Here is the second catch-up post on this, the weather day that has turned out to be miserable but not particularly dangerous. Still, it's been good to have a quiet moment to sit and do these things.
This message is from the time of Epiphany - January 31, 2021. Staying on track for at least one message per month! I thought it was going to be all about food since food dominates pretty much everything I do these days. But no... it turned out to be about something quite different thanks to the gentle but firm nudge of the Holy Spirit.
The message was delivered at Springmoor Retirement Village Vespers but the video system rebelled so I don't have any kind of recording to share. The text is below, though, and I hope you are happy to have read it (you know, if you decide to read it.)
The texts are:
My friends and I love that the word cloud turned out looking a little bit like a fish. A most delicious food!
Feed us tonight, Holy Spirit. Feed us with your word and your love and your grace. Amen.
My whole life is all about food these days: running a food pantry, cooking at home more than ever due to COVID, and trying to eat healthy meals with the result of losing 36 pounds. So I was really attracted to this particular passage and am thrilled that Juliana and Lori asked me to be here tonight!
What I am wondering about tonight is… what is this business of food and idols?
It turns out that the congregation in Corinth had been squabbling and that’s why Paul was writing this letter. They lived in a world where people believed whatever they wanted to believe (much like our world today) and their culture had norms and priorities and ways of doing things that didn’t necessarily have to be, but everybody just knew that’s how things were. Much like our world today.
One of those norms was that they worshipped by sacrificing food to idols, and then having feasts.
So when the Christians came along with their common (or communion) meal, lots of people did what they always do – try to make it fit with what “everybody” knew. In this case it was worshipping their god of choice by eating.
It was a little like the way Roman Catholics believe that their communion is only for professing Catholics and anyone else is not welcomed (at least by their canonical law, which is not always the same as what priests and congregations actually do.)
On the other hand, the ELCA (my branch of Lutheranism), Juliana’s Episcopalians, and Chaplain Lori’s Methodists all say anybody can participate (or to be technically correct for Lutherans and Episcopalians, anyone baptized.)
There are rules about who eats and what it means when they eat but even when they sound similar, those rules can mean really different things to different people.
But the Corinthians weren’t so worried about who should be at their own common meal. They were really uneasy about whether they could go eat somebody else’s meal. Would eating with others mean they were disrespecting their own group? Would God be mad at them for eating some other god’s special food?
And THAT is where this scripture picks up. Paul is saying NO YOU ARE NOT DISRESPECTING YOUR OWN GOD (THE REAL GOD) because those other gods, those idols, are simply not real. They are not powerful. The one God – the God who is REAL GOD – just sees some food prepared by some of the Real God’s children in a way that was respectful and appreciative… of something or other.
Maybe a little misguided, but while Christian communion where the Real God is in and over and under and with the bread and wine, the food to the idols was not special in that same way because it wasn’t for the Real God. So… there y’go. Don’t worry about it Corinthians. Because there is nothing at all wrong with eating food sacrificed to an idol that doesn’t exist.
But was that the end of it?
No. No it was not.
Because squabblers gonna squabble and squabbling about whether it is ok to eat the delicious pagan barbecue is as good a reason to squabble as any.
Yes you can! The idols aren’t real!
No you can’t! Those other people THINK they are real! (or maybe.. I used to think they were rea, tool?)
Back and forth.
It reminds me of vegans who hold “we should not be cruel to animals” as such a deeply held belief that they have to live it out daily or they can’t live with themselves. So they don’t use anything that comes from an animal – not even leather shoes.
It reminds me of meat eaters who need and crave animal protein in order to feel good and healthy and believe that animals can live lives in which they are happy and cared for.
And could those two groups squabble? Oh yeah. FOR. SURE. Daily! Because deeply held beliefs seldom stay in us. We always get tripped up thinking everybody should have the same deeply held beliefs we do.
But one of our most faithful volunteers at the Parktown Food Hub is vegan and I have seen her in a barbecue restaurant buying meat to go because her extended family was in town and they love meat and she loves them and the barbecue was a fundraiser. She didn’t eat it, but she didn’t fight about it, either.
And someday when COVID allows us to have group meals again at the Parktown Food Hub we are going to make sure that there is good healthy vegan food sitting right alongside good healthy meat and animal foods. Because the overriding value of the Parktown Food Hub is to follow the model of Jesus and Jesus loves my friends and they eat meat or don’t eat meat or have allergies or whatever. So we respect what is important to each person, even if it isn’t so important to some other folks.
And that brings us, I think, to Paul’s main point:
If you know God is one and there is only one God, by definition it cannot matter that someone else thinks they are sacrificing to some other god. Because if you really believe there is only one God, then you also really believe that the other person’s lower-case-g-god does not exist as a god. The lower-case-g-gods really don’t challenge the Real God at all.
There is only one God. So even if someone else sees that one God in different ways, it’s still the same God!
Let’s face it: that one God as big and deep and diverse to create the universe and love us all, and die and not stay dead, then there is plenty of room for each one of us to see and know and experience and follow that one great big Real God in different ways.
If the people cooking or doing whatever they do are not genuinely worshipping the Real God, then it’s just ordinary food, or an ordinary thing. Like preferring brisket or ribs – it doesn’t matter that much!
Because, you see, in Real God – in Jesus – both brisket and ribs are fine. And delicious. And a beautiful thing.
What is not fine and not a beautiful thing is beating each other up and creating hierarchies and separation and division because of something that does not really matter in the end.
Because we are either worshipping the same God in different ways, or somebody is worshipping God and someone else is not, or nobody is worshipping God. And only God really knows who’s who.
Recently we had a workday at the Parktown Food Hub getting things ready for a great big Christmas giveaway. There were Lutherans and Brethren and Methodists, Buddhists and Muslims and people who don’t admit to any kind of faith.
And we were all doing the same things for basically the same reasons.
We were all converging on the thing that Jesus spoke about and modeled and taught:
* Helping the poor and hurting
* Comforting the weak and afraid
* Bringing hope to the sad and lonely and hopeless
* Focusing on people who are in bad situations and being kind
We were all in agreement (even those who don’t celebrate Christmas as a Christian thing) that nobody should be hungry and that children should receive gifts, especially in this land of abundance that is matched only by our wastefulness.
And if we all ended up doing what Jesus showed us how to do, how can we squabble over why?
If a pagan person thinks loving is good
If a Buddhist person wants to help their neighbors
If a Lutheran wants to respond to a Resurrected Jesus
Then I am willing to stake my life and career on this truth:
Loving is what counts and it counts way more than anyone’s particular motivation is.
Jesus’ life is how we know how to live. The Resurrection is what makes it possible.
When someone does what Jesus taught, they are following Jesus. There is nothing to squabble about.
If a person hits roadblocks because of spiritual weakness (as Paul put it) or because their current motivation doesn’t carry them through, that is the moment to walk together. But where they started doesn’t matter.
Our job is to help.
Our job is to love.
Our job is to trust that if Jesus could die and not stay dead, then Jesus can bring everything else into being as well.
We can let go of telling each other how to live out our calls and trust that a Jesus who died for everyone one of us will also give us each opportunities to realize that the call comes from Jesus.
So our task? Live our own calls. Love others. Let knowing the one Real God does not make you better but it does make you different.
And then live out that difference so that everyone wants to know why.
AMEN.
This reminded me of a Dar Williams song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vggo_9EDZU
ReplyDeleteI *love* that song! It is hard to know if the song influenced my thinking or if I liked the song because I was already thinking in that direction, but either way... it's an awesome song. :-)
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