Not Just About Me
1 Corinthans 8:1-13[1]
Most of us have lived our entire lives during great
upheaval. That turmoil began with the sweeping social and political changes in
the 1960’s and 70’s. In those days people began questioning everything from
morality to economics to religion to government. To be sure, there had been
those who marched to a different drum beat before that time. But in those days
it seemed like everyone was willing to cross all the formerly recognized
boundaries in their quest for personal “freedom.” Scandals like the Pentagon
Papers and the Watergate burglary only added fuel to the fires that were
already burning. To those who were committed to traditional values, it was a
time when the accepted standards began to break down. To those who saw the
status quo as unjust, hypocritical, and biased to benefit the powerful few, it
was a time of righting social wrongs. In a very real sense, our society has
been wrestling with this fundamental divide ever since.
One of the questions that is at the heart of this struggle
has to do with morality. It’s the question of how you know what’s right from
what’s wrong. There have always been those who advocated certain absolute rules
that represented lines that were never to be crossed. And I think most people
would agree that there are some things that are never right under any
circumstances. It’s never right to harm someone who is weaker than yourself
simply because you have the power to do so. It’s never right to enrich yourself
by taking unfair advantage of others, especially those who are most vulnerable
in our society. But, as the scandals of our era have sadly demonstrated, many
of those who are the most vocal supporters of traditional values don’t practice
what they preach.
Because the voices that supported traditional values so
blatantly ignored them in their own lives, many have simply decided that there
is no absolute right or wrong. If it seems right to you, then it is, regardless
of what anyone else may say. In my day, the way people put it was “if it feels
good, do it.” But of course, the real point was “if it feels good to me.”
Again, I think it’s clear that we as a people have made progress over the last several
decades toward recognizing the rights of those who had long been denied
justice. But in the process, morality became personal and private, which didn’t
actually make things any more just or fair. It merely opened a pandora’s box of
self-indulgence. In the name of “rights” we as a people have claimed that we
can do whatever we please. And the result has been lives broken by moral
license, selfishness that approaches narcissism, epidemic levels of substance
abuse, and greed for ever more power and wealth. And all of this without any
concern for how our actions affect anyone else.
Of course, there are many who continue to make a sincere
effort to try to do what’s truly right. But it gets complicated. Take, for
example, the commandment “You shall not kill.” That seems pretty
straightforward. It seems like an absolute boundary that no one should ever
cross. I would say we could all agree that it’s absolutely wrong to murder
someone in cold blood. But it’s not so clear when a person kills someone in
self-defense or in the course of saving the life of another. It’s still a “violation”
of the commandment, but as a society, we consider it to be “justified.” I’ve
never been there myself, but I would say that anyone who has ever had to take a
life in the line of duty, whether soldiers at war or officers keeping the
peace, would agree it affected them profoundly, even though it was the right
thing to do in that situation.
All of this is a way of getting into the lesson from 1
Corinthians for today. The first Christians lived in a world of competing moral
standards, no less that we do. And it wasn’t always clear to them what the
right thing to do was in every situation. St. Paul addresses one of those
situations. Because the believers in Corinth lived in a world that was
dominated by the worship of pagan idols, the question of how to remain true to
God and avoid idolatry, which was another of the Ten Commandments, wasn’t always
clear in that setting. The Hebrew Bible goes to great lengths to argue that
idols are nothing but “smoke and hot air” (Isa 41:29, MSG). As a result,
some of the believers at Corinth had decided that there was nothing wrong with
taking part in a meal held in honor of a pagan god, where the main course was
meat that had been offered as a sacrifice to that god. After all, as Paul
himself could say, “we all know that an idol is not really a god and that there
is only one God” (1 Cor 8:4, NLT). If that’s the case, then it’s just
another meal.
But the problem was that those who were confident in this
“knowledge” weren’t thinking about other believers who weren’t so confident.
Many of the Christians in Corinth had lived their whole lives believing that
the pagan gods were indeed real, and that the sacrifices made to them were a
way of acknowledging their influence. For them, a meal held in honor of a pagan
god was a violation of the commandment to avoid idolatry. But if they saw other
believers partaking in those meals, they may have become confused and decided
to partake in an idol feast themselves. But because of their upbringing, they
would likely feel convicted that they had sinned by breaking the commandment by
being unfaithful to God. In St. Paul’s words, by exercising their freedom,
those who were confident that idols weren’t real were causing the others to
stumble in their faith. So he concludes, “if what I eat causes another believer
to sin,” at least in their own minds, “I will never eat meat again as long as I
live—for I don’t want to cause another believer to stumble” (1 Cor 8:13, NLT).
In a world with a confusing array of competing moral
standards, St. Paul argued that one principle for deciding what was right from
what was wrong was the question of how an action would affect others. As he
said elsewhere, “live in such a way that you will not cause another believer to
stumble and fall” (Rom 14:13, NLT). And the way to do that was to make love the
deciding factor. In this situation, Paul himself acknowledged that idols were
not real, and that there was nothing wrong with eating meat that had been
sacrificed to a pagan god. But he also recognized that there was more at stake
in his actions than just his own welfare. He had to consider the welfare of
those who would be influenced by his actions. That’s what it means to live in
the community of faith with other believers: to live in a way that benefits
others, not just yourself.
There was a cost to this course of action, and I think Paul
knew it. The worship of pagan gods was such a common part of everyday life that
it was hard to avoid these feasts. It would be like avoiding going to a
football game in our culture! To avoid those feasts would be to risk more than
just a loss of social standing in the community. It would and did mean the loss
of livelihood, the loss of community, and even the loss of family. Paul knew
the sacrifices following Jesus involved. But despite the sacrifices, I’d say
Paul thought it was worth it to safeguard the welfare of fellow believers. For
him, living in a community of faith meant sacrificing your “rights” for the
sake of the good of the whole community. We used to believe in that. These
days, our “rights” are almost our “idols,” and we will do anything to safeguard
our “right” to do whatever we please. But Paul advocates a different way. Considering
how his actions affected others was a central factor in his decisions when it
came to moral questions that were not straightforward or clear-cut.
I’d like to be able to tell you that the principle of
considering how your actions will affect others will make your moral choices
clear and straightforward. But in the context of social turmoil in which we
live, I’m not sure it’s ever possible to be completely certain of our actions.
For most of us, whatever we choose to do is going to offend someone somewhere. Whether
it’s what we eat or drink or what we watch or read, someone somewhere is going
to think it’s wrong. To avoid offending anyone in any way, we would have to
withdraw from life altogether! I think what we’re left with is doing the best
we can to live our lives in a way that brings honor to Christ, not dishonor. I
think what we’re left with is doing the best we can to follow his example in all
our actions. I think what we’re left with is recognizing that for all of us,
our decisions are “not just about me.” Knowing that, we can do our best, in so
far as it’s humanly possible, to act in ways that will help others, and not
harm them.
[1] ©2024 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by
Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 1/28/2024 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
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