1 Corinthians
8:1-13
What Kind of
Witness
James Sledge January
28, 2024
Some years ago, I was attending a meeting
of a presbytery committee that I served on. At some point in the meeting people
shared prayer concerns, and one woman, noticeably upset, shared a concern about
her daughter and family.
They lived in Houston and were trying to
evacuate ahead of a hurricane, but now they were stuck on an interstate that
had come to a standstill, running low on gas so that they had to turn the
vehicle off in 100 degree heat. The traffic showed no signs of moving, and they
were beginning to worry about what they would do with their pets and children
if they did run out of gas.
As my fellow committee member shared more
information about the situation, I learned that this family had taken two
vehicles in order to load up as many possessions as possible. I wondered how
many other families had done the same, helping to create the traffic nightmare
in which they now found themselves.
I wondered what sort of thought process
had gone into the decision to take both their SUVs. Surely they must have
realized that this would contribute to traffic congestion. Did they simply
dismiss such concerns in the face of their desire to save both of their cars
along with as much as they could stash in them?
Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that this
couple acted as they did. In a way, they were simply living into our American
culture of individualism and materialism. Back when Hummers had a moment of
popularity as vehicles, I once heard a driver dismiss concerns about the amount
of fuel they used by saying he could afford it, it was his money, and no one
had any business saying otherwise.
I don’t know anything about that Houston couple’s
faith life, but I was a little surprised that the mother on the presbytery
committee shared the fact of the two vehicles as though it was a perfectly
normal thing to do. Doesn’t Christian faith require one to consider their
behavior’s impact on their neighbor? And here the impact was extremely
detrimental.
Now perhaps all this seems little
connected to a scripture passage about whether it’s permissible to eat meat
that had been sacrificed to idols. For that matter, how can we relate to that
subject at all? It’s a concern from another time, from a completely different
world. It will never come up in any of our lives.
That is certainly true, but the issues
that arise from the question of eating meat sacrificed to idols may well be
issues that we must deal with, so perhaps we should take the time to understand
what Paul is talking about.
A little background will probably help.
Paul had founded the church in Corinth, and he kept in touch with them. He got
first hand reports from others who visited there, and the members at Corinth
would write him with concerns.
The
congregation seems to have been made up mostly of Gentiles and not Jewish
converts, and there was a broad mix of wealthy and poor, educated and
uneducated. From the earlier parts of the letter, it is clear that divisions
have developed within the Corinthian church, sometimes along socio-economic
lines.
Clearly some of the wealthier and more
sophisticated members looked down on the members they saw as simpler and with
less understanding. These well to do members had embraced their new faith with
great enthusiasm, and they applied themselves to understanding the nuances of
their newfound, monotheistic theology. And the question of food sacrificed to
idols was simply one of the flash points around this.
Corinth was home to some prominent pagan
temples, and these were central part of community life. There were regular
festivals and gatherings there, attended by anyone who was anyone, and a great
place to hobnob with other important people. These gatherings typically served
meat that started out as animal sacrifices. For that matter, most of the meat
at the local butcher shop had started out the same way.
The wealthy, learned members of the church
had studied their faith carefully, and it seemed to them that if there was
really only one God, then meat sacrificed to idols didn’t really have any
association with other gods since there were no such things. And so they
reasoned that they could continue to eat at the festivals and participate fully
in Corinthian society.
But other members, those the wealthy
regarded as less sophisticated, worried that eating meat sacrificed to idols
brought them back into the pagan world they had left when they started
following Jesus. If they simply participated in pagan life as though nothing
had changed, had anything changed?
At issue here is something as pertinent to
our day as it was to Paul’s. What boundaries and limits does Christian faith
put on participation in a world that is not governed by the ways of Christ? The
Corinthians have asked Paul to settle this dispute amongst the church members.
Can they participate fully and completely in their non-Christian world, or are
there boundaries they should not cross?
I suspect that the wealthy Corinthians
expected Paul to agree with them. Paul was, after all, an incredibly
sophisticated religious thinker. Surely he would appreciate the rightness of
their position.
In the verses we heard, Paul seems to
accept their rationale for going to the temple festivals, although he has more
to say on that beyond the verses that we heard today. But even though, perhaps
just for the sake of argument, Paul concedes their point about there really
being no other gods and food is not what brings them close to God, he does not
take their position. Paul consistently sides with the poor and the weak.
Paul tips his hand right from the start
when he says, Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. For Paul,
even the most sophisticated theology must be in service to the ethic of love.
Knowledge not centered on love, that merely helps get the most good for the
individual, is contrary to life in Christ. For Paul, whatever freedom he has
must be tempered by any negative impact it may have on a neighbor.
For Paul, it is crucial that no church
member, no matter how sophisticated and well thought out their theology, ever
do anything that might injure the faith of a fellow member. The needs of the
fellow believer take precedence over his own, and Paul would just as soon never
eat meat if he thought it might compromise another’s faith.
I should add that Paul later warns the
Corinthians to have nothing to do with idols. It seems he has used this dispute
to emphasize his ethic of love, but later he argues that association with idol
worship is incompatible with the faith.
But what does Paul have to say to our
situation? I mentioned earlier that Paul is addressing the issue of boundaries
for Christians living in a non-Christian society, and I would argue that we are
living in precisely the same situation. Our culture still has a bit of
Christian veneer about it, but the way it worships wealth, power, individual
freedom, efficiency, and busyness are all at odds with Christian faith.
I wonder if those Christians, and I
probably include myself in this group, who have made easy accommodations with
living in a wealth centered, individualistic, consumerist society haven’t
damaged the faith of others. We have made faith so indistinct from the culture
that almost no one who observes us sees anything compelling about the faith.
And if faith is about nothing more than believing in Jesus to get your ticket
punched for heaven, we’ve tossed out the lion’s share of Jesus’ teachings.
In our day, a lot of people are,
understandably, concerned about the future of the faith and the church. Church
participation continues to decline in the US at an accelerating rate, and we’ve
seen the impact of that here at the Meeting House. But I wonder if the issues
Paul grapples with in his letter to the Corinthian Christians might not offer
us some guidance and even hope.
What if we lived our faith with a careful
eye as to how it is perceived by others, as well as carefully examining how it
needs to be distinct from the culture? Might we not have a unique opportunity
to bear witness to the way of Jesus, to show others a different way, an
alternative way, one more in accord with Jesus’ vision of a transformed world?
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