« Our Passover Meal | Main | “An Outrageous Parable and More” »
September 14, 2008
“The Holy Society of Non-Judgmentalists”
Romans 14: 1-12
Delivered on September 14th, 2008
The church of Jesus Christ is the earthbound part of the Kingdom of God. And the Kingdom of God can sometimes be described as an upside down kingdom. In many ways its standards and values are the opposite of earthly kingdoms and organizations.
In the world, the ordinary people serve the leaders. In the kingdom and the church, the leaders serve the people. In the world the greatest are those who hide or overcome their mistakes and shortcomings. In the kingdom and the church the greatest are those who confess their sins and demonstrate humility in their daily lives. In the world it is the strong and sometimes the devious who inherit the earth. In the kingdom and the church, it is the meek who inherit the earth and eternity.
As I read this passage from Romans, I encounter a bit of Up-side down-ness of my own. In this passage St. Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, encouraged the members of the church in Rome to welcome those who were weak in the faith. Then he identified the weak as those who ate only vegetables. Now I don’t know about you, but I always consider vegetarians to be the stronger people among us. Vegetarians are those who due to some moral or dietary conviction refuse to eat meat. They often have to work around family and restaurant menus to achieve their goal of a meat free life.
I, on the other hand consider us meat eaters to be weaker in our convictions. I really don’t like the thought of animals being killed so I can eat meat. But my answer to this situation is to not think about it and to keep on eating meat. I am the weak one with very little will power. Some of you have asked me what I do to stay in shape. I think that is funny because I don’t consider my shape as being in shape and the answer as to what I do to keep in this non-shape is “very little”. For better or worse I exercise a grand total of about 8 minutes each morning.
So since I consider vegetarians to be stronger regarding personal will and moral convictions than I, I might be confused as to why Paul categorized the vegetarians in the church of his day as being the weak, except for the fact that I am a student of the bible and I understand what was going on in the church in those days.
A few Sundays ago I preached about the sacrifices that were offered by the other religions in those days. In the pagan religions, the meat from the animals which were sacrificed to the idols was often sold to the markets for resale. So if you bought a nice standing rib roast or high grade of ground sirloin from the local butcher in Rome, there was no way of knowing whether or not that meat had been offered to a false God.
This was a problem for some of the Gentile Christians who had formerly worshipped those false idol gods. They had renounced those gods, and sometimes had to remove themselves from their families and friends who firmly remained in Idolatry. To eat meat that may have been offered to those gods constituted a crisis of faith for them.
But Paul had been teaching that the false gods where nothing, and therefore had no power to affect the meat that was offered to them, so eating the previously sacrificed meat knowingly or unknowingly was not a problem for a Christian. But some felt funny or strange eating it and felt that their eating it was somehow a betrayal of Christ’s sacrifice. You know, it is sometimes hard to control our feelings, even when we might admit that they could possibly be non-rational.
So, in the church at Rome, there were people who were able to follow Paul’s advice, (the stronger, more rational Christians) and those who could not (the weaker, less rational Christians).
Notice that Paul’s advice in this situation was not to welcome the “weaker” brothers and sisters in their weakness and try to “strengthen” them by arguing with them and trying to convince them to eat meat. No they were to welcome them and totally ignore the fact that they only brought vegetable dishes to the covered dish Suppers. The weaker-stronger dichotomy and feelings were to be kept in their own minds and not given voice.
About those who might be considered to be weak by others, Paul says “Do not pass judgment on them”, saying out loud that they are weak. And he reveals something interesting in this part of the passage. In verse 3 we read “Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat”. Do you grasp the implication there?
Unless I am mistaken, he is implying that the no-meat people consider themselves to be the strong ones and they reckon the meat-eaters to be the weak ones. How about that?! This is not necessarily about the weaker ones knowing their weakness. In some of the struggles of the church when I think I am right and strong, I may in reality be the weaker one, so not judging others can protect me from being openly and publicly wrong.
In verses 5&6 Paul reveals that the meat issue was not the only one that could cause trouble in the early church. There was also the issue of regarding some days as more holy than others. These folks were probably Jews, with their Sabbath regulations and their Jewish Feasts and Fasts. But the formerly pagan Gentiles has also been raised with religious holidays and festivals.
Interestingly enough, the issue of Special religious days surfaced again during the Reformation. Some of the reformers, including Calvin discouraged any special services or recognition of special religious holidays, including Christmas and Easter. In Geneva under Calvin Worship on Easter was the same as any other Sunday, not that they were all common, but that because of the resurrection of Christ, All Sunday’s were extraordinary.
Paul then implied that the real important issue here was not whether one was weak or strong, but whether they acted to honor Jesus. If those who ate meat did it to honor Jesus, it was good. If those who did not eat meat refused to eat it to honor Jesus, that was good too.
I have to admit that I struggled a little to figure out what verses 7-9 meant in this context. Why does he go from not judging the weak and the strong to living and dying in the Lord, then back to judging others?
Because in the end, who among us is weak and who is strong does not matter. Even our strengths are weaknesses when it comes to living and dying. It is only Jesus who is strong enough to be with us and save us in life and in death. Only Jesus was strong enough to die and live again, only Jesus can be the Lord of the dead and the living. Jesus is so strong that our strengths and weaknesses pale into insignificance in comparison.
In the 10th – the 12th verses Paul reminds us that there is a judgement that we do have to be concerned about. We will all, weak and strong, have to face God’s judgment of us.
But until that day, it is recommended that we cut each other some slack. We are fellow servants of God. We are to wait for His judgment, we are not to judge each other.
Now, having said that, let me put in a disclaimer. This passage is about morally neutral issues. How we choose to honor God in neutral issues, like eating certain foods or abstaining from certain foods or honoring God by recognizing certain days or feasts, or having a cross and crown tattooed on ones leg, or a bible verse tattooed on ones wrist, or having ones face pierced, or wearing a tie to church or not wearing a tie to church. Or being a Calvinist or an Arminian, or in believing in a pre-tribulational or post tribulational or mid-tribulational return of Jesus. Or believing in a literal millennium or not believing in one.
There are matters that are not morally neutral, like hatred, or murder, or adultery, or lying or stealing. In moral matters we are to hold one another accountable and to keep each other from falling into sin.
But in morally neutral matters we in the church are to be a society of non-judgmentalists.
Pastor David Horner
Faith Presbyterian Church
West Lafayette, IN 47906
Posted by faithpres at September 14, 2008 02:10 PM