“A LITTLE ADVICE FROM A VEGETARIAN”

I CORINTHIANS 8:1-13

8:1 Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.

2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.

4 Therefore, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “an idol has no real existence,” and that “there is no God but one.”

5 For although there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as indeed 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 However, not all possess this knowledge. But some, through former association with idols, eat food as really offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.

8 Food will not commend us 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 right of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak.

10 For if anyone sees you who have knowledge eating in an idol's temple, will he not be encouraged, if his conscience is weak, to eat food offered to idols?

11 And so by your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died.

12 Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ.

13 Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.

Imagine for a moment that you’re on a diet.  You’re trying very hard to loose a little weight and someone who knows that sits down next to you with a nice big piece of chocolate cake.  The person then takes a big bite of the chocolate cake and says “Mmm Mmmm, Mnnnnn……this is sooooooooo good!”  Now depending on how hungry you are you might say something.  Then again, if you’re really hungry the person might end up wearing that piece of chocolate cake.

If someone did that to you would you consider it inconsiderate? Would you consider it insensitive?

Some people are like that.  They really don’t think about how their words or their deeds affect the people around them.  Take the man for example who had a reputation for being a greedy self-centered miser.  One day a business associate challenged him on his penny pinching ways.  The miser was indignant and insisted he wasn’t like that at all.  “Just look at my mother,” he said.  “I couldn’t stand to see her scrubbing office floors night after night after night.  So I went out and bought the office building.”  The business associate was impressed. “Your mother must have been pleased,” he said.  The miser nodded his head and replied, “Oh, she was as soon as I moved her to the day shift.”

Some people can be inconsiderate and insensitive.

That’s the kind of behavior that the Apostle Paul was worried about when he wrote his letter to the Corinthians.  The issue at stake in the Corinthian Church may seem rather obscure to us today. Paul’s advice though is just as important for us today as it was for the Corinthians back then.

The issue in the Corinthian Church was simple.  The Corinthians wanted to know if it was okay for them to eat meat that had been sacrificed to an idol in one of the Temples.  Paul’s answer was simple.  He put himself in their shoes and said “yes, but…” 

Let me elaborate a little. In his letter Paul basically said, “I am free to eat that meat because I know that the idol in that Temple isn’t real. In my heart of hearts I know that there’s only one true God and that’s the God who came to us in Jesus Christ.  There’s only one true God and that’s the God who in Jesus Christ went to the Cross and in doing that offers us forgiveness of sins and everlasting life. That idol is just a chiseled out piece of stone. So, go ahead and eat that juicy T-bone steak, but….”

There’s always a but isn’t there?  In his letter Paul goes on and basically says, “You and I know that the idol in that Temple isn’t real.  Some of our sisters and brothers who are new to the faith, however, aren’t sure yet if the idol in that Temple is real or not.  So , what if that sister or brother sees you eating that juicy T-bone steak and decides that the idol in that Temple is real after all?”

The conclusion Paul says is clear.  That sister or brother’s faith will be weakened and a lot of the blame for that will fall on your shoulders.  So, with that in mind Paul makes a promise. In his letter Paul writes, “Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat…”

What makes this so refreshing is that before Paul decides what he’s going to do he takes the people around him into consideration.  He thinks about how his actions are going to affect the people around him.  So, it isn’t all about him.  We need a lot more of that kind of thinking today. 

You know it amazes me how often people today seem to be totally unaware of how their words and their deeds affect the people around them.  What’s even scarier is that sometimes they are aware of how their words and deeds affect the people around them.  They just don’t care.  All they care about is what’s best or easiest for them.

Tell me if this sounds familiar.  In one of the old Peanut cartoons Lucy walks into the living room where Linus is watching television.  Without giving it any thought at all she changes the channel.  Linus complains of course and asks, “What makes you think you can walk right in here and take over?”  Lucy replies by holding out her hand and saying, “These five fingers.  Individually they’re nothing but when I curl them together like this into a single unit, they form a weapon that is terrible to behold.”  Linus gulps and asks, “Which channel do you want to watch?”  He then turns to his own fingers and asks, “Why can’t you guys get organized like that?”

