To eat the meat or not to eat the meat?
Sermon delivered on Sunday, January 29, 2006
by Margaret Sawyer
Every morning, my partner and I make smoothies. We keep Trader Joes frozen-everything in our freezer-bananas, strawberries, cherries-and we toss handfuls of these into our chrome blender, with a few spoonfuls of Jimmy's homemade yogurt. This had been quite a ritual until a few months ago, when our precious blender's motor busted!
We considered the options. Go back to Target and get a new blender and toss this otherwise perfectly fine blender in the garbage, ORRR Resist our Culture of Disposable Materialism! Live Simply! Reduce Reuse Recycle! It was an easy choice. We would get our blender fixed.
The closest appliance repair shop in Philadelphia is forty-five minutes from our house, but no matter. This was a moral issue-we were not to be deterred.
Weeks passed. No smoothies. Finally, the Appliance guy called, the blender's motor was fixed... for FIFTY DOLLARS. Resist! Reuse! Reconsider?
Our blender is home now, but the question is, was it worth it? The real question is, what would the apostle Paul say?
In our text today, the apostle Paul's responds to a...somewhat...similar dilemma faced by the Christian community in Corinth. Every day, the Roman Empire's powerful priests sacrificed animals to the multitude of Roman gods. When these ceremonies ended, the meat was sold in the Roman marketplaces. If you lived in Corinth, it was a good bet that the meat you found in the local restaurants or on the dinner tables of your Roman neighbors had been sacrificed to the Roman gods. Eating the meat was a religious statement to some degree-you were acknowledging the worship of these gods.
So, if you don't believe in Roman gods, do you eat the meat or not eat the meat? For Jewish communities in the Roman empire this was obvious-don't eat the meat! Jews did not believe in the Roman gods, and therefore would not participate in anything related to the dieties. For Christians, though, the answer wasn't so clear. This was a really new congregation and a very new faith. Paul STARTED the church in Corinth only a few years before he wrote this letter. They were still working out a lot of details of how they would practice their faith.
When the Corinthians ran into moral dilemmas for which their short faith tradition had no answer, they asked Paul for guidance. Of course the Corinthians' letter to Paul hasn't survived, but I thought I'd take the liberty of imagining what it said. "Dear Paul, we're trying to live our lives as good Christians. We've got lots of challenges-we're trying to love our neighbor, we're struggling to worship together as slave and free, rich and poor, man and woman. We're really trying, Paul! And we have this one little question. When we get invited to nice dinners by our Roman neighbors, can't we just go ahead and eat the meat, Paul? We know we believe in the one God, not in all those pagan Roman gods, so what does it matter if we eat the sacrificed meat?"
It's a dilemma, right? There are so many aspects to living a moral life, and so many values in our Christian faith. Which guidelines do we follow, and which do we discard? Is it possible to follow every single Christian teaching? Do we even WANT to? Are we still "Good Christians" or "moral people" if we compromise on some of our values?
A few years ago, I was living and working with undocumented immigrants on the US/Mexico border. It was an amazing time, and I'll probably preach on it someday because I always seem to preach about it! But for today, the relevant point is that, at that moment in my life, I was trying to live out the values of my faith to the hilt. And I was pretty exhausted doing it-living in a shelter, eating all donated food, dealing with complicated and unfair and heartwrenching situations way too often. My best friend came to visit, and while she was there, I bought myself a packet of oreo cookies. She freaked. "Oreos! You can't eat oreos-they're made by Nabisco, which is owned by Phillip Morris, the horrible cigarette company!" She offered to get me a list of all the Phillip Morris food, so I could be part of the boycott. And I just smiled and crunched away on my sweet sweet oreos. "I have to choose my battles," I thought. "And boycotting oreos is not one of them!"
So what does Paul tell the Corinthians about their meat? First he acknowledges all the sides of this issue. "We know that there's only one god, and that the Roman idols don't exist," he says. "And we know that we're not worse off if we eat the meat, or better off if we refuse to eat it." The downside of eating the meat, in Paul's eyes, is the example it sets for less strong Christians. People might see you eating the meat and then they might think you actually worship Roman gods, and then they might leave the church and start to worship the Roman gods too. Paul's ultimate advice is: "TAKE CARE that this liberty of yours does not become a stumbling block to others." And finally, he offers his example: "I won't eat the meat."
This is not a hard and fast answer from Paul, for the Corinthians about the meat. In fact, his response can be read as the OPPOSITE of a hard and fast answer. He's opening a space for the Corinthians to interpret their faith and their actions for themselves. This is what I do when I'm in that situation-now what will YOU do? You have moral compasses, Corinthians. And your moral compass will not necessarily be the same as mine or as your neighbors. I choose an orthodox response to this dilemma, what will your response be?
I'm proud of my friend for taking part in the Phillip Morris boycott. She has made her choices just as I make mine. As for myself, though, I still eat oreos. But where do I draw the line? Would I ever own stock in Phillip Morris? Would I take money to advertise Phillip Morris cigarettes? Would I lobby for Phillip Morris? I probably wouldn't. When Phillip Morris butts in on my moral universe by advertising cigarettes to twelve year olds in Asia, and then tries to sweet-talk its way into my wallet with those tempting blue packages of crunchy creamy goodness, what's my response? If I'm really honest with myself, it's not much better than, "you bad Phillip Morris! Umm... pass the cookies."
