“It’s Not About You, Or Me, But Us”        Dr. Julie Adkins

Text:  1 Corinthians 8:1-13                   

SERMON

Now, I recognize that it is not a burning issue

            among Christians any more:

            whether or not we should eat meat

                        that had been offered as a sacrifice to idols.

Somehow,

            when you’re walking through

                        the meat section of your nearby grocery store,

            that just isn’t a question that it occurs to you to ask!

So you might be wondering

            why I would choose such a passage to preach on.

It’s not exactly a burning issue

            in this third millennium!

  

And yet, at a deeper level, it is an issue.

Not the question of idols and meat-eating itself,

            but the larger question behind it.

Which is this:

            how much freedom do we as Christians have?

                        and the flip side of that,

            to what, if anything, must we be obedient?

See, the Corinthian Christians

            had kind of gone overboard with the gospel.

Actually, being a port city,

            Corinth was an overboard kind of place to begin with.

I imagine it as kind of like New Orleans,

            a place where you could “let the good times roll”!

People came through Corinth from lots of different places …

            it was very cosmopolitan;

                        you would have heard lots of different languages

                                    as you walked through the streets.

And, Corinth apparently lived up to the stereotype

            people have about port cities

                        where you have lots of sailors passing through!

Kind of rowdy,

            kind of “anything goes.”

So that was the background of the people in Corinth

            who heard the gospel and became Christians.

They heard about the freedom Christ gives …

            freedom from the law,

                        freedom from slavish obedience to rules or authorities …

            and that sounded like just the ticket!

It wasn’t complete and total anarchy,

            but at times it came pretty close.

So it’s out of that kind of setting

            that the question they wrote to Paul about arose.

It must have read something like this:

            “Dear Paul,

                        We have learned from you that idols aren’t really gods,

                                    and that only God is God.

                        So we have reasoned it out,

                                    that it can’t really be blasphemous or anything

                                    if we eat meat that was sacrificed to them,

                                                since they aren’t really gods anyway.

                        It’s like, it was sacrificed to nothing.

                        Besides, Paul, you know how crazy it is in the marketplace here.

                        When you’re buying from one of the merchants,

                                   you can’t always know which meat came from the temples,

                                    and which was just slaughtered in the normal way.

                        So Paul, please tell us it’s okay to eat whatever we want.”

  

Paul’s answer to them is really quite interesting.

In theory, he says to them, you are absolutely right.

Your knowledge is correct;

            you do have freedom in Christ,

            you are not bound by the provisions of the Jewish Law,

                        which would have forbidden eating such meat.

But. says Paul,

            that’s only a part of the right answer.

There is in fact a more important consideration.

Your own individual freedom to do something or not do it,

            as important as that is,

     is not as important as how your behavior affects people around you.

So, for example, let’s say that your neighbor sees you eating this meat,

            and doesn’t know that you are free to do so,

                        but thinks instead that you are worshipping that idol,

                        and being a hypocrite about your Christianity,

            and so they fall away from their own faith.

That would be a terrible thing.

So if your actions

            are likely to cause your brother or sister to stumble,

                        then you shouldn’t do them,

                        even if it’s “technically,” “legally” all right.

  

Now that’s not a new concept –

            many of us, for example, think in these terms

                        when it comes to the question alcohol, and drinking.

Most Presbyterians, anyway, agree that

            it’s all right for a Christian person

                        to have a drink now and then …

            but we’re also concerned about how widely alcohol is misused,

                        and how many people and families have been hurt by that misuse.

So if, let’s say,

            we invite a friend over for dinner

                        whom we know has been struggling to stay sober,

            not only should we not offer that person a glass of wine,

                        we shouldn’t even have one ourselves.

Even though we are completely free to do so,

            we purposely limit our own freedom

                        so that we don’t cause a problem

                        for our brother or sister.

  

So then, what Paul is trying to get the Corinthians to see

            runs at a deeper level than the question they asked.

What ultimately matters for us as Christians,

            is not how much freedom we have, and from what;

                        nor is it how much obedience we show … and to what.

What matters is the way that everything we do

            gets thought about and acted out

                        in community with one another.

The questions we need to ask ourselves

            are not the usual suspects:

                        is it all right for me to do this?

                        or, is it permissible for you to do that?

            but rather,

                        if you or I do that thing, what effect will it have on other people?

In other words, as the sermon title suggests,

            it’s not about me;

                        it’s not about you;

                                    it’s about us.