That’s the way it is these days. People do what they want without giving any consideration at all to the people around them.

A few months a go I saw an example of that when a mother in an SUV made a U-turn out here on Haverhill Street.  She did that so she could get in line to pick up a child at the Batchelder School.  What made it even worse is that she made that U-turn in the middle of a dangerous intersection while talking on a cell phone AND she had a toddler in the front seat with her.  The attitude there is, “I’m going to do what I want to do and it’s your job to stay out of my way.” Or how about the teenager who wears a sexually suggestive t-shirt while he’s at the mall?  Forget about the four year old who sees the t-shirt and then asks his mother, “What does that picture mean?”  Oh well, nothing you can do about it.  After all it’s the teenager’s right to wear what he wants to wear, right?  Or how about the person who scratches his or her lottery ticket at the counter in the convenience store? I had that happened to me about a year ago.  I was trying to buy a newspaper and had to reach around a woman who was scratching her lottery ticket.  I decided to let the woman know that she was in the way.  So, I gave her a gentle nudge and said, “Excuse me.”  The woman looked up and said, “Oh you’re okay.”  Or how about Robert Thain?  He’s the CEO for Merrill Lynch who was recently fired for among other things spending $1.2 million to redecorate his office.  He did that at a time his company was getting ready to received billions of dollars of taxpayer’s money.  Did you hear his explanation for spending all that money?  He said that the previous CEO had a very different décor that didn’t match the rest of the offices. He said that the very different décor would have made it very difficult for him to work and be productive.  Now there wasn’t any law that said he couldn’t redecorate his office but was it insensitive and inconsiderate of others?  Absolutely.  Whatever happened to the good old days when you always said please and thank you?  When you took your hat off when you were in someone else’s house.  When you didn’t shake a woman’s hand unless she extended her hand to you first.  When you never called a person who was older than you by his or her first name. You could call it respect.  You could call it common courtesy.  The Apostle Paul would call it agape love.

That’s a love where you think about what’s best for the people around you and sometimes you even make sacrifices for the people around you.  Unfortunately, these days what you see is a lot of eros love.  That’s a selfish, me first, give me kind of love. Each and every one of us has both of those loves in us.  We have the capacity for an eros love and we have the capacity for an agape love. 

That’s why the Apostle Paul told the Corinthians they had a choice.  They could do what was best for themselves and eat the juicy T-bone steak.  Or they could do what was best for their weaker sisters and brothers and fill up on the potatoes and vegetables instead.

With all the selfish eros love that you see these days the temptation is always there to fight fire with fire. Paul will say the same thing to you though that he said to the Corinthians. You are a person of faith.  You are a disciple of the risen Christ. You can rise above it and sent the example. You can rise above it and inspire others to find the agape love in themselves.

You can be like the boys in a fifth-grade class at Lake Elementary School in Oceanside, California.  Their story appeared in the news several years ago.  This fifth-grade class was unusual in that 14 of the boys were completely bald.  Only one of the boys didn’t have a choice in matter.  Ian O’Gorman was the boy who didn’t have any choice in the matter.  He was bald because he was undergoing chemotherapy for lymphoma.  When a ten-year-old classmate by the name of Kyle Hanslik saw his friend’s dilemma he and the rest of the boys in the class went to the local barbershop and had their heads shaved. Kyle later said, “The last thing he would want is to not fit in.  We just wanted to make him feel better.” 

The Apostle Paul would have been proud. You probably won’t find yourself being asked to eat a T-bone steak this week that has been dedicated to an idol.  You probably won’t find yourself in a situation where you have to decide if you’re going to shave off all the hair on your head.  You will probably find yourself in a situation though where you’re going to have to choose between an eros and an agape love.  Amen.

Rev. Dr. Richard A. Hughes

February 1, 2009