Community Christian Church
Roger Ray, pastor
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge." Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; 3but anyone who loves God is known by him.
4Hence, 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." 5Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth--as in fact there are many gods and many lords-- 6yet 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.
7It 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. 8"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. 9But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10For 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? 11So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. 12But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore, 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 have only one friend from seminary with whom I have stayed in contact over the generations. We don't get to see one another often but when we do it is a loud and long meeting, and even our phone calls rarely clock in at anywhere under either sixty minutes or 60 decibels.
Charles often says that we "fought for our friendship" and the word "fought" is crucial to that understanding. As a young white man from rural Kentucky, Charles felt that there were a lot of things about racism that I needed to learn from his urban, Atlanta black experience. He was not always a patient teacher, and the lessons were often adorned with colorful language but, I believe, we finally got there.
But a couple of decades ago the shoe shifted to the other foot. When Charles heard some of my messages about gay rights and the ordination of homosexuals we discovered that we had another huge issue to discuss.
He was especially unhappy when he heard me call gay rights a "civil rights" issue because he did not believe that the discrimination he had experienced as a black man growing up in the south should be compared to the discrimination being shown to gays and lesbians. Because I really love Charles Lee, I was more patient with him on this issue than I have been with most people. Charles was with me in class, he was with me when I graduated. He was with me when my daughtered arrived from Korea, and years later he stood at the bedside with me as we watched my mother die. Charles was too important to me to allow our disagreement to damage our friendship.
He and his wife, Wynnett, live in Birmingham, AL and I always spend time with them whenever I am passing through. This past year, when our friends, Andrea and Jill had moved to Birmingham, it was with some trepidation that I called to let Charles know that I was going to be in town and that I would be staying with Andrea and Jill.
And he said, "Well, are you going to bring them to church?" And I said, "Well, Charles, they are lesbians." And he asked, "Will they being doing anything outstandingly lesbian while they are in church?" He explained, "As long as they don't have to physically demonstrate their sexual orientation during the worship service, I would like to meet them!"
I compromised and agreed to bring them to lunch after church because, well, you know Andrea.... You can never be sure what she might do!
The point being, 20 years ago, Charles, in spite of his excellent education and his long term experience in civil rights work, was not ready to accept that being a homosexual was not a sin.
Ten years ago he was willing to more or less look the other way. Now, given time and space to let his views evolve, he has repeatedly reached out to Andrea and Jill to help them to feel welcome and at home, even in Birmingham, AL. This growth has taken place only because I did not insult his faith or his intellect in the process, because our mutual love was stronger than our disagreement. And in the safety and security of absolutely certain love, he has been able to grow in this area.
Charles called this past week after his grand-daughter had brought her boyfriend home from college to meet the family. She is certain that this is the one. The boyfriend in question happens to be white. Charles said, "Roger, when they left, I realized that I was not really ready for this." He said, "All those years ago, I thought I had put all of those prejudices behind me but now I realize that we need to carve out some time to talk about this again."
Racism, prejudice, that all too human inclination to divide people, one against the other, doesn't die easily and typically it doesn't die very quickly, nor does it die just because you have decided that you are done with it.
I have prejudices that live inside of me that I do not want.... They are demons that are not welcome.
I have locked the doors of my mind to shut them out and then, when you turn out the lights, you can hear them breathing in the shadows of your character.
Now, it will come as no great surprise to you to hear me say that I do not often cherish the work of the Apostle Paul. The version of Christianity that Paul writes about in the New Testament, in my opinion, has very little in common with the religious teachings of Jesus and, frankly, I often find Paul to be rigid, misogynistic, and prejudiced but then he will say something that makes me have to pause and give him another chance.
One of the ways that people in the first century divided themselves into racial and religious subgroups was by what they ate and how they ate it. In the polytheistic world of the growing Roman Empire, small temples and altars were blended into the marketplace. Most butcher shops were associated, in one way or another, was an altar to one or more gods. So, if you bought meat in the marketplace, a part of it had likely been sacrificed to one of these gods.
Many pious people in those days would, on moral grounds, refuse to eat meat that had been sacrificed to an idol. My father, a veteran of WWII, would refuse to ride in a Japanese automobile. I have met people in Jordan who would not eat an orange if they thought it had been grown in Israel. I do not eat in local restaurants that display campaign signs for Republican congressman, Billy Long.... If they would vote for Billy Long, how could I have confidence they know how to cook without poisoning us?
This is a basic competency test, right?
Paul is being very matter of fact in this letter to the church in Corinth. Sacrificing the unusable parts of an animal on an altar doesn't change the spiritual character of either the meat or of the people who eat it. The color of a person's skin, a person's nationality, religion or sexual orientation is, in the end, of no real consequence, unless, of course, you think it is.
Paul is fairly evolved on this point. There is no reason to be prejudiced but, he cautions, give your sisters and brothers enough time and safety to get to the same place. I am convinced of this truth about psychology..... people do not often change because they have been humiliated, criticized, or attacked. They change when people love them enough for them to feel secure because it is only in that place of safety that we can genuinely give ourselves permission to change.
Now this is a tough challenge for us. Our little progressive church exists, in many ways, for the express purpose of offering a liberating approach to faith that gives people permission to set aside the magical and superstitious thinking of traditional forms of religion. Our challenge to conservative ways of thinking often comes across as being condescending, insulting, dismissive and is, on the whole, too controversial for most people to be able to accept it.
So there is a challenge.....how many steak dinners do you have to turn down because someone else in the restaurant believes that a good Christian can't eat meat that has been sacrificed to an idol? How many times do you have water rather than beer because someone at the table with you thinks that alcohol is always sinful?
When do you put your foot down and refuse to go to a Catholic Church service because Catholics still won't ordain women, or to a Baptist or Assemblies of God church because they still condemn our gay and lesbian friends? How do we talk about our progressive faith that is free of supernatural theism with all of its angles, demons, lakes of fire and streets of gold in the clouds, with making our traditional church going friends feel like we think they are stupid.... Even when we kind of do think that?
And now you will hear me say something that you do not commonly hear.... Where do we draw the line? When do we say that we will no longer tolerate prejudice and ignorance? Frankly, I don't know. And honestly, I am afraid that more often than not, I have erred on the side of pushing for progress too hard.
What I know from my long term relationship with Charles is that I was able to grow out of a lot of stupid white-southern prejudice because he loved me enough not to give up on me. And Charles has been able to grow out of a lot of his stupid heterosexual homophobia because I have always loved him in spite of himself.
So, in the battle between being right and being kind, in the contest between awareness and affection, between being insightful and being loving, in almost every case, we probably need to assume that being more loving is not just better but that it is more effective than just being smart.
I say that, not simply because it is incumbent upon preachers to favor love but because it, honestly, it works better. If I could successfully insult my traditional Christian friends into opening their minds to be more progressive I would have done it a long time ago.
No one ever changes when they feel threatened. We can really only grow in an emotionally safe environment. It isn't just that love smells better and makes us feel good, sincere love is the fertilizer in which we all can grow.
Paul was telling his church friends to love one another long enough to give one another the chance to finish growing up. And that is a message we can all stand to be reminded of from time to time. You even have my permission to occasionally remind me that I said this in public.
