saying quite a bit. Even though it is equally applicable and forbidden, he is not really saying "don't get drunk on communion wine", that is almost impossible in most churches that have thimble cups or chalices, and the wine is mixed with water anyway so it's not straight. The real message is "don't have communion after you've gorged yourself and gotten drunk. ". We have had people come in and celebrate communion after having a few drinks, and they treat the communion wine as just another bit of alcohol. This should not be allowed.
