1 Corinthians 8:1-13
4th Ordinary
January 28, 2018
William G. Carter
Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that
“all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds
up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary
knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him.
Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know
that “no idol in the world really exists,” and that “there is no God but
one.” Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on
earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords— yet for us there is
one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one
Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge.
Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of
the food they eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak,
is defiled. “Food will not bring us close to God.” We are no worse off if
we do not eat, and no better off if we do. But take care that this liberty
of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if
others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they
not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food
sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom
Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against members of your
family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against
Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat
meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.
I’ll
bet you couldn’t wait to get to church today! I’ll bet you couldn’t wait to
hear what Paul says about eating food dedicated to idols. Well, maybe not.
A
scripture text like this reminds us of the distance between then and now. This
is an ancient text, a letter between an itinerant preacher and one of the
congregations he began. And we can feel the distance between their situation
and our own. Perhaps a few of us couldn’t even follow what that passage is
about.
Would
it help to hear that the topic they discussed was not Paul’s idea? It was the
Corinthians’ idea, not his. They brought it up, and they did so in a way that
revealed some of the problems in that church. Every church has a know-it-all,
it seems, the resident expert who seems to be there to set everybody else
straight. That happens in any human organization, so it can happen in a church.
Well,
the Corinthian church had a number of know-it-alls. They tried to outdo one
another in bragging about how much they knew. The evidence is in the English
text, which captures the situation exactly: all the know-it-alls were throwing their
wisdom at one another, if only to prove they were smarter than the next one. They
had moved beyond having a reasonable conversation to hurling slogans. Slogans!
You can’t have a conversation with bumper stickers. It’s hit and run.
First
slogan went like this: “All of us possess knowledge.” Next slogan was this: “No
idol really exists,” that is, there is no such thing as a replacement for God.
Then the next genius clears his throat to declare, “There is no God but one.”
He wants to sound smart and pious.
Then
a fourth person tries to ace them all, to say, “Food will not bring us close to
God.” I think his name was Captain Obvious, and clearly he was not a Jew keeping
a Kosher diet.
You
know what they are doing? They are squabbling in that church. Rather than deal
directly or wisely with the conflict, they hurl words at one another - - and they
miss one another in the ways that count.
So
Paul responds by quoting these slogans and weaving then into his response. It’s
masterful. He feeds them off their own plate and invites them to eat their
words. Back in chapter one, we knew this was going to happen. In the opening
words of the letter he says, “You Corinthians are so full of speech and
knowledge.” (1:5) He was winking at them, maybe even kicking them.
Does
it help to know that this is his way of intervening in a conflict? Maybe so,
maybe not.
Would
it help to know that there’s more to the issue than first appears? You know how
it is. The lady raises her voice that the sidewalks aren’t clear; what’s really
going on is she is afraid of falling. The man over here complains how he can’t
hear the little girls at the microphone; actually he is losing his hearing, or
he is ambivalent about kids leading worship for adults.
My
favorite squabble, of all the squabbles in my career, was the forty-five minute
argument at a session meeting on whether they should serve fresh brewed coffee
or Folger’s crystals at coffee hour. Forty five minutes! I blew a whistle, tried
to shut it down. They said, “You’re only the pastor, be quiet!” I came to realize
the argument wasn’t about coffee at all.
On
the face of it, the Corinthians faced a small matter, especially compared to
all the other dramas going on in that congregation. This issue was whether or
not a Christian could eat steak that had been dedicated to Zeus, whether a church
family could eat lamb offered in a sacrifice to Aphrodite, whether or not the
chili cook-off could include venison consecrated to Venus.
So
some of the know-it-alls said, “There’s only one God. Pagan idols are stupid.
Get over it.” But Paul knows something more is going on.
As
scholar Ken Bailey tells us, all the pagan temples in Corinth had their
celebrations. Sometimes they would get a lot of meat and offer it up to their
favorite Greek god or goddess, and later it might be discounted, and it might
be the only protein that impoverished family could afford.[1]
There was some economic justice behind the question.
Plus
there was the bigger issue, which still remains with us: how do Christians make
their way through a pagan society? How do you shop at an indifferent marketplace
when much of the stuff for sale doesn’t reflect your values? As Bailey asks, “Do
you accommodate yourself to that world, and to what extent? Do you blend in or
stand apart?”[2]
Bailey,
as you might remember, was a Presbyterian missionary in the Middle East for
thirty years. He had the same experience when he retired from Beirut, moved
back to western Pennsylvania, and walked into a Walmart for the first time. It
all seemed so pagan.
Does
it help to hear this small matter is bigger than it seems? Maybe, maybe not.
Would
it help to know that Paul addresses all of this as a good pastor? Some of you
may have been told you shouldn’t like the apostle Paul, that, for instance, he
gives first century advice to first century women ... probably because he lived
in the first century. Or that he still struggled as a Jew to make sense of how
God was calling him to speak increasingly to a world of Gentiles? It was
awkward.
