Eating meat that has previously been offered to idols. Big
issue here in Warren these days, right? The other night, as my
family and I made our way through the crowd into the Lions Club's
annual Turkey Dinner, we were greeted by the smiling visage of
Dr. Larry Krespan. As I took my coat off, I asked, "Now, was any
of this meat offered previously to idols?" When he regained
consciousness, he said he was sure that none of it had. So,
fine. We ate. As I say, big deal here in Warren these days.
Duh!
To be honest, I do not know just WHEN this stopped being the
big deal that the Corinthians were confronting. Probably not too
long after Paul's instruction. In fact, in Clarence Jordan's
wonderful Cotton Patch Version of Paul's Epistles, the parallel
to First Corinthians is First Atlanta, and the subject is not
about what food Christians may or may not eat but rather whether
it is permissible for Christians to work on Sunday,(1) an issue in
1968 when the Cotton Patch version was published, but now, not
quite 40 years later, one we rarely hear discussed.
So saying, for First Church, Corinth, in the first century,
this food offered to idols controversy was a sticky wicket.
Sticky enough for the Apostle Paul to take up three chapters of
this letter, chapters 8, 9, and 10.
By way of background, in the ancient Greek and Roman world,
every town had one or more temples, dedicated to pagan gods. In
the bustling city of Corinth, there were gracious plenty, a
reflection of the heterogeneous population - ex-Roman soldiers,
merchants, Jews, easterners from Phoenicia and Phrygia, slaves,
freedmen, sailors, etc. By the middle of the first century, when
this letter was written, the population was approaching three-quarters of a million people, two-thirds of whom were slaves.
The city had become a byword for loose living: to live "like
a Corinthian" meant a life of immorality and debauchery. Corinth
was home to the Temple of Aphrodite to which were attached 1,000
priestesses who were sacred prostitutes. There was an ancient
saying: "It is not every man who can afford a journey to
Corinth."
Now, whether it be the temple of Aphrodite or any other, it
was common practice for worshipers to offer sacrifices. If you
were bringing a sacrifice, you would walk into the temple leading
a goat or a sheep. One of the priests would ritually kill the
animal, clean the carcass and place its body on the great stone
slab of the altar. There it would be burned, until a plume of
barbecue-smoke wafted its way to the heavens, a pleasing scent
the people of that day believed influenced the gods.(2)
Only a small portion of the sacrificial meat was actually
incinerated, often only a mere token part as small as some of the
hairs cut from the forehead. The rest was nicely roasted, and
was used in one of two ways (the scholars disagree among
themselves as to which was most common). Some say the meat was
carved up on the spot, and served to worshipers in the temple, as
a great feast. Others say it was packaged and sent to the
butcher-stalls in the town marketplace, where it was sold -- the
profits to benefit the temple. Some scholars even think the sale
of meat in the marketplace was a priestly monopoly, that all meat
had passed through a pagan temple, on the way to the
butcher-shop. This meant that if you were a Christian and wanted
to eat meat at all, you had to put aside any spiritual scruples
about where it had been.
Either way, this practice poses a real dilemma for the early
Christians. They have pledged to follow Jesus Christ, and to
turn from the pagan deities. Yet what do you do when your
next-door neighbor invites you to the Temple of Artemis, to
celebrate his son's coming-of-age with a sacrifice and a great
feast? Or what do you do when you stroll down to the marketplace
to buy food for supper, and you realize the meat in the
butcher-stall spent the morning up on the high altar of Zeus?
A raucous debate has broken out in the Corinthian church,
over these issues. There is a conservative faction that loudly
proclaims that no Christian should ever eat meat sacrificed to an
idol. The liberal faction is more laid-back: "We know these
pagan gods, so-called, are not gods at all; to us, meat is meat,
and we are not worshiping as we eat it. So what is the big
deal?"
Every time they called a congregational meeting in the
Corinthian church, that tired old subject would come up. The
conservatives would accuse the liberals, the liberals would snap
back at the conservatives...the old, familiar charges and
counter-charges would be raised. Nobody would ever win the
argument, and, after the meeting, both sides would gather
separately in the parking lot afterward and say, "Ain't it
awful?"
Finally, someone suggests they write to Paul about it, along
with questions on other contentious subjects as well: questions
about divisions in the church, moral issues, legal questions,
ecclesiastical roles, worship practices, even theology. What the
Apostle sends back, in reply, is this first letter to the
Corinthians. By the time he gets around to dealing with this
meat offered to idols issue, he is responding to them almost in
the way they have couched their question - bumper sticker style.
The Corinthians have been making their arguments with one-liners:
"we all possess knowledge...an idol is nothing at all in the
world...there is no God but one." So Paul's response is a bumper
sticker of his own: "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up."
Paul agrees with the liberals that the old pagan idols have
no power over Christians; there is no spiritual harm caused by
eating the sacrificial meat. But then he says to the liberals,
"Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not
become a stumbling block to the weak." Don't you eat that meat,
he says to the enlightened folks, if by doing so you might cause
any of the conservatives to lose their way, and fall back into
paganism.
Paul continues his argument in chapter 9 (and remember this
chapter division in our Bibles is artificial - when Paul wrote
it, this was not divided, just one long letter). In chapter 9 he
deals with those who invoke the principle of Christian freedom.
