Thankful Memorial Episcopal Church
Chattanooga, Tennessee
The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year B
January 28, 2018
Readings: Deuteronomy 18.15-20, Psalm 111, I Corinthians 8.1-13, Mark 1.21-28
Corinth was like the Las Vegas of the ancient Mediterranean world. It was a racey place, a wild city with a reputation, but also a business center. And as such, it attracted people from all over. And these diverse people brought their gods with them. Scholars say that there would have been innumerable shrines to innumerable gods in the city. And no one was worried about being mutually exclusive. It was sort of like an endless religious buffet of whatever suited you at that moment.
In today’s passage from I Corinthians, Paul writes to people who live and work and worship in this context. They are new to this Way of following Christ. And they are arguing about a lot of things, like eating meat sacrificed to countless idols in the city. So they ask Paul: Should we eat meat sacrificed to idols? Or shouldn’t we? It seems simple enough, and yet it is not. The rich would accept social invitations to dine in the temples, and these opportunities were a chance for social advancement. As for the poor, the only time they might eat meat was when it was distributed at public religious festivals after it had been sacrificed to idols.
So the question about eating meat is a serious one for the Corinthians. It is about the worship of idols, certainly. In eating this meat that was sacrificed to an idol, am I being unfaithful to the one, true God? But it is about other things, too. What happens if my friends invite me over to the neighborhood temple? Do I decline the invitation for my own religions reasons or can I accept it? Can I eat the only meat I’m likely ever to get, despite the fact that it’s given in the name of another god? What should we do? These are not abstract questions. The issue affects the nitty-gritty of daily life in Christ. At the root of all of these questions is, how do I follow Christ in Corinth?
St. Paul gives an interesting answer to all of this. On the one hand, he says, it doesn’t matter. They’re just idols. There is only one, true God, and as long as you know that, it’s okay. You have freedom in Christ. But on the other hand, eating this meat might cause division in the assembly. There are some who are not sure about this, who are trying to feel their way around this issue. Don’t boast that you’re further along than they are, that you figured it out first. You might hurt them, and if you do that, you’re hurting Christ. So, Paul concludes, I’m not going to eat the meat, even if I have the freedom to do that. My relationship with my fellow Christ-followers is too important. We’re connected, and I am not going to do something that hurts them. I’m going to limit myself out of my love for them. I’m going to make my own sacrifice. And St. Paul is asking them to do as he does: limit themselves out of their love for others in the assembly, despite the sacrifice of social status or opportunities for advancement.
And there it is, the answer: a central part of what it means to follow Christ in Corinth or in Chattanooga is to consider the needs and concerns of our brothers and sisters in Christ above our own, so that we bear one another’s burdens and celebrate one another’s joys. At its greatest depth, love in Christ means sacrifice.
This is what it means to be the Church. We are a community of believers who strive to follow Christ, brothers and sisters baptized into Christ’s death and resurrection, a family of very different people with the same mission of representing Christ to one another and to the world. We are a communion of love–not the sentimental love of romantic comedies, but a love that loves until the end, no matter the cost, despite our differences, a love that makes sacrifices.
But we can’t do this on our own. I once heard about a group of nuns living in New York City. They provided social services to a very poor, rundown, and frankly forgotten area of the city. They had moved there a long time ago, when the neighborhood looked pretty different. They stayed when the grocer down the street decided to close up shop. They stayed when the school consolidated with another school because there weren’t enough teachers. They stayed when social services moved in and then moved out again. They stayed as their own resources dwindled, and as calls for them to move to a better part of town mounted. The nuns stayed through it all. A researcher was intrigued by what gave them their staying power, and asked one of the aging nuns in the bunch, “Everyone is gone, but how do you stay? How are you able to go on, seemingly without getting burned out or giving up?” They answered, “We love the people here.” “Yes, I’m sure you do,” the researcher replied. “But so did the grocer, and the teachers at the school who left, and all of those people in those nonprofits that moved out. How is your love different?” “Well,” the nun replied, “These people are my family… And I pray a lot. I have felt the love of God, so I know there’s plenty to go around here.”
Perhaps what the nun was getting at is this life of sacrificial love does not depend on our own strength alone–indeed, it can’t depend on our strength alone. In our baptisms, we are invited to share in the very life of God, a life which is endless and infinite Love between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit–a Love that we are caught up in, that we are pulled into, that reaches out to us and feeds us, a love that connects us to one another as brothers and sisters and makes us children of God. We all share in this love, and it is from God’s love that we are able to love one another. Because of that we can bear one another’s burdens, we can love no matter the cost. We can love our life away, because we are connected to the very source and Lord of Life.
But we should not fool ourselves. This way of life, this way of loving every day, of making sacrifices for our brothers and sisters around us, leads us down the way of the cross, down the way of giving all for the sake of another, down the way of laying down one’s ambitions, one’s hopes and dreams, and one’s very life for another. And in a world so concerned about the self, about getting ahead, about getting a competitive advantage or the upper hand, there could be nothing more counter-cultural, no way of life more radical. And yet we find, at the end of that way of love that holds nothing back and sacrifices all, there we find nothing but life and peace–the life and peace of God.
Storied Grace 