Paul
was given the task of proclaiming a Messiah to a Mediterranean world that wasn’t
looking for a Messiah. He was “under obligation,” he says – “under obligation”
to proclaim the crucifixion of Jesus is the power of God – and to say it to an
empire that worshiped the kind of power that used chariots and iron spears.
And
what he is doing is offering his best thinking to matters that otherwise seem worldly
and mundane. “Brother Paul, can we eat meatballs dedicated to Mars, the god of
war?” Or: can we eat chicken wings dedicated to the god of the Eagles?
And
do you remember how he responds? By reminding them of the creed: “For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all
things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all
things and through whom we exist.” In other words, think big! Think as big as God!
If in your Christian conscience, you find the pagan world
confusing, if not downright dangerous, remember God, the One God, the real God,
the big God! God made all of this, even if the world has forgotten its
origin, even if the people of the world
have grown indifferent to their single Creator. So there is one God, source of
all life, maker of the beef for your chili dogs and the shrimp for your gumbo.
Take these matters that seem so trivial – and use your very best
Christian thinking to find a way forward!
One year, I was proud of our confirmation class. Every class is
smart, and this class was exceptional. They asked tough questions. They wanted
real answers. I was so impressed, in fact, that when the day came for them to
meet with our elders, I said, “Ask these elders whatever you want.” The elders
looked at me, like, “Hey, why are you doing this? We didn’t have to endure you
in class.” But I said, “Give them the best answers you can,” and I was proud of
our elders.
First question, out of the gate: “Who was Jesus, really? Was he
God or was he human?” The elders looked stunned, but slowly they rose to the
occasion. Next question: “If Jesus is alive, where is he right now?” One of the
shortstops fielded that ground ball. Then another: “Why is there so much
suffering in the world?” I thought that kid might get a ground rule double on
that one, but an elder took a stab and caught the ball.
Then came the question from a 14-year-old that I knew was
coming: “Why can’t we drink wine for communion?” One of the confirmation parents
was an elder, and she started getting red in the face. “Now, wait,” I said, “let’s
give them an honest answer, rather than simply say ‘You’re too young for wine.’”
The elders thought for a minute and one of them said, “Communion
is when we affirm Christ gave his life for us, and that his Easter life is now
in us, so we don’t want to cheapen it by thinking it’s a drunken party.” I was
so impressed, I wrote that down. And another said, “If we aren’t drinking wine
in church, why start now? It’s not our practice.”
Then somebody else said, “In our Book of Order, it says if you
serve wine (and you can), then you must serve grape juice as an alternative in
order to be sensitive to those who have a problem or an addiction to alcohol.”
And the kid said, “Really? I didn’t know that; what a nice thing to do.” All of
them got an A+ on that exam.
It’s not only about being right. It’s about being kind.
So
the apostle Paul gives his counsel. “If eating creates a problem for somebody
around you, you don’t have to eat. As followers of Jesus, you are free to eat
(or drink) whatever you wish, but don’t use that freedom to destroy the soul of
another person for whom Christ has died.” Because that’s the issue for the Christian
community we call the church. We look to God, the one God, the true God, the big
God – and we pay attention to one another.
Remember
what Paul says a few chapters after this? “Love is patient, love is kind. Love
is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. (Love) does not insist on its
own way; it is not irritable or resentful… love bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love does not cease.” (13:4-8)
We
don’t live for ourselves; in love, we are subject to one another. This is how
we live. We help one another. We watch out for one another. We work for the
good of all. We pay attention to one another. And we are only as fast as the
slowest person among us. Love binds us to regard each person, and wait for each
one, that we might travel together toward God’s kingdom.
As
football fans know, next week nobody will be waving Terrible Towels. For those
of you who are not football fans, these are the gold and black terrycloth
towels that Pittsburgh Steelers fans wave whenever their team takes a breath,
and the Steelers didn’t make it into next week’s big game.
The
Terrible Towel was the idea of Myron Cope, longtime Pittsburgh broadcaster, who
died ten years ago. Myron cooked up the idea in 1975, and it really caught on. Every
year, over a half million Terrible Towels are produced to be sold for about $7
dollars each.
What
a lot of people don’t know is Myron Cope donated the trademark for his towels
to the Allegheny Valley School. That’s a network of homes for people with
severe disabilities. Myron could have made millions on the Terrible Towels, but
he donated all the proceeds to the school, because he was grateful for what
that school did for his son Danny.
You
see, Danny is a resident of one of the Allegheny Valley facilities. He is now 50
years old. He has never spoken a word, and has severely limited reasoning abilities.
Whenever the Steelers play and their fans wave their Terrible Towels, Danny may
not understand any of it.
But
that’s all right, because what really matters is that his father never ran too
far ahead of him. And that is the measure of love.
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