Epiphany IV: Year B
31 January 2021
Allen M. Junek, Seminarian-in-Residence
The Episcopal Church of St. Thomas the Apostle
In the name of the one, holy, and undivided + Trinity. Amen.
I’ve always found it odd that the Bible is chock-full of letters.
In many ways, the Gospels were written for us–even to us–so that future generations might know, as the epilogue of John’s Gospel says, “that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing we may have life in his name” (Jn 20:31).
Letters on the other hand serve a much different function. By definition, letters are not written to everyone. This might pose a problem for us as we try to glean meaning from our New Testament, because more than half of its books are letters.
Now most of us know that the apostle Paul was incredibly prolific, most of these letters are his after all. For those of us who are women or LGBTQ+ we bear a complicated relationship with Paul, don’t we? And that’s okay. If the testimony from the ancient Church tells us anything, it’s that Paul wasn’t the most likeable character. So, at the culmination of all things, if Paul is not one of the first you seek out, you’re in good company. However, I hope our diving into the epistle reading together may be a step towards us coming to better terms with him.
The letter we read today is the first in a series written to the Christians in Corinth. At the time, Corinth was one of the most important trade cities that Greece had to offer. Much like our own “trade cities” of New York, Los Angeles, and Houston, Corinth was an incredibly multicultural, multiethnic, and multireligious place. The Corinthian church was just as diverse, and they were struggling with how to live the way Jesus called them to live–and calls us to live–in their own divided context.
Paul helped establish this budding community and stayed with them awhile before he up and left to go tell more people about the good news of what God has done. Paul’s leaving however kind of left the Corinthians in a sticky situation. And that brings us to the topic of today’s letter. These Christians didn’t know how to be the people of God, or how to function as one Body amidst such diversity. Generally speaking, they were still trying to figure out who and whose they were, so they decided to write to Paul.
Now, what that initial letter said has since been lost to history. But from Paul’s reply we can piece together some things the Corinthians wrote him about. They wanted to know about 1) sexual ethics and whether Christians can or should be married, 2) the men feared — or lets just say they were casually wondering — if they had to be circumcised in order follow this Jewish Christ, and 3) as we can see in today’s reading, they had questions about meat sacrificed to other gods. It also appears some members were acting as if they are more important than others (but of course, we all know that doesn’t happen today!).
Now, while they are worthwhile conversations, I will not spend much time talking about what you do in your bedroom or anyone’s hypothetical foreskin. Instead, I want to offer a reflection about this third question of meat and sacrifice, which many might say is the most distant from us today.
Today, we don’t have shrines to Aphrodite or Zeus tucked away behind our local Kroger or Tom Thumb. But they did in Corinth. Some scholars have even said that the temples were effectively the town’s butchers, and the sacrifices of the temples would then be taken and sold in the markets. And because of this, there were two groups in Corinthian church:
- There were those Christians in Corinth who knew that there is no power in meat sacrificed to gods of wood and stone, because those are false gods. So really, it’s an empty ritual. A superstition. “What harm is there,” they might say, “in eating food offered to a god that does not exist?” Eating the meat, then, had no impact on the folks who have this “knowledge.”
- But then, on the other hand, there are those who thought that there is power in the ritual. There were those Christians who considered this feasting an endorsement, or perhaps even a participation, in the worship of these other gods. Therefore it was scandalous for a Christian to eat this mean.
And herein lies the problem — if some chose to eat this meat in the presence of those people who had a different understanding, it would invariably harm those people. At best, they will be deeply disturbed or offended. And at worst, especially if they happen to ingest some of that meat unknowingly, then it will incur the added harm of reaping guilt and shame. It would involve “soul hurt,” which many of us know is a different kind of pain all together.
As we can see in his response, Paul sides with the first group. For him, meat is meat. “Food will not bring us close to God,” he says. “We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.” Case closed; it would seem. The Apostle has spoken.
But Paul doesn’t stop there.
You see, Paul (and Jesus, for that matter, let’s not forget!) never conceived of the individual believer as autonomous or independent. “But take care,” he says, “that this liberty [aka, this freedom you have in knowing you can eat this meat] does not somehow become a stumbling block to those who do not have the same knowledge as you.”
A lot has happened between Paul’s time and our own. The Roman Empire has fallen, and new empires have arisen to take its place. We have probed the depths of space and have unlocked the mysteries of the atom–these most fearful mysteries.
Earlier I said that we might think that the Corinthian church’s question over meat sacrificed to idols is one of their concerns most distant from us in the 21st century. This changes once we see that behind the text is actually the question of freedom. It’s a question about Christian liberty.
You see one of the things that has changed since this letter’s writing is how we make sense of freedom. For those of us who live in these United States, in this modern world, in this period of late capital, freedom means to consume, to purchase, and to live in any way we please “thank you very much.” In other words, it’s a freedom to from restraint so that we may do as we please. I, the individual, have become the center of my own universe.
This isn’t, however, how Paul, or Jesus, or other Christ-followers for most of our history conceived of their liberty and what it meant to be a people, a kingdom, that was and is free.
In this letter, Paul is reminding the Corinthians that they are indeed free, but Christian freedom means something more. “Therefore,” he says, “if food is a cause of [someone else’s] falling, then I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall,” (v. 13).
What Paul is getting at here seems pretty obvious, but it is worth repeating time and time again — am not always free to do what I want if the superior demands of love intervene. This sets the stage for Paul’s well-known love sonnet in chapter 13. Perhaps you’re familiar with it: “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge [remember that the Corinthians were the ones claiming to have knowledge!], and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I surrender my body to the flames, but do not have love, I gain nothing.”
In other words, there’s something more important than being right. If ever we have to choose between being right and being loving — and trust me, we will, often–choose love. This isn’t easy, but to relinquish one’s freedom, to surrender our right-to-be-right, is not to lose it, but it is to enjoy it in its fullness. For in following the One who gave everything, the One who poured himself out for each of us, and surrendered all rights and privileges on our behalf, we have found this great paradox: it is in giving that we receive.
For nothing we have not given way will ever really be ours.
Nothing that has not been lost to the great tyranny of love, will ever be found.
And as prophets before us have said, nothing that has not died, will ever be raised to life.
May it be so.
Amen
