Growing Pains: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 - Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany

 ¹Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. ²Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; ³but anyone who loves God is known by him.

  ⁴Hence, 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.” ⁵Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords—⁶yet 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.
  ⁷It 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. ⁹But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. ¹⁰For 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? ¹¹So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. ¹²But when you thus sin against members of your family, and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. ¹³Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall. (NRSV)

Heart by najarich on Flickr. CC BY-ND 2.0

As the dust tries to settle following the contentious 2020 presidential election, the word unity continues to be on the lips of politicians and pundits. That shouldn’t come as a surprise, given that we are the United States of America.  But how do we achieve unity? How can it go from being a buzzword spoken by people who want to make themselves look good, to being a reality in our common life?

With that in mind, we turn to our second reading from the book of First Controversies, or what is more traditionally known as First Corinthians. Anyone who thinks that a growing church is a church without problems needs to read these letters from the Apostle Paul. While it was, indeed, a growing church, the addition of new members to the body brought complications; what we’d call growing pains. 

Corinth was a bustling and prosperous metropolis, located in modern-day Greece. It was also home to at least twelve pagan temples, whose gods were worshiped through disgusting acts of immorality. Therefore, when you converted to Christianity, you were certainly going to stand out from the crowd in terms of how you lived. The challenges of living faithfully amid so much greed and idolatry never ceased. 

Soon, a major controversy arose within the church: the eating of food sacrificed to idols. In Corinth, much of the meat sold in the marketplaces came from animals offered in pagan ritual sacrifices. Many Christians believed, that by eating this meat, they were defiling themselves, dishonoring God, and conforming too much to the ways of nonbelievers. 

On the other hand, many Christians were totally fine eating the meat—including Paul. Since pagan idols aren’t real, and the rituals meaningless, wat harm could a Christian bring upon themselves? But not all Christians saw it that way. Next thing you know, those who ate with a clear conscience began pointing fingers at those who did not, calling them “weak,” and “prudish.” Those who didn’t eat watched in horror at those who did ate their fill. This quickly became a major problem.

Here’s the thing to remember—disagreement isn’t evil. It is inevitable in all human relationships. The people of God have disagreed with one another for as long as there have been people of God. Some things are not up for debate: “there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ.” You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and strength, and you shall love your neighbor as yourself. The Apostles’ Creed is not up for debate. But truth is not a weapon to be used against other people. 

Paul saw no sin in eating sacrificial meat. But all Christian conduct is governed by the law of love. Therefore, if your eating causes a fellow Christian to stumble in their relationship with God and the church, then you are obligated to abstain—both from eating the meat and from behaving condescendingly to those who do not. 

As I said, disagreement isn’t evil. Conflict isn’t evil. Unfortunately, living faithfully in a sinful and chaotic world will never be as easy and clear-cut as we’d like it to be. But we make conflict toxic when we value being right more than we value the other. No matter how righteous your cause may be, you will always be in the wrong when being right and getting your way is more important than being like Jesus. 

Novelist Aldous Huxley said it this way: “Those who crusade not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better… To be more against the devil than for God is exceedingly dangerous.”

One of the biggest challenges facing the modern church is that we are known more for who and what we are against than who and what we are for. There is no quicker and more effective way to drive people away from Jesus than through judgment, shaming, labeling, attacking, and gossip. 

Conflict and disagreement need not be toxic for the people of God. In Christ, they are redemptive—because they turn us towards Christ. They open the door to the sharing of the fruits of the Spirit: patience, gentleness, humility, and self-control. It’s not the lack of disagreement that makes us strong; it’s how we engage each another within disagreement that makes us strong. As we live in a world that’s bitterly divided; as we know from our social media feeds that we are not of one mind in how we vote or where we get our news; be certain that the issues that divide us are no match for the love of Jesus! 

That’s good news, because we have a lot of difficult decisions ahead of us as we look to life after Covif-19. The pathway to making our congregations financially sustainable and missionally viable will demand great courage and sacrifices. Through these growing pains, the Holy Spirit prepares us for God’s future plans.  

But if two or more people can come together and agree on nothing else but that God is love and that God loves the stranger just as much as God loves them, God’s love in those persons will change the world. 

Jesus never promised that everyone will love you and agree with you because you are his disciple. And he didn’t send his disciples out into the world to prove to everyone else that they were right. But when Christian love binds us to each other, nothing can tear us apart . Love becomes our peace and security. Love is the gift we share that heals the world. And no challenge or hardship can get the best of us when we face it together in Christ.