Boycotting oreos is a morally orthodox action that I have decided not to take. This story stands out for me though, because I usually hate not at least trying to follow the moral, Christian, progressive naturalist right thing to do. I want to heal Darfur and Iraq, and I want to welcome immigrants to the United States. I want to be nicer to my next-door neighbor and I want all the meat I eat to be free-range. Maybe if I were more orthodox, I would be a tax resister and refuse to fund a government that does not embody my values. The idea of "picking your battles" is usually an anathema to me-I desperately want to take part in ALL battles.
And yet at the same time, I think orthodoxy can become a cage, trapping me, all of us, in the lockstep actions of perfectionism. I cannot free myself to make new moral choices or actions when I am so distracted by the moral laws I already force myself to follow. It's also hard for me to remember that we do not all make the same moral choices. All of us must create our own moral codes, our own decisions about when we follow strict guidelines and when we are more lax. I cannot expect myself to live by the identical moral code as you, just as I cannot expect you to make the same decisions as me. Also, for me, ambiguity is part of the problem. If solutions are not immediately obvious, it is easy for me to throw up my hands and refuse to take a side. Sometimes I think I spin my wheels in orthodox sandtraps when faced with complicated moral dilemmas where no choice fits perfectly in my moral framework.
Let's return for minute to Corinthians. Paul has some good things to say about choosing one's battles. In a later part of the letter, Paul deals with a problem in the congregation. Apparently the church had been meeting together for dinner and Eucharist, as Paul had taught them, but everyone HAD TO BRING THEIR OWN DINNERS. So the rich people ate their fancy full dinners, and the poor people and slaves who were also in the church sometimes weren't able to bring anything to eat. Paul doesn't hold back in telling Corinth what he thinks about this! "When YOU come together it is not really to eat the Lord's supper, for when the time comes to eat, each of you goes ahead with your own super, and one goes hungry and another becomes drunk. WHAT!" he writes. "Do you show contempt for the church of God and humiliate those who have nothing?! What should I say to you! Should I commend you? In this matter I do not commend you!"
Next to this kind of radical Christian relationships of rich and poor, slave and free, the question of whether or not to eat Roman meat seems like small potatoes for Paul. He does not treat every moral dilemma with the same weight, and he doesn't want his congregation to either. Issues of community and inclusion are far more important for Paul than questions of orthodox food practices.
Most of Corinthians is pretty strict-Paul really tells the congregation what they ought to do. I think chapter eight, our text today, stands out as sort of a gift. Paul offers us an opening, an invitation for us to discern our own faithful living. Yes, he agrees-life is complicated. There are some moral choices that are more clear, and some that are very vague. Sometimes we need to stand strong in our convictions, and sometimes we need to choose our own battles. I have decided not to eat the meat-This is the path I have chosen, he writes, what will you choose to do?
When Beverly sent out her Tabernacle prayers in an email to this week's worship team, a line in the prayer struck me with particular force. "We confess, God, that we are uncomfortable with paradox and ambiguities in life, even as we reject the restrictiveness that simplistic answers provide." Yes. That's exactly what's so difficult. Simple answers are not enough, but living in shades of moral grey is not easy either. I do not want to throw up my hands in exhaustion when my perfectionism runs me to the ground. I also don't want to tiptoe away from the world into my hobbit hole of perfect rule-following life.
My theology taps me on the shoulder as I consider this life conundrum. God is always beside us, I am reassured. God knows the complexities of life, and God walks with us through the moral choices we make each day. God blessed each of us with our own perceptions, our own abilities, our own passions. God never expected any of us to solve all the problems of the world, or to create perfect moral orthodoxies for perfectly maneuvering through life. Ours is a religion of forgiveness, we forgive and we are forgiven. And moreover, we are promised that God never planned on any of us ever being even a little bit perfect. We are created as moral actors and also as mistake makers. And God loves us anyway.
Just as God walks beside us in this crazy ambiguous morally challenging world, God created each of us to walk beside each other. Adults pass moral teachings on to children, friends discuss difficult decisions with one another, sometimes whole neighborhoods join together in collective moral choices. And more, just like the Corinthians had Paul and each another, we are blessed with a beautiful faith community here at Tabernacle. In our joys and concerns, we share in happiness and the pain of the world around us. In sermons, prayers, and coffee hour conversation, we consider how we act in the world. How do we choose to spend our time? What do we do when someone is hurt? Where do we spend our money? How do we react when our government sins in our name? We cannot ever make perfect choices, and we cannot ever do all the good things in this world that need doing. When we discuss these issues with one another, though, the burden of choices and actions and decisions is made lighter in the sharing.
Oscar Romero wrote a meditation that I love. He widens that space that Paul grants us in today's text. We each must make our own choices, follow our own moral beliefs. And remember that we are all pieces of God's great creation.
It helps now and then, to step back and take the long view. The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is even beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work. We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker. We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs. We are prophets of a future not our own.
We are all in this process together. We walk through our lives choosing our next steps and our future directions. In the midst of this complicated world, with so many moral choices to make, I thank God that we are not alone.
© 2006 by Margaret Sawyer. All rights reserved. Please consult the author at tabernacle@tabunited.org if you wish to use the text of this sermon, in whole or in part.
