Sermon from

Sunday, 29 January 2012
Epiphamy 4B ~ 1 Cor 8:1-13
Christ Church, Millwood, Cunningham Chapel
The Rev. Karin MacPhail
 

My father grew up in the Southern Baptist church—my paternal grandparents were Southern Baptist.  Granddaddy and Grandmother were VERY serious about their Baptist faith and its teachings—no drinking, no dancing.  My father switched to the Episcopal Church in college, years before I was born.  As a child I had a hard time understanding how drinking or dancing had any bearing on one’s Christian faith—all of the grown-ups from my Episcopal Church drank at social functions, and dancing was never frowned upon.

When I was around twelve years old or so, I realized that even though my father almost always had wine or beer with dinner at home or if we were out to eat, he never did if we were eating with my grandparents—his parents.  Never.  If we were at their house, this was understandable—there was never any alcohol in their house anyway!

But at some point I realized that Dad never poured a glass of wine at our own house if his parents were there.  We’d all go out to a Mexican restaurant where Dad always, ALWAYS ordered a Dos Equis with lime if we were not with his parents, but his drink order was iced tea with lemon if they were with us. 

When this reality finally hit me, I was outraged.  The hypocrisy!  I knew Dad would LIKE to have a drink with his dinner, and he was an adult—a father himself, a productive grown-up citizen.  He was often the one buying the meal, and yet he was NOT doing what I knew he wanted to do!

It seemed like he was either trying to pretend that he did not drink alcohol—which was lying, in my mind, OR he was failing to show his parents that a drink with dinner was not a sin and had no bearing on his spiritual health or salvation, something I knew he believed.

Jesus turned water into wine, for goodness’ sake!  Where was my father’s backbone!?  Where were his principles?!  Cradle Episcopalian that I was, with a strong dose of adolescent self-righteousness, I could not believe my father would cave to his parents’ tee-totaling when he could instead stand up for what he believed in AND have an enjoyable adult beverage in the process!!

We continue in our reading of Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians this morning, and at first blush, the subject of this week’s lesson seems to have little to offer us as twenty-first-century Christians.  Food sacrificed to idols?  So what?

Well, let’s refresh our memory on the Corinthian church for a moment.  The Corinthian church was fairly diverse—reflecting the diversity of Corinth itself—and it seems that they had many divisions within the church.  One problem in the church was the breaking into factions over which church leader each claimed to belong to—Paul or Peter or Apollos.

Another division had to do with wealth and socio-economic status.  There was a powerful group within the Corinthian church of wealthy, well-educated, fairly sophisticated people who had a strong grasp of the freedom offered by Christianity.  They understood that in Christ they were free from many of the regulations of other religions.  They also knew that the man-made idols of the pagans around them were just statues and images and had no real power.

Scholars think that this strong upper class in the Corinthian church was also quite social.  They loved to have banquets and parties and get together for meals.  These meals were often held in spaces attached to pagan temples—sort of like the parish hall of the local pagan worshipping place.  Also connected to these temples were meat markets, and these Corinthian Christian elites liked to shop there for their parties, as well as the food they might use in their meals at home.[1]

This food had often, if not always, been offered to idols—or was by its very presence at these pagan meat markets considered as good as offered to idols.  But the Corinthian sophisticates didn’t care!  They knew idols were make-believe and eating this meat had no bearing on their standing with the one, true God.  They were free to eat what they wanted because they knew the truth!

However, there were others in the Corinthian church—some of them new converts from these very same pagan religions—who, though they were learning and growing in the Christian faith, were scandalized by the eating of meat that was associated with idol worship.  They were trying to make a clean break from everything associated with idols and false gods.  They wanted to be part of the fellowship and celebrations and socializing with their fellow Corinthian Christians, but if they wanted to avoid food associated with idol worship, then they were basically excluded from the parties.

Paul spends quite a bit of time addressing this issue, and with it, he begins a section of three chapters devoted to the relationship between the individual Christian’s freedom in Christ and the obligation to the health and strength of the entire Christian community. 

