Rosedale United Church

‘Free to be Bound‘ January 29, 2012

Rosedale United Church

(1 Corinthians 8:1-13)

Doug Norris

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Well, I have to confess, this is one gnarly text. It runs in circles, and then it circles back on itself. It is the Biblical equivalent of the Macarena. I have read it about 16 times this week and am just now beginning to understand it. So I am hesitant to just plunk it down on the table here. You are bright people and no doubt will grasp what Paul really wants to convey, but I need to come at it carefully. Let me break it down into some moving parts, lay out some markers.

First part. It’s about food. It all so often comes back to food. Who’s hungry, who is well-fed, who gets to eat with who, why if the people lose their land, or their jobs, they can’t eat. Jesus saying – ‘I am the bread of Life – eat this bread and you will never be hungry.’ Theologian John Crossan quotes the Bible – We do not live by bread alone. But – he says – bread is never alone. Everything is connected with food. Paul starts us off here with talk about eating meat.

A booklet was dropped off here a few weeks ago. Why Jesus Did Not Eat Meat. Published by Vegetarians for Jesus. Very polite little booklet. I looked this up. Some interesting ideas. Apparently the word ‘fish’ in the new testament may actually be a mis-translation. The Greek word is very close to the word ‘fish-weed’. A kind of seaweed. So maybe Jesus didn’t eat fish – he ate seaweed. Fishweed. (Catholics eating seaweed on Fridays? ‘Kelp & Chips’ shops all over Britain? ) Another article suggested that Jesus was actually crucified because when he overturned the tables in the temple he was trying to protect the animals and birds that were being sold there. I don’t know about this, but there it is…

Let’s set aside whether Jesus was a vegetarian or not… Paul’s argument begins with food. In Corinth there is just the one church, the one Paul founded, not a building, just a group of people who meet in homes but there are many temples to other gods. The usual Greek gods – Persephone, Artemis… And it is the custom to sacrifice meat to these gods, and then the meat is available for eating or for sale. So the good people of the church may end up in the position, at a public event or when visiting a neighbour, of eating meat that was dedicated to a pagan god, a possible blasphemy.

I had never really thought about this, but among the three Abrahamic faiths, Christianity is the only one with no dietary laws. We can eat what we want. In fact for many North American Christians the issue is not what we eat but how much we eat.

For Muslims meat must be ‘Halal’, a term which simply means ‘permitted’. Meat must be slaughtered in a very specific way – the animal facing Mecca, the cut made in a certain way, and it must be slaughtered by a Muslim in good standing.

For Jews, much the same applies, to Kosher foods. Some animals and birds are simply off limits, and there are the same regulations as the Muslims have about methods of slaughter, and this must be done by an approved Jewish butcher.

Christians live with no such laws. Although it occurs to me that strictly speaking a serious fundamentalist Christian would have to consider themselves bound by all of the laws of the Old Testament, and few of them do, other than when it comes to homosexuality. (see letter to Dr Laura Schlesinger – ‘Why can’t I own a Canadian?’)

Point being, we can eat what we want. This is likely the gift of the Apostle Paul, who promoted Christian liberty from the various old laws, and he saw a new community built not on law but on faith. He taught that the law was necessary, as a disciplinarian, until Christ came, and now that we are in him we do not need law to govern us. (For more on this read Galatians…)

There are the first 2 markers. At the start this is about food, and liberty from old laws. Let’s have a go at the actual text for a moment : (vv 1-6) “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.”

So Paul starts in about food that has been sacrificed to idols – then he says – ‘but some of you are clever, and you have figured out that these idols are not real. There are hundreds of little fake gods – but only one real God. So the food is not tainted at all, these sacrifices are empty. So it’s OK for you. You know you are in the clear.’

He goes on. Here’s the thing, he says : not everyone is as learned and sophisticated. There are brothers and sisters in the church who have long believed that these idols are real, and they still see these sacrifices as real, and they will feel defiled.

Here’s how he puts it : (vv 7-8) “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.”

So – now Paul is warming up to his point, the reason for the whole dance. So – he says – be careful with your liberty. Be careful with your brothers and sisters who are not in the same place as you, and who might be

Be careful with your liberty. You are, in Christ, freed and able to do many things. But your freedom is to be constrained by love. It is lawful for us to do many things – he is asking us to consider whether it is loving.

This is in the category of the Charter challenge in our courts. We have a set of rights, clearly laid out, and in fact we highly privilege the rights of the individual. But time and again these rights interfere with our obligations in community, our duty of care to one another. And we are constrained.

I don’t know if there has ever been an age, a time, in which so many of us have been so able to do so many things. Culture, travel, and technology come together to liberate us from what might, in another age, have been the bounds of geography, the tightness of the nuclear family, the rigours of religion, the limits on communication. And now we are free to obey or to leave our parents and their homes, and most of the western world is free from the oppressive forms of religion that held people in fear, and there is almost nothing in the imagination that we can’t see in a moment on our internet screens. We are almost unbounded in our liberties. So Paul’s question becomes urgent : how will we use our liberty ? Will it orient us only toward ourselves, or toward the other, the neighbour?

At the Bible Study group this week we puzzled over this. We wander through the text and then I always need to ask – so what does this come to? What should be preached about this? Why does it matter?

And one of the group said – maybe it means we need to pause. Each time we are going to act or say something, to pause and be sure it is the right thing. To ask how it affects the others.

This is counter-cultural. To pause. We are supposed to be in a hurry. In our listening we are often ready to say our next piece before the other person has even finished. In our bias to action we often want to move quickly and are not reflective. Sometimes even when we are reflective it is not in the direction of wondering how others will be affected by what we, in perfect liberty, do. We think, for the most part, strategically, tactically.

To pause. Hundreds of little momentary sabbaths – to run what we are about to do or say through this filter : of course I am able and allowed to do this or say this or be this – but does it bring life? Does it affect the other? Is it right?

Here is the irony. Paul, the great theologian of Christian freedom and liberty, is urging us to be bound. To tie ourselves, once again, this time to each other. To be drawn toward the whole world of people to whom we are connected. We are not, now, shackled together by any laws, but only by what Kahlil Gibran called ‘the moving sea between the shores of our souls…’

Because Paul understands – it is his mystical theology – he understands that we are not ‘in’ God, not ‘in Christ, if we are not in and with and for one another.

Come Spirit come, our hearts control, our spirits long to be made whole!

Let inward love guide every deed, by this we worship, and are freed.