Sacred
Cows
4th after Epiphany Year B
February 1 /2015
I don’t know about you but when I read the bible there
is some of it that I understand and some that I do not. Some stories are really clear like the story
of Noah’s arc – a man a boat and a bunch of animals, concluding with a rainbow
promise of God’s to never flood the earth again; pretty simple – another
example - the birth of Jesus – Mary and Joseph a couple of angels a baby being
born in a stable – shepherds visit and God gets into the world in a new way
through this simple life moment. All in
all pretty straight forward – Some Bible stories are more complex, however, especially if Jesus is the one they are about
like the miracles about the feeding of the 5000, or walking on water, or calming
the storm or turning water into wine – stories that you need to really think
about. And when the stories are told by
Jesus often our minds get twisted up in
knots trying to figure them out – you have to last to be first, a little child shall lead them, you need to
be in the world but not of the world - blessed are the poor in spirit, and
those who morn, and the meek.
Yet truthfully for me – I have learned to wrestle with
Jesus over the years, who really confuses me though, and makes me feel like I
don’t know anything at all – is Paul – Paul letters to the churches – we call
them the epistles. There is something
about Paul who uses words such as ‘sanctification’ and ‘justification’ and
‘righteousness’ that makes me squeamish.
It is intimidating preaching on a passage when I don’t really understand
what he is getting at. The other thing
about Paul is that he is speaking into the reality of his day and to a culture
that is very very different from our culture today. Paul is also the one who speaks against
homosexuals, and divorce and has issues with woman especially in leadership
positions in the church. You may have
noticed by now that these lessons are rarely the focus of the sermon, yet today
when the Sunday School Curriculum indicated that they were going to focus on
the 1 Corinthians reading I thought I should at least try to tackle it.
So the first thing I do when I come across a passage
that causes confusion instead of understanding is to read in another
interpretation. The Bible has been translated and translated again and again
since it was first written, and translations of translations. My favorite Bible translation for reading
Paul is The Message – which is written by Eugene Peterson who is an American
pastor, scholar, writer and poet. He
rewrote the Bible to make it more accessible to modern people; this is what
Peterson says about why he rewrote the bible:
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“
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When Paul of Tarsus wrote a letter, the people
who received it understood it instantly, When the prophet Isaiah preached a
sermon, I can't imagine that people went to the library to figure it out.
That was the basic premise under which I worked. I began with the New Testament
in the Greek…(and) I just typed out a
page the way I thought it would have sounded to the Galatians.[1]
I feel like I am in good
company when I learned that Peterson wrote the message because of Paul’s
epistals…. So here is Eugene Peterson’s rewrite of the passage from 1st
Corinthians that Steve read a few
minutes ago:
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1 Corinthians 8:1-13
8 1-3 The question keeps
coming up regarding meat that has been offered up to an idol: Should you attend
meals where such meat is served, or not? We sometimes tend to think we know all
we need to know to answer these kinds of questions—but sometimes our
humble hearts can help us more than our proud minds. We never really know
enough until we recognize that God alone knows it all.
4-6 Some people
say, quite rightly, that idols have no actual existence, that there’s nothing
to them, that there is no God other than our one God, that no matter how many
of these so-called gods are named and worshiped they still don’t add up to
anything but a tall story. They say—again, quite rightly—that there is only one
God the Father, that everything comes from him, and that he wants us to live
for him. Also, they say that there is only one Master—Jesus the Messiah—and
that everything is for his sake, including us. Yes. It’s true.
7 In strict
logic, then, nothing happened to the meat when it was offered up to an idol.
It’s just like any other meat. I know that, and you know that. But knowing
isn’t everything. If it becomes everything, some people end up as know-it-alls
who treat others as know-nothings. Real knowledge isn’t that insensitive.
We need to be sensitive to the fact that we’re not
all at the same level of understanding in this. Some of you have spent your
entire lives eating “idol meat,” and are sure that there’s something bad in the
meat that then becomes something bad inside of you. An imagination and
conscience shaped under those conditions isn’t going to change overnight.
8-9 But
fortunately God doesn’t grade us on our diet. We’re neither commended when we
clean our plate nor reprimanded when we just can’t stomach it. But God does
care when you use your freedom carelessly in a way that leads a fellow believer
still vulnerable to those old associations to be thrown off track.
What do you think? – was that easier to understand? – Did
that make more sense? Paul is talking to
the church about what type of food is brought to the churches potlucks – but it
is much more than that. In Corinth, a
large city, meat was rare and animals were used to sacrifice to the Roman gods –
like Venus and Apollo and Jupiter. Mary
W. Anderson gives us a bit of a history lesson:
“Our ancestors in the faith struggled with a different dilemma. The
faith of first-century Christians in the Roman Empire was rooted in Christ, but
their living was grounded in Caesar. In cities like Corinth the common marketplace
sold meat for a family's evening meal just as markets do today. But in Corinth,
the butcher was a priest in service to some Greek or Roman deity. All
butchering had religious significance -- and the significance was not Christian.
