Christ Church Riverdale

Click here for Previous Sermons

Sermon: 1 Corinthians 8:1b-13 (Epiphany 4B)

Christ Church Riverdale, 29 January 2006

The Rev. Robert C. Lamborn, Rector

^NRSV 1 Corinthians 8:1 [Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge."] Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. ² Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; ³ but anyone who loves God is known by him. ⁴ 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." ⁵ Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth-- as in fact there are many gods and many lords-- ⁶ 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. ⁷ 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. 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. ⁹ But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. ¹⁰ 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? ¹¹ So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. ¹² But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. ¹³ Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.

If you looked carefully at your bulletin for the scripture citation for today’s second reading, you might have noticed it said 1 Corinthians 8:1b-13, the “b” meaning the passage started  not at the beginning of the verse, but in the middle.  Why? What did the developers of our lectionary think was wrong with the first part of verse one that meant it should be left out?  It reads “Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that ‘all of us possess knowledge.’” then continues as we heard,  “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”  Stay with me for a bit here; it’ll come clear why I think this is important.  Paul’s letters to churches often contain responses to specific questions posed by the members of the church he’s writing, and this is one of those cases.  Unfortunately we don’t have the other side of the correspondence– the letters to Paul in addition to the letters of Paul, but it’s clear that he has been asked about how to deal with a practice common in the ancient Mediterranean world--offerings to pagan gods as a routine part of the butchering of animals for meat.

 It’s easy for us to think of monotheism as the normal state of religion throughout most of history, but in the time and place I’m describing, monotheists were a very small minority.  Not too long after the writing of Paul’s letters, a description of the city of Corinth mentioned temples or shrines to these different deities: “Chronos, Poseidon, the Sun, the Calm, the Sea, Aprhodite, Artemis, Isis, Dionysius, a tree, Fortune, Apollo, Hermes, Zeus, Asklepios, Bunaea, and many other[s.]”[1]  When an animal was butchered, it was normal to sacrifice some of it as a burnt offering to some deity or other, and then use the rest of the meat in one of three ways: there might be a shared meal in celebration of the sacrifice, it might be distributed to the public as part of a pagan festival (and this was basically the only opportunity poor people had to eat meat) or it might be sold in the market. 

So how should Christians respond in a city that didn’t have secular butchers, only “faith based” ones?  Should poor Christians refuse the free meat offered at festivals, the only chance they had to enjoy meat?  Should Christians invited by friends to a meal in the “parish hall” of a pagan temple, so to speak decline the invitation, along with the business opportunities from the socializing?  As Christians “we all have knowledge” that those other deities–idols in our text--aren’t real, that there’s only 1 living God.  This is why I asked you to stay with me; why the designer of a lectionary could well think that “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up,” is a better way to start a passage a better way to get people’s attention than, “Now concerning food sacrificed to idols . . . .”  Zzzzzz  [falling asleep]

So does it matter?  What does it have to do with us how Paul advised a church on the other side of the world 2000 years ago how to deal with food sacrificed to idols--a situation we don’t even face?  Even though we don’t face the specifics of the situation–meat sacrificed to idols–we very much face the same dynamics of the situation.  Paul makes the issue more broad than just meat.

“We all have knowledge,” the Corinthians say to him, but that may not be completely true.  All churches have members at different stages in their spiritual  journeys, at different levels of security in their faith, different depths of learning.  While most members of the church know these idols aren’t real they need to be careful, Paul says, not to cause the weaker members to stumble, to be scandalized, to bring the term directly over from the Greek. 

Paul takes a question about food and knowledge and turns it into an issue of love--moving from the head and the belly to the heart.  “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. . . . Anyone who loves God is known by him.”  This knowing is deep and profound--the Bible has a tradition of using the verb “to know”as a euphemism for intimate relations.  More important that what we think we know is how we love, how we invite God to know us.  Idolatry isn’t just about statues, but anything we treat as more important than God.

As a matter of Christian behavior in the world, it is important not only what we know but to take account of our brothers and sisters in Christ.  We can act as if “everybody” is a certain way: thinks the same thing, knows the same things, can afford the same things, values the same things,but one of the blessings of being church–and particularly of being Christ Church Riverdale is that we are together with a variety of different people.  Expressing our freedom as an individual in Christ–considers the common good of the Body of Christ, with the goal of building up, of edifying,  that Body.

About twenty years ago, my parents and I went on a little vacation to Kentucky.  My mother loves horses, and we went to a horse farm now set up as a park where people can visit.  One evening we went to a track for an evening of harness racing.  It was a nice setup; you made a dinner reservation for before the races, and the tables looked out over the track, so you could see the horses parade in and then race.  It was a nice time; we had a nice meal,    talked about the different gaits used by trotters versus pacers, looked over the race card and tried to decide where to bet our self-imposed allotment of $2 per race per person.  I even won a little bit of money on one race, but then lost it trying to hit it big by going with the long shot in the next race.  To get closer to the action, my dad and I went outside the restaurant and down to the fence, and there we saw a very different situation.  The people there hadn’t made dinner reservations and a number of them appeared to be there not for entertainment but out of habit or even addiction.  From the torn-up tickets on the ground, I got the idea that they were betting a lot more than $2 per race--money they might not always be able to afford.

The contrast I experienced that evening at the horse track has always reminded me of what I think Paul is getting at here.  It wasn’t wrong in an individual or family sense for the Lamborns to spend the evening at the track and bet an amount of money we could easily afford to lose; there was no problem strictly between us and God.  At the same time, ever since then I have been very reluctant to gamble out of concern for the broader situation, for the man who comes on payday and gambles his family’s grocery money or rent money.  This is not to say it is wrong for other people to gamble, but it’s a choice I have made.

There are countless different ways in our lives that we are given opportunity not involving meat sacrificed to idols or horse racing, but very much involving the dynamic–     the opportunity to use the gift of our individual freedom in ways that consider the situation of other people and how we might affect the larger church.  Whatever the specifics of the situation, the principle of love will apply having regard not only for one’s own situation but for the others made in God’s image in church and world--love the edifies, that builds up community, that strengthens our bonds in Christ.

Send mail to the Webmaster with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2005 ChurchLongName.