  

To a certain extent, we learn to think this way

            when we get married, or enter any committed relationship with someone …

                        if we hadn’t learned it already!

No longer can we ask only

            what’s best for each of us as individuals;

            we also need to question,

                        what’s going to be best for our relationship, for the “us”?

It might be great for me personally to take that job offer in New York,

            and for you to accept that position in L.A.,

                        but what’s it going to do to us?

As followers of Christ,

            we need to learn to think this way

                        not only about our one-on-one committed relationships,

                                    but about our relationships with all people.

And that isn’t easy!

It’s hard enough some days with just that one person you’re trying to live with;

            how much more difficult it is when you’re talking about

                        a whole congregation,

                        or all Christians around the world,

                        and for that matter, all non-Christians too.

How do we think about being in community with six billion people?

  

And not only that,

            but we get to choose whom we will marry or live with;

                        we have no say in

                                    who we share the planet with.

We even have very little choice in

            who we share the pews with!

And I’m quite sure that,

            just like the character in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado,

            we’ve all “got a little list”

                        of people we could live without

                        “who never would be missed;

                          they never would be missed.”

  

And yet, Paul says …

            no, wait, God says,

                        that we are to live in community with all these people.

That most of the time, anyway,

            our calling required that we base the decisions of our personal lives

                        on how they will affect other people,

                                    not just ourselves.

 

That is often very hard to do,

            because most of us haven’t been trained to think that way.

For one thing,

            we live in a country that has traditionally

                        placed great value on individual rights and freedoms.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with that;

            it’s part of what made this country the success that it is.

But if we stop at individual rights and freedoms only,

            we’re going to be a nation of selfish, spoiled brats …

                        and it will take something like the space shuttle blowing up

                                    to bring us together,

                                    and remember how connected to each other we are.

Likewise, another major obstacle for Americans

            is the consumer culture we live in.

We are bombarded with messages telling us we need more stuff.

            Or at least bigger stuff, and newer stuff, and improved stuff.

And in part, our economy depends on our not remembering – or worse, not caring –

            that the more we have,

                        the more someone else has to do without.

  

Somehow, we have to train ourselves, or allow ourselves,

            to think again in terms of the bigger picture,

                        of relationships not only nearby but global as well.

Let’s revisit the question of alcohol.

Not only do we need to ask how our use of alcohol

            might affect the people who see us use it …

                        there’s an even bigger question to ask:

Should we be using fruits and grains to make alcohol at all

            when we could use them to feed hungry people?

Regardless of whether we’re for or against

            allowing smoking in designated sections of restaurants …

                        should we be using agricultural land to grow tobacco?

And should we quietly let our taxes continue to subsidize it?

  

Look out now, she’s quit preaching and gone to meddling.

Back to the question of grain:

Should we be eating grain-fed beef,

                        when the cattle are perfectly happy to eat grass;

                                    and people could eat the grain and the cattle?

Or should we eat meat at all?

            There are much more efficient sources of protein, after all,

                        that aren’t such a strain on the environment.

  

If we are truly in community with people around the world,

            it should concern us that all over Latin America,

                        peasant farmers have had their land taken from them

                        in order to grow crops for export to the U.S.

                                    instead of to feed those nations’ own hungry.

If we are sisters and brothers with all people,

            it should make us terribly sad and angry

                        that we have missiles pointed at them,

                                    and they at us.

And it should perhaps make us saddest and angriest of all

            that they – and we –

                        can always find billions of dollars to spend on going to war,

                        but can’t find a few lousy million to educate and feed

                                    the neediest among us, among them.

  

And if we gradually get accustomed to seeing the bigger picture,

            and if these things start to bother us enough,

                        maybe then we will be able to see

                                    and to make creative and constructive changes in the way we live.

What do we spend our money for?

            How do we spend our time?

                        To what do we devote our energy?

                                    What impact do all those things have on people near and far?

We have to answer each of those for ourselves …

            it will depend on your family situation, your living situation,

                        your income, your health,

                                    and lots of other things.

There is not one simple, cookie-cutter answer

            that is going to work for all of us.

But the questions work for us all.

Paul reminds us that it’s not about

            what you or I have to do,

                        or what we are free to do,

            but about what is good for us.

All of the children of God,

            whoever they or we are,

                        whatever their needs.

The questions must always be about us.

  

Thanks be to God

            for the gift of each other!

Amen.

 

© 2003 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)