Kalamazoo Mennonite Fellowship
October 4, 2009
Will Fitzgerald
Romans 13:8-15:7
This passage is too much to cover in one Sunday, but I think it is time for us to move on from Romans. Next week, we’ll look at the concluding chapters and do a bit of a review. But this week, I want to look especially at what it means to not judge one another in our weakness.
We must always remember that Paul is writing with the great story of God’s action towards the world in mind: God created humanity; our ancestors forsook God; God revealed to Abraham that Abraham would be the father of many nations; the people of Israel received God’s promises, especially the promise of the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, in whom all Israel’s problems and promises were concentrated. And, though the cross and resurrection, and the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ, God’s promises are being fully kept.
The time is soon coming, by the prophets foretold,
When Zion in purity the world shall behold.
When Jesus’ pure testimony will gain the day,
Denominations, selfishness will vanish away.
Let all who would wish to see Millennium begin,
Come out and be separate from sinners and sin.
As soon as the churches are redeemed from sin,
The day of the Millennium will surely begin.
And praise God, this promise to Israel has come true. God’s name is praised in Christian gatherings on every continent, and perhaps even every nation. Open our hymnbook, and see the cultures and eras represented. I don’t want to be self-congratulatory here, for we know the great evils that have been, and often still are, perpetuated in the name of Christ. But praise God for brothers and sisters in Africa and Europe and South America and Asia and Australia; praise God the gospel came to North America and praise God that gospel has been preached to us, who are lately and untimely born—and I will praise God even with the memory of our terrible history of oppression, slavery and subjugation, done by Christians to Christians and non-Christians alike.
And with that expansion of the gospel to many nations and cultures and economic classes, we’re going to run into some cultural problems; problems of a certain type that were present in the church at Rome just as they are present in the church that meets in this house. And that problem is that we are going to disagree about things that seem really, really important, but that threaten our peace and unity.
For the church at Rome, there were questions about food and holidays.
Some of the Christians remained vegetarians because they didn’t want to eat meat tainted by its use in pagan religious ceremonies. Some didn’t. If you know me at all, you know that I don’t like beets, because I got sick on them when I was a child. And even since then, I get a little nauseated when I’m around them. Just ask Bess and Jane. This week, I was at work, where they provide us with lunch, and there were two big pans of beets: red beets and golden beets. There was only one serving spoon and my friend Robert reached over to another NON-BEET serving dish to use its serving spoon, saying, I think, something like, I think it will be ok to use this for the beets. But I immediately, without thinking shouted, “NO!” I did not want to let the non-beet food be tainted with the juice of the beet. It quite startled Robert, and it took a little explaining that, even though it was a little irrational, I really did not want the serving spoon to serve both beets and non-beets.
I imagine that the early Christians faced a similar situation, but every single day and practically at every meal. It this wasn’t just a case of getting sick when you were a kid, but you had the whole history of animal sacrifices in Israel and in pagan Roman and Greek cultures in the background. How can you eat that! Do you know what it was used for?
I know observant Jews who are like that when they think about non-kosher foods, and I know vegetarians for whom the imagined act of eating meat is disgusting. In fact, this whole idea of disgust is likely one key to understanding scruples about food issues. If I eat this thing, will it make me sick? Will it kill me? Does it bring up strong unpleasant reminders—especially that most unpleasant of reminders, that we all belong to a club called the “Future Corpses of America”?
But there are other keys, too, to understanding these scruples about food. For some people, some food and drink are actual temptations to fall or stay in bad habits. The most obvious one is alcohol, perhaps; but I know from very personal experience that a really good church potluck is a strong temptation to gluttony. (If we were at Pine Grove Mennonite, it would be obligatory for me to mention “peanut butter pie” right now.)
And of course, for some foods and for some people, the moral and ethical dimensions predominate. Some of us are trying to “eat local,” because we think it’s wrong to contribute to global warming. Some avoid meat, either because they think it is always immoral, or because of the brutal and inhumane way that meat is produced.
These scruples about food threaten our unity as Christians.
And holidays are another thing. In the secular world we live in, we have converted “holy days” into “holidays,” and it is not such a big issue. But of course we have even in this small fellowship of ours people who celebrate the Sabbath on both the Jewish and the general Christian model: Saturday or Sunday. And this is a fairly significant issue: if we can’t decide on which day to worship together, we’re more or less sunk.
God has welcomed all people into fellowship, to join the true Israel, which is not a matter of food and drink and special days. But we are still people who have scruples about these things—and many other things, mind you—and we must learn to live together. Paul gives us several ways of thinking and acting to do so.
He reminds us that other people are not our servants. They are God’s. If they think God wants them to act in a certain way, who are we to tell them what to do? Bess and I have a shorthand we sometimes use when we find ourselves judging others on their scruples; we can say “not my servant,” and understand that by that we know we are being judgmental. “Every knee shall bow,” Paul reminds us; but of course they are bowing to God, not to us.
He reminds us that, although other people are not our servants, we are theirs. If we are acting in a way that doesn’t make for “peace and mutual upbuilding,” we should start doing so now. Christ did not live to please himself, but God and humanity; and so should we.
He reminds us not to do things that we don’t think God wants us to do. In these things, we follow God, and not others. If someone puts meat on your plate, and you truly think that God would be displeased by your eating it, don’t. If you act outside how you believe God wants you to act, that’s not a good thing.
He reminds us that we should bear with “the weak.” Paul says, “we who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak,” and I wonder if he’s not being just a little bit ironic here. In the topsy-turvy life of the Christian, each of us is expected to serve others; to make others our masters, and if we all do such a thing, we are all masters and all servants. From my point of view, you are strong, and I am weak; you are the master and I am the servant. From your point of view, I am strong and you are weak; I am the master and you are the servant. From your point of view, and from mine, we are both servants of Jesus, who is both our master and who served us.
So, we are weak together; servants together of each other and of God.
Now, I believe that most people can handle a lot of diversity in behavior at most times, and if people have a problem, they can usually talk about it. For example, when we were deciding on how we observe communion, the question came up about using real wine or grape juice. Me, I was for real wine, but someone said they couldn’t participate if it were, so it was easy to switch to grape juice. It wasn’t something I would have known if they hadn’t said anything; but it was easily fixed. Other congregations do other things, such as serve both wine and grape juice, of course; but, for us, we can live with grape juice and so we do.
When we welcome someone into our homes, we typically look for similarities and differences. We might try to figure out if we know any of the same people, or even if we are related in any way—what Mennonites call “playing the Mennonite game.” But we look for connections. And we also look for, and are glad for, differences—different experiences and outlooks. Oh, you’ve been to France? What was that like? Oh, you like sushi? Tell me about it! Oh, you like French sushi? I’ve never heard of that! And so on.
And even more so, we should welcome one another in the church, finding areas of similarities and celebrating the diverse gifts and outlooks of one another.
So in conclusion: God has been doing this new thing: welcoming all into the family. And when we all get together, we will naturally fail to love one another easily, or choose the same stance towards things like what to eat, days to celebrate, how to dress, what kind of worship music we like, when to meet, how often to meet, particular beliefs and attitudes we might have, whether we raise our hands in worship, and on and on and on and on. We can navigate these often difficult waters if we remember that we serve God and others; and that they are not here to serve us; if we remember that we are all weak together; if we remember to welcome one another, just as Christ has welcomed us.