Sorry to be so glum. Paul made me do it.
Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany The Brother for Whom Christ Died Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ! Today’s Epistle from 1 Corinthians 8 rubs like sandpaper on the skin. Here God’s apostle Paul states, “Take care that this right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.” Paul also warns that, if you wound your brother’s conscience, “you sin against Christ.” Today’s Epistle might force you to conclude that offense is inevitable; that no Christian can guard himself so closely as to never offend someone else. Lord, have mercy! Dear Christian friends, For more than one reason, this is a difficult and unpleasant reading: 1. The first difficulty, and probably the easiest difficulty to overcome, is the distance between Paul’s specific topic in today’s Epistle and everyday life here in Missouri. On its surface, today’s Epistle concerns “food offered to idols.” The meat at the grocery store in Corinth was first sacrificed to false gods. Cows, goats and chickens were killed in the pagan temples, their blood was poured out upon idolatrous altars, and then their meat was taken to the market to be sold. What was a hungry Christian in Corinth supposed to do? · On one hand, the meat was not a problem, even though it had been sacrificed to an idol. “We know that an idol has no real existence,” Paul says. You have been forgiven all your sins in Jesus’ blood and death. Were that not enough of a gift, God has also set you free from every curse and from all fear. God’s Christians may live freely with regard to such questions as what they eat. Toss the meat on the grill and eat with a good conscience! · On the other hand, what will my Christian brother think, especially the one who has not yet fully comprehended the utter freedom that is ours in Christ? The Corinthian meat is free from condemnation. Still, by eating it you might “somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.” Someone—even someone you do not notice watching you—someone might be offended by you. So, as Paul so gallantly concludes here, “If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.” We Christians in Missouri simply do not face the same difficult question with our groceries. That is partly why today’s Epistle is difficult: the issue on its surface seems irrelevant and somewhat disconnected from our everyday lives. But this first difficulty is relatively easy to overcome. Simply peel back a layer or two. Looking beyond the question of food and notice what lurks underneath. The second difficulty is not so easily beaten. Under the specific situation of food sacrificed to idols there is a much larger question: What impact will your personal behavior have on your fellow Christian? 2. Now the unpleasantness begins. The second difficulty with today’s Epistle is how this Epistle makes us Christians feel. If you have a pulse and a heartbeat, if you have an ounce of Christian faith within you, then this Epistle will likely make you wonder about the negative impact your own personal actions have had upon others—even actions you never could have dreamed were offensive to someone. This Epistle might even make you wince with chagrin and regret. There is NOT much here in 1 Corinthians 8 that brings us comfort and consolation in the name of Jesus. · Mostly, this Epistle gives us a reason to thank God for the weekly form of our worship. In the liturgy, we hear a clear proclamation of forgiveness and we receive the Body and Blood of Jesus, given and shed for you, no matter what Bible passages are assigned for the day. · Indeed, Paul lightly touches upon God’s grace when he describes Jesus as the one “through whom we exist.” Paul mentions in passing, “if anyone loves God, he is known by God,” but these are not necessarily comforting thoughts. It is really more broth than stew, so to speak. Only those who plug their ears can escape the condemnation Paul speaks here. The basic demand of this chapter is completely impossible! It is well and good for Paul to say, “If food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble,” but where will it end? · If the robe I wear in leading worship causes a visiting Christian to stumble, shall I no longer wear a robe? · Shall we change our godly and scriptural practice of closed communion, just because some of our Christian guests feel offended by it? As Paul says, “Not all possess this knowledge.” · If I attempt to laugh and joke with a fellow Christian, only to have my humor taken the wrong way, shall I never express happiness again? · Even with my best intentions and in my finest moments (which are few), how can I guard my speech and behavior so closely that no fellow Christian will ever misunderstand and take offense? Paul is MORE than right and correct in what he says. APOSTLE Paul did not dream this up himself, but he writes under the authority and by the commission of Jesus Christ Himself. By all means, we Christians each must “take care that… [we not] somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.” For the life of me, and after what seems like plenty of experience, I still cannot identify who are the strong and who are the weak. The weak often disguise themselves and masquerade as the strong, only revealing themselves as weak after you have done your damage. The strongest often seem very weak. I might ask for all the strong Christians to move to one side of our sanctuary, and all the weak to the other, but I think the result will be biased. Both groups would be different next week, anyway. We all swing between episodes of strength and weakness, high and low, confidence and gloom, forbearance and nastiness. Short of wearing a “strength-o-meter” or some other sign, how is anyone supposed to know whether I am one of the weak or one of the strong today? Much of our life together is like driving in a borrowed car that has an insulting bumper sticker you did not notice. You’re simply driving down the road and you have no idea the message people receive from you or the way you offend. Certainly we all have our own capacity for chosen evil, including those who hide behind white robes and wooden pulpits. Paul in today’s Epistle simply makes our guilt unavoidable, even when we have the best intentions. Paul leaves us no room for error. He assures us that there is no good use for personal confidence. “If anyone imagines that he knows something,” says Paul, “he does not yet know as he ought to know.” So much for self-improvement! 3. The first difficulty in today’s Epistle—Corinthian groceries versus life in Missouri—is relatively easy to overcome. We simply peeled back the specific context of the chapter to focus on the larger question, what impact does your behavior have on others? The honest answer to that question is not easy and it is not pleasant. Offense is unavoidable, even in the best of circumstances. I will inexorably cause my brother to stumble, no matter how hard I might try to prevent it! Then Paul pokes his finger into the self-inflicted wound when he says, “Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.” As far as I can see, there are only two solutions to this second difficulty of inevitable offense. The first solution is that I abandon my pulpit and my home; that I move out into a desert and live in isolation so that no one can ever take me the wrong way. While I in some sense continually find this idea appealing, I also think that such an escape somehow offend and scandalize more of my fellow Christians than my continued presence will. Hermits still wound the consciences of their distant brothers! The second solution seems to be my only hope: that I cling to Jesus more tightly than before; that I eat of His body more seriously and drink of His blood more deeply, as He is the only source of my only good. Everything falls apart, except what Jesus holds together! Everything goes bad, except what Jesus makes good! Every brother gets scattered, one from another, except where Jesus holds us together. Every word and every action will wound, somewhere and somehow, except where Jesus heals with His life-giving Word and His compassionate hand. I need Jesus. You need Jesus. We together need Jesus. No matter how much we continually fail one another, Jesus shall never fail us. _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list Sermons@cat41.org http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
