Epiphany IV, Year B
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8:1b-13
Mark 1:21-287
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.1
Every Christian can relate to Theodore Roosevelt’s man in the arena. Every person who has decided to follow Christ spends himself for a worthy cause, lives and dares for something great and noble, for a life dedicated to what is good, true, and beautiful. And every person who follows Christ knows all about errors and shortcomings and failures. But we are in the arena. We are not cowering on the sidelines of life. We are part of something much bigger than ourselves, something of eternal value, something that elevates and enriches all of life.
We stepped into the arena when we decided to try to figure out the purpose of our lives, to orient our lives to God and eternity, and to answer the question who is Jesus Christ. We stepped into the arena, and faith began when we squarely confronted the serious questions of life and made a decision to try to trust Jesus. Today’s gospel is about this decision. S. Mark is inviting his readers to ask the basic question about Jesus. Having heard him teach with authority, having seen him heal, the astonished crowd asks, “What is this?”
The answer, of course, is that this is Jesus, the Holy One of God. Jesus’ teaching and healing evoke wonder and astonishment; they are an epiphany, a manifestation of God working among us. And seeing this epiphany, the crowd faces the decision of faith: who is Jesus, and how am I going to respond to him?
Those who decide to follow Jesus assume the responsibility, and the honor, of making Jesus known to other people. Followers of Jesus are supposed to find and make other followers – sharing the faith, nurturing it in other people. The challenge for us is: do our lives – do our words and our deeds – do they reveal Jesus or do they obscure Jesus? Do they build up or weaken the Church?
Building up the Church is always S. Paul’s top concern. Often things that Christians fight about, things that divide the Church, are minor, irrelevant issues in the big picture, although they appear very important at the time. The controversy in Corinth about whether Christians could eat meat which had been offered to idols seems ridiculous to us, a lot of heat and energy and bitterness about nothing.
What’s important and enlightening about the conflict is not the issue itself. What’s important and enlightening is the way Paul tries to resolve the conflict, how he thinks about it. Paul’s first principle, the foundation of his instructions to the Corinthians, is that Christians bear responsibility to nurture one another’s faith; we have responsibility to other people.
Our culture encourages us to live as if we are wholly independent, at liberty to do pretty much whatever we want, whenever we want, as long as our behavior doesn’t directly harm someone else. Our culture values rights and privileges and encourages us to exercise them with minimal regard and consideration for other people. We emphasize and try to expand our autonomy as if that were true freedom.
But that is not true freedom. That is not the way of Jesus, and that is not the way of the Church. Christianity is counter-cultural. We have perfect freedom in serving Christ, in sensitively caring for other people. In today’s epistle, Paul passionately argues that a moral, holy life is not merely living righteously ourselves, but living with responsibility for other people, living so that our lives may bless others, especially people less fortunate than we are.
In the ancient world, people routinely ate meat that had been offered to pagan gods. In general, pagan temples had not only altars for animal sacrifices, but also dining rooms, party rooms, for people to celebrate a feast – be it a wedding, a birthday, or some other kind of anniversary or social occasion.2 Guests at the party ate the meat sacrificed to the pagan god; eating the idol meat was a basic courtesy. Idol meat was also available at the butcher. The wealthy and well-educated typically attended temple feasts, and meat was a regular part of their diet. The poor generally attended few feasts and could not afford meat sold at the butcher.
The Corinthian Christians squabbled about whether Christians could eat this meat offered to idols. It doesn’t require enormous creativity for us to imagine the righteous sanctimony and holier-than-thou attitudes that Christians can muster about such things. The enlightened Christians, those with ‘knowledge,’ knew that in itself eating idol meat was permissible. They understood that idols weren’t real, merely the work of human hands, and that eating idol meat had no effect on their spiritual life. Other Christians, however, those Paul calls ‘weak,’ had unfounded scruples about eating idol meat; eating idol meat offended them; they considered it immoral, disloyal, and irreverent
In addressing the problem, Paul is wading into class animosity as well as a religious dispute. If the Corinthians were like most people, class almost certainly had as much to do with their views and behaviors as religious belief. Paul points out that those with ‘knowledge’ have theology on their side, but he doesn’t take a side in the conflict. Rather, he changes the question. The question for the Corinthian Christians is not what can be done, but what should be done? The question is not: “Do I have the freedom to eat whatever I want?” The proper question is: “How can I best use my freedom to benefit the community?”
In all things, Paul’s fundamental concern is to build up the Church. He wants Christians to resolve their differences and to make decisions on the grounds of what is best for the community, what is best for other people, not what is best for me, not what I prefer. Knowledge, Paul says, “puffs up, but love builds up.” Knowledge can puff us up and make us arrogant and haughty. Love is what builds and creates. Love is what matters.
Dare I point out that Anglo-Catholics, sophisticated Christians like us, often succumb to this temptation? Anglo-Catholic Christianity is magnificently rich and learned. But we can become smug and forget that we’re called to share the gospel, to make new Christians, to welcome people, not to look down on others, not to feel superior, not to put obstacles in the way of people who’d like to enter the Church. God calls every Christian to reach out and to make the gospel accessible, not intimidating.
Paul’s concern is for the weak. In his letter, Paul’s saying, “While it’s permissible to eat idol meat, take care that your freedom to eat idol meat does not cause the weak to stumble.” It’s commendable to know about the faith, but don’t become a spiritual elitist. Paul’s saying to us – strong Christians, “Care for the weak. Don’t offend them. The strong in Christ have an enormous responsibility for the weak. Your arrogance, your lack of concern for the weak, destroys the weak man, our brother for whom Christ died. If you are not sensitive and caring toward the weak, you are sinning against your brother and against Christ.” Paul concludes by saying, “If food is a cause of my brother’s failing, I will not eat.” In other words, Paul is willing to limit his freedom, his privileges, for the well-being of others.
Paul teaches that Christian morality is shaped by what is good for the community, by what fosters its growth, by what helps others to follow Christ. That should be the imperative in our personal lives and in the corporate life of the parish. We don’t ask, “What can the Church do for me?” We ask, “What can I do to minister for the Church? What can I do for the community?” We don’t say, “The Church needs to do this to make me comfortable and to keep me satisfied.” We say, “I need to do this to help those in need. I need to do this to reach those beyond the Church’s doors.”
We didn’t want to be cold, timid souls. So we choose to follow Jesus, and following Jesus enlarges our hearts. The way out of the suffering and alienation and fearfulness of our world is not asserting our rights and privileges, but letting Jesus enter our hearts, looking beyond our own interests, and caring for others.
+ In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
1. Theodore Roosevelt, ‘Citizenship in a Republic,’ Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910
2. Richard B. Hays, First Corinthians, John Knox Press (1997), pp. 136-37. He notes that the sanctuary of Ascelpius in Corinth had separate areas for cultic sacrifices and for banquets. He also makes a point about the role of class in separating the weak and the poor.
© 2006 Lane John Davenport