Paul confirms for the Corinthian upper class that yes, of course, food offered to idols is fine to eat because idols are nothing—there is one God and one Lord, Jesus Christ, and idols aren’t real.  You have this knowledge, he tells them, and it is good knowledge.  But, Paul says, knowledge puffs up.

He says to the first group—Yes, you know the truth, and so you feel free to do what you want and eat what you wish.  But you also know that these newer Christians in your church are challenged and even offended by this food offered to idols that seems to be served at every coffee hour and party.

They see you eat it as if it doesn’t matter where it came from, and as if you don’t care who might be offended.  When you behave that way, your knowledge isn’t making you free, it’s making you full of yourself and causing division in your community.

What is more important than knowledge is love and consideration for the community as a whole.  You should be thinking of others first and caring about the spiritual health of those who aren’t quite as far along on their journey of faith as you are.

Knowledge puffs up, says Paul, but love builds up.  Love means not offending your neighbor when you can help it.  Love means being more concerned with the health of the church, the spiritual well-being of the whole group, than with what will make you happiest as an individual, or what will make your social group most comfortable.

The church is a family—brothers and sisters in Christ, and Christ calls us his brothers and sisters.  As part of a family, we do not put our own needs or desires above what is best for the group, and we should be especially concerned with protecting the weakest members of the group.

The head of the church, after all, is Jesus Christ, who lived a life of self-sacrifice, giving up his own life out of love.  The guiding ethic and principle of the church must be this same self-sacrificial love.  It is hard to imagine a time and a place when an ethic of self-sacrificial love could provide more of a counter-cultural beacon than it would in the world today.

Selfish individualism rules the day, and it sometimes seems that every little thing becomes something to fight over.  We are most concerned with making sure we get the best for ourselves, rather than thinking about what may be best for others.  We always want to prove we are in the right, rather than sometimes letting our love for our neighbor silence some knowledge we have that will only puff us up and set us apart without really helping anyone or anything.

The members of the church—all of us—are called into Christ’s way of love—the love of God and our neighbor, the love in which we are known by God and through which we seek to serve God and one another.

So we don’t have to do absolutely everything we want to do, and we don’t have to say everything that pops in our minds, even if we feel that we are the ones who possess the correct knowledge about something.  We don’t roll over those we disagree with.  We don’t force our own way or bully others with our point of view.

We relate to one another from a foundation of love, respect, and even self-sacrifice.  We have always in the forefront of our concerns—how does this affect the entire body of Christ. Does this puff me up, or does this build up the entire community?

In a family where some drink and others don’t—whether for religious reasons or because of problems with addiction—self-sacrifice may mean those who would like a drink do without from time to time for the greater good of respecting for those who would be scandalized or tempted.  Without a fight, without a fuss.  Just doing the right thing for the peace and health of the whole family.

Compassionate concern for the other, refraining from always getting our way, is not especially fun and can be downright difficult—a lot harder than passing on a drink from time to time.  Even in the church, we are human, and we are influenced by the culture around us.  We want what we want when we want it, and we’re not surrounded by many examples of putting those wants aside for a greater good.  We want to win every argument, not back away for the sake of the group.

We just don’t have many examples of a loving ethic of self-sacrifice—where people are more concerned with the health of the whole group—whether that’s a family or town, a church or the country—than with the desires of the individual or the desire to be right.

So it’s up to us in the church to provide that example.  We can show a better way.  We can live Jesus’ Way, the way of love that builds up rather than puffs up.

Christianity is not about always doing what we want, and it’s not about being right.  Christianity IS about being loving, hospitable, and compassionate.  Again, this is a VERY counter-cultural concept—it seems that every other message around us is that we must assert that we are right, we must grab everything that we have coming to us, we must use our own strength to put ourselves above those who are weaker.  You are perceived as weak yourself if you don’t push your own point, shove your way to the front, and exercise every freedom you know is yours. 

That may be the way of the world, but it is not the Way of Jesus.  And we know which way brings peace, which way brings joy and hope.  We are indeed free in Christ, but it is a freedom rooted in love and responsibility for one another, a freedom encompassed in a spiritual family. 

 

Lord, give us the servant’s heart of Jesus Christ to guide us.  Amen.