He points out that there are many things that he is free to do
but which he abstains from doing for the sake of the Church. He
is well aware of Christian freedom, but equally aware of
Christian responsibility. Then in chapter 10 he deals with those
who declare that their Christian knowledge and privileged
position make them quite safe from any infection. He cites the
example of the Israelites who had all the privileges of God's
Chosen People and who yet fell into sin. He advises against
over-fussiness; in other words, if you make your purchase in a
local butcher, exercise the ancient principal of Don't Ask, Don't
Tell. If you go to someone's home and they make a big point
about serving you something that they inform you has been
previously dedicated to a pagan deity as an in-your-face
challenge to your Christian commitment, you should best politely
decline. In other words, BE CAREFUL!!!
Paul's point in all this is to say that none of us has the
right to indulge in a pleasure or to demand some liberty which
might be the ruination of someone else. You may have the
strength of mind and will to keep that pleasure in its proper
place, that course of action may be safe enough for you, but you
have more than just yourself to think about - there is that
weaker brother or sister. An indulgence which may be the ruin of
someone else is not a pleasure but a sin.
Paul does not tell the Corinthians what they ought to do.
Instead, he brings this section to a conclusion by saying what he
would do, or, in this case, NOT do. "If what I eat causes my
brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I
will not cause him to fall."
A bit later on in this letter, Paul lays out the appropriate
standard for Christian behavior. We know the passage as I
Corinthians 13. As you scholars know, it begins "If I speak in
the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a
resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of
prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I
have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am
nothing." Many folks hear those words and think about marriage
because the passage is so often read at weddings, but it is
really not limited to that. This is simply Paul's guide for
Christian behavior - married, single, widowed, divorced, male,
female, no matter. As to dealing with the issue at hand, this
difference of opinion on food offered to idols, the standard is
love: "love is patient, love is kind...it does not boast, it is
not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not
easily angered...It always protects, always trusts, always hopes,
always perseveres."(3) In the face of the overwhelming reality of
Christian love, the chew-'em-up and spit-'em-out rules of debate
are suddenly suspended; the negative bumper stickers are thrown
away; the mudslinging is over.
Eating meat offered to idols. You know, in a way, this is a
quintessentially Presbyterian issue. After all, Presbyterians,
among all stripes of Christians, are probably the most cerebral,
the most "knowledgeable." We are the ones who have been so
insistent upon an "educated clergy" that we would allow a split
in the church 200 years ago in defense of the idea. I will
confess that, as I hear some of the church-related social issues
that are piously debated today - abortion, human sexuality, stem-cell research, intelligent design, and so on - I am tempted to
scream. Yesterday, there was that article in the paper that had
some Southern Baptists wanting to tell other Southern Baptists
what was permissible and what was not in PRIVATE prayer. Geez,
Louise! I honestly get the impression that the only reason some
folks come to church is to have a place to fight. I want to yell
SHUT UP!!! You want the answers? Be quiet for a minute and I
will tell you!!! But then, I hear again, "Knowledge puffs up,
David, but love builds up." There are ways and there are ways.
OK, Lord, I'll be quiet. As I say, a quintessentially
Presbyterian issue.
Years ago, when I was in seminary, there was a little
Baptist church across the street from our campus. They had a
marquee-type church sign similar to ours on which was displayed a
message. But it was the same statement week after week after
week after week. For at least two solid years it was up there,
and I had no doubt it was meant particularly for us seminarians.
It said, "The same Bible that says believe also says Behave."
Uh-huh. A good reminder for seminarians or anyone. "The same
Bible that says believe also says Behave."
Did we take it to heart? Well... Our students were invited
to play a basketball game against the students of a nearby Bible
college. Theologically and socially "conservative" would not
begin to describe the world-view of these folks - they were
somewhere far to the right of the Falwells and Robinsons and
Dobsons. Their motto could easily have been "What part of 'Thou
shalt not' don't you understand?" And, of course, no smoking, no
drinking, no dancing, no card playing, no fooling around in the
back seat of the Chevy, etc., etc., etc.
Well, WE were the enlightened folks. We understood the
gospel as something positive, not negative. Christian freedom
allows us enormous liberty. And since this was a Lutheran
seminary, and everyone knows that Luther's favorite beverage was
beer, our team brought not only basketballs and shoes, they
brought a keg, and proceeded to demonstrate the Christian freedom
to imbibe that "enlightened" believers enjoy.
As you can imagine, our opponents were apoplectic, and let
our seminary administration know it. And soon, our seminary
president was equally apoplectic. How dare we do such a thing?
This sort of "in your face" taunting of peoples values, no matter
whether we might consider them misguided or not, is never to be
repeated. No more kegs, or no more ball games! Period! And he
was right. Sounds like First Church, Corinth, all over again.
A truism in our society is "It's not WHAT you know, it's WHO
you know," and in the context of modern life that explains why
some folks get ahead and some other do not. But in the context
of the life of faith, it can be equally valid, not as an excuse
for failure or an explanation for success, but as a wonderful way
of living out our understanding of the gospel. What determines
the way we live as Christians? WHAT we know? Or WHO? What do
you think Jesus would do? Listen to Paul once more: "Therefore,
if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never
eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall." Remember,
it's not WHAT you know...
Amen.
1. Clarence Jordan, The Cotton Patch Version of Paul's Epistles, (Piscataway, NJ : New
Century Publishers, 1968), p. 58
2. Material on sacrificial practices comes from an unpublished sermon by Dr. Carlos
Wilton, Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church, Point Pleasant, NJ entitled, "Love Builds," 1/30/00
and from William Barclay, Daily Study Bible Series, CD-ROM, (Liquori, MO: Liquori
Faithware, 1996, used by permission of Westminster/John Knox Press)
3. I Corinthians 13:4-7
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