I and We

What does it mean to live in community?  That is the question I’d like for us to use to frame this morning’s lesson from 1st Corinthians.

One thing I appreciate so much about Paul’s letters to the Corinthians is their being grounded in real life.  Paul writes so theologically in these letters, but it’s not an abstract, “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” theology; it’s theology that emerges from real conflict and real confusion and real, imperfect people who struggled to understand what it meant to live as the Body of Christ.

There are many ways to look at this text, many ways to preach on it.  The text talks about living with theological differences; it examines the tension between individual freedom and communal well-being.  The text looks at a community included people from different social statuses who had different accesses to power.  It also offers a glimpse into idols, false or real, and could lead a preacher into a sermon about Christology, who and what Christ is.

But today, as I said, I want us to look at what this text says about living and believing within a community, how the individual is part of the whole.

Some of you will be familiar with family systems theory, which is a part of family therapy.  Psychologists who worked with individuals and couples came to believe that often what was presented as an individual’s issue or problem was really part of a larger system, often based in relationships and patterns and behaviors that were learned and developed in one’s family of origin, the family in which a person grows up.

There is a lot more to family systems theory, but one aspect of it is relevant to today’s discussion.  Part of what enables an individual or a couple or a family or a group of some kind to function in a relatively healthy manner is being well differentiated, and maybe the best way to understand differentiation is this: how do I remain an “I” and still function within the “we”?  How do I stay true to myself while still functioning within a larger community?

Now there would be an appeal to this idea in our society which relishes the individual’s expression and is so suspicious of anything that resembles group-think.  But what Paul is talking about is not group-think; Paul is not trying to get a bunch of people assimilated into rotely believing in the same thing and behaving in the same way.  Paul is trying to get a bunch of people to understand what it means to be a community centered in Christ.

The Corinthians might have had a leg up on us with this.  If I read my Rohrbaugh & Malina correctly, the culture in which Paul wrote and Jesus lived could be described as having collectivistic personality, in which one was best known in relation to that person’s larger familial relationships.  Anthropologists describe this culture as “other-oriented” people who depend on others to provide them with a sense of who they are.[i]  The Corinthians already had the advantage of living in a culture where the individual’s rights and wants did not reign supreme.  So here Paul is, trying to get these folks to understand even more deeply what it means to be a community centered on Christ.

God knows the Corinthians tried to get it, and God knows Paul tried even harder with them.  If you read through 1st and 2nd Corinthians you’ll get a picture of a community that got it wrong more often than they got it right.  The people who arrived at worship first got to eat the bread, but those in the back got none.  Those with special spiritual powers, particularly the gift of speaking in tongues, lorded their specialness over the others.  Who wore what, who spoke when, all of that played into the dynamics of this community, to whom Paul wrote so strongly and theologically.

The presenting issue for the Corinthians that comes from today’s text is this: is it okay to eat meat that was sacrificed to idols?  At first, Paul answers the question affirmatively: since we know that there aren’t any idols, of course it’s okay to eat that meat because the sacrifice had no power because there is no such thing as an idol, there is only the one true God.

This passage makes me appreciate how brilliant Paul was at rhetoric.  Do you see what he does?  He comes up alongside those he eventually will prove wrong.  He says, “You’re right – enjoy that meat!  What was sacrificed to an idol wasn’t really an idol because there are no idols, there is only God.  That meat is not tainted.  You can eat it and not weaken your faith one bit.”  He presents himself as on their side.  Then he makes the counter-argument.

“You can eat that meat, but….”  And here Paul helps us understand the role of the individual in the life of the community.  For those who consider themselves strong in their faith, eating meat sacrificed to a false idol is a non-issue.  But for those who are new to the faith, those who just recently stopped their heartfelt idol worship, eating meat that was sacrificed is confusing.

Let’s think about this in a different way.

We have dear friends whom I’ll call Bill and Mary.  In the last ten years, Bill has acknowledged that he is an alcoholic; he has an addiction.  Mary enjoys a drink now and then, wine with dinner, but she could easily go without.  Not long after Bill got sober, we had them over for dinner, and I called Mary to ask about serving wine.  (Notice I didn’t call Bill; I hoped to spare him what I thought would be his embarrassment about the alcoholism.)  Mary said no problem, serve the wine, Bill needs to get used to being around alcohol without drinking it himself.

What would you do?  Would you serve wine, enabling all but one at the table to enjoy the fine cabernet, and encouraging Bill to be strong in the face of temptation?  Or would you, out of love and a different sense of encouragement for Bill, serve water or iced tea?

Why should I give up something that I enjoy and does me no harm so that someone else will not be tempted or hurt?  That is the crux of the dilemma.

Now some might say that by not serving the wine, not eating the meat, the community as a whole is acting in a co-dependent way.  It suggests that the community will give up the wine or the meat not out of concern for the other, but because such sacrifice makes the community feel good.  The other’s perceived weakness makes the rest feel strong.

Again, that’s not what Paul is talking about.  What I think he is getting at is how an individual’s freedom plays out in the wider community.  Think of it this way.  If I am truly free from the dangers of drinking, I am free to drink without leading to addiction, then I am also free not to drink.

If some of you Corinthians are so strong and sure in your faith that you can eat meat sacrificed to idols without that leading to believing in those idols, then you are also free to go without meat for the sake of your sister or brother.

So how might this play out in our own community?  Let’s look at something we’re doing this morning.  This morning we have the joy and privilege of baptizing a sweet baby.  As part of our baptism liturgy, we’re going to say the Apostles’ Creed today, because sometimes when you get new pastors you get new pastors who like to say the Apostles’ Creed with baptism.

I’ve had interesting experiences with the Apostles’ Creed over the years.  I remember the Sunday after 9/11, I was in church.  After the sermon we stood to say the Apostles’ Creed. I welled up.  I was so choked up I couldn’t speak.  I was moved to tears by the church affirming, after that awful tragedy, that we still believed in a God whom evil could not vanquish.

On a more mundane level… I served a church in which we said the Apostles’ Creed every Sunday.  And I started to notice that while everybody stood up for that part, not everyone said every line.  It got to be a little hilarious.  There were some who didn’t say “he descended into hell.”  Others didn’t call God “Father.”  Many people fell silent at the words “I believe in the resurrection of the body”.  So one day I asked one of the people who didn’t say a part what that was about.  She was so faithful, committed to the church, a scary-smart PhD, and she said, “I don’t believe that particular part so I don’t say it.”

Paul might say to this woman, “So, if in your faith, you are free not to say that particular line because you don’t believe it, are you then not also free to say it with your brothers and sisters who do believe it?”

For Paul, it’s not about being right.  It is about being  loving. It’s not about how to make the weak stronger, but how the strong can give up some of their strength in order to stand alongside the weak.  It’s not about group-think, rubber-stamping out true differences, but acknowledging that all of our differences work together as we figure out what it means to be in community.  We are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.

An image for you to take with you this day, from Rainer Maria Rilke, who wrote:

Once the realization is accepted

That even between the closest human beings

Infinite distances continue to exist

A wonderful living side by side can grow up

If they succeed in loving the distance between them

Which makes it possible for each to see the other

Whole and against a wide sky.

 

          May God open up such a vista for us.  Amen.


The Reverend Beth Neel

Westminster Presbyterian Church

January 29, 2012

[i] Bruce J. Malina & Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, p. 343