Rector's Blog: How We Go Matters

We need to talk about something very timely today: We need to talk about the quarrel over dietary practices in a church in Corinth in the first century. Yes, really.

So, here’s what happened: St. Paul started a church in the Greek city of Corinth. Many of the people in this nascent faith community had come from the Pagan tradition. For many years they had watched people sacrifice animals to the gods, and then eat the meats in festivals dedicated to those same gods. Many of them had participated in those events. Then they became Christian. They began to understand those festivals differently. They couldn’t participate any longer. They knew they belonged to Jesus now, and they did not feel right eating food that had been sacrificed to idols. They could not square it with the life they were now living.

But others in the Corinthian church saw the situation differently. “We know there’s only one God,” they reasoned, “so these animals aren’t being sacrificed to anything real. We may as well eat the meat. Waste not want not.” And hey, technically, they were right. There is only one God. Meat sacrifice to idols is not sacrificed to much of anything at all. And they were proud of how right they were, about how clearly they understood the whole “one God” aspect of Christianity. So proud, in fact, that when they found out their actions were offensive to others in their church, their response was something akin to, “But we’re right, and we know our rights. So y’all should just get over it.” They even made a point of bringing this to their founding apostle, hoping he’d back them up.

He didn't. He didn't back them up.

No, instead Paul says if we are more concerned with being correct, and if we are more concerned with what we have a right to do than we are with the experiences and beliefs of our fellow church members, then we don’t understand Jesus. Paul essentially says, “Of course these meats aren’t sacrificed to real gods. But your actions are keeping your siblings from trusting you. Your insistence on being right is keeping you from real relationship.” He literally says, “your knowledge leads to their destruction."

Timely, isn't it?

We act like our country being divided is new, like these polemics are novel. They are not. Division is par for the course in human history. But the Body of Christ is meant to be united. We are meant to understand ourselves as utterly belonging to one another.

Our faith in Jesus doesn’t matter if we don’t care about the beliefs and experiences of those around us. I’m not talking about tolerance. Tolerance means putting up with people. I’m not talking about civility. Civility means being polite. I’m talking about the conscious decision to support and love the people you know for who they actually are, not for who you want them to be. As a Christian you believe your life is inextricably linked to your neighbor’s life, your dignity is indivisible from theirs. Our being correct is not what defines us: our belonging to one another is. We are united as one body in Christ. This is our defining characteristic.

Through this time of staying at home, quarantine, and physical distancing, we at Redeemer continue to explore the Way of Love – a Jesus centered rule of life composed of a set of practices that help to define the Episcopal approach to faith. The 7 practices meant for daily use are Turn, Learn, Pray, Worship, Bless, Go, Rest. This week we are looking at the practice of Go. This practice is defined by our church as Crossing boundaries, listening deeply, and living like Jesus. Go, then, is not about going to make the world more like us, to fix and correct it, to help people see how right we are. The Christian practice of going is about how we embody Jesus’ presence on this earth right now.

During Jesus’ earthly ministry, he did not always tolerate people, and by all accounts he wasn’t always civil. But he was always loving. Yes, always. Because Jesus is God and God is Love. Every story we have of Jesus’ ministry is part of the larger story of God drawing us together, drawing us toward one another, drawing us more deeply into the heart of God. The life and ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus are utterly about the reconciliation of all things. His actions served to gather us all together into one body, united in relationships of holy connection and communion, knit together and built up in mutual love. If we are not about this, we do not understand ourselves. If we do not live for one another, we are dead.

Paul’s letters to churches are particularly helpful in trying to understand how the first Christians believed they were meant to walk the Way of Love. They are helpful because Paul is so single minded. His approach shifts, sometimes wooing sometimes rebuking. His mood swings, from jubilant to exasperated, from smitten to smiting. But he is always about the same thing: how a community lives in response to the truth of Jesus in their lives. The only obedient response to Jesus is love for one another. The only freedom we have is in serving one other.

Do we have a right to worship in person right now? I guess. I confess I don’t care. The only time Paul talks about rights, he is talking about how he forfeits those rights with which he is privileged so that he might draw more people into the love relationship with God that is at the center of his life. So may it be for us as the Church of Redeemer, as Episcopalians, as Christians – our primary concern is and must be our mutual up-building: the mental, physical, and spiritual health and care of each other – not as a right, but as the embodied truth of our shared life in Christ Jesus.

The Spirit of God empowers and impels us to go into the world. How we go matters. If we have any interest in people knowing Jesus, we must go with humility, faithfulness, and compassion. This kind of going is rooted and grounded in Love. When we walk this way of Love, we are proclaiming the Gospel.