Early Christians had different theological views on what was ethical or
permissible. Some thought it an insult to Christ to even purchase or consume
meat roasted to tickle the nostrils of Jupiter. Others said since Christians
didn't believe in Jupiter, the meat wasn't sacrificial, just nutritional. We
can only imagine what first-century potluck dinners were like. Did they have
meat-consuming" and "meat-refraining" tables? (Absolutely) Did
they consider one another's faith to be faulty? You bet!”[2]
This squabble between the meat eaters and the non-meat eaters had reached such
a pitch that word had gotten out the wider church and Paul’s letter to the
church members in Corinth is an attempt to stop the conflict. Paul is attempting to mediate a dispute from
a distance with is letter. So instead of
taking sides and say ‘this is right and this is wrong’ he calls the conflict
into question not the issue – that is to say – Paul responds by addressing the
relationship that the people in Corinth have with each other within the church
and also their relationship with God through Jesus the Christ. He is telling the congregation at Corinth
that their conflict is not about the meat – or who eats the meat or why they
eat the meat – that is just the surface issue and not really what matters – God
does not care about what we eat Paul says, God cares about how we treat our
neighbours both inside and outside the church.
Paul takes the attention off of the subject of eating meat offered to
idols. It is, Paul says, about the
loving way you treat each other regardless of whether you have the same opinion
about a church policy or not. And
remember – this ‘chapter’ in the epistle of 1 Corinthians is not a chapter at
all – the chapter and verses where written into the bible decades after the
letter was written so it is a continuous writing from chapter 1 to chapter 16
where the lovely chapter that is read at weddings is found – Love is patient
and kind and not envious and never boasts – is is not rude or boastful and
never ends – love writes Paul is what it is all about….
Isn’t it wonderful that we have come so far from those
first century churches that we no longer have fights about which meat to eat at
a potluck, or what colour the church carpet should be, how many meetings to
hold a year or if the church should marry same sex couples or what hymn book to
use in a worship service. No, thanks to
Paul letter to the Corinthians we don’t have conflict in church any more…..well
maybe just a bit – actually quite a lot – for some reason we in the church
choose being right over being loving more often than not – quite contrary from
Paul’s message.
I have been serving the church for 16 years and so far
I have yet to be in a church that did not have conflict or some sort or other –
some inconsequential and some quite significant. In fact the longer I serve and the shifting
culture of our churches where anxiety is raising as our number decline both in
the pews and in the collection plates and our heads become increasingly grey
and our younger families find other things to do on Sunday morning – the more
conflict is prevalent. And when our conflict is high often our decision are
based in our heads instead of in our hearts which is the place that Paul is
calling us to respond from this morning.
For when we respond with our heads and make the ‘right’ decision, our
loving hearts may get broken.
Over the years I have witnessed churches making the ‘right
decisions’ and unintentionally being unloving to its members. For instance when I was a young mother of
boys and just starting to attend a new church after moving into a new community,
there was already a family in attendance whose children were a little out of
control – well alright, a lot out control
and some of the older generation where beginning to complain about how
disruptive they were in worship – so the minister and a member of the session
were appointed to go and have a chat with the family so that the children would
behave ‘better’ in church. The right
thing – maybe – loving – not so much – so that family I imagined felt shamed
and they moved up the hill to the Anglican church and the United Church never
saw them again. In another church I
served the church secretary who was paid 10 hours a month and worked at least
10 hours a week, was sent a letter that asked her to improve her editing skills
because the bulletin had a couple of typo’s in it each week – right response
maybe – loving response – not at all – that secretary moved her lifetime
membership to an United Church in the next community and no longer supports the
church of her childhood. Another time
glitter was banned from the church because it was too hard for the custodian to
clean up and people were getting glitter on their hands when they would have
coffee after worship on the same tables the children used not at all a loving
response to all the glitter artists in the church….you probably by now have a
couple of instances in your minds too when you have witnessed the church do the
right thing but not necessarily the loving thing.
Which I think is the biggest reason why Paul letter to
the Corinthians should really be called Paul’s letter to St. James or even Paul’s
letter the United Church of Canada –or should I say “Paul’s letter to the
Church of Christ in the world” Because it not about the meat – it’s about the relationships
– it’s about the people of God and how they relate to God and to each
other. It is about how the people are
caring and sharing and loving their neighbour who is in this example someone who refuses to eat meat sacrificed to
idols cause they are afraid it will hurt their relationship with God – don’t
eat the meat says Paul it is better to love your neighbour and go vegetarian than
to remain a carnivore and alienate yourself from your church. Think from your hearts people – was Paul’s
big message – for the greatest of these – remember 5 chapters later – the greatest
of these is LOVE….everything else is a banging gong and a clanging cymbal.
[2]
Mary W. Anderson: Sins and Sensibilities
- http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1902
