Welcome to the Knox Talks blog. Here you can find recent and past sermons relating scripture to a wide variety of topics. I would like to thank Shelley Rose for transcribing my notes into text for the blog.
Welcoming Difference
Scriptures: Genesis 50:15-21
Religions promote eating disorders!
Okay, that’s an overstatement, but we do have food issues. In each of the three Abrahamic faiths: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, there are food challenges that need to be addressed; and questions of what to eat and when to eat it which can be found in other religions as well.
For the Abrahamic faiths it all starts with the Kosher laws we find in the laws of Moses. There are a lot of food rules. Many modern folk explain these away as being practical for a wandering culture in a hot country with no refrigeration. Most of the rules deal with meat of one sort or another and with milk products, all things that can spoil easily and, in the case of meat, carry parasites.
That doesn’t explain everything. There is a lot of symbolism in the rules and deeper meaning: the banning of mixing dairy and meat together is a generalization of the law that prohibits the cooking of a lamb in its mother’s milk. That is a law that arises out of a sense of relationship. Cooking a lamb in its own mother’s milk was an offensive idea which was seen as a profound violation of a sacred bond between parent and child. It was something that had much greater implications than mere food rules.
Even today, I was told by our friends over at Temple Israel that Jewish people who find themselves in non-Jewish settings will eat a vegetarian diet if they want to keep Kosher. It is a simple and safe way to avoid breaking the rules and it’s even Biblical: it’s what was taught in the book of Daniel as a way to live faithfully in a foreign culture. When we shared a meal at Temple Israel with Jews, Christians and Muslims together, the food served was not only delicious but it was entirely vegetarian and met both Kosher and Halal rules.
You might think that Christianity has no food rules but I remember growing up in Quebec in the 60s how many of my Catholic neighbours used to eat fish on Fridays because every Friday was a reflection of Good Friday, a fast day, where you should eat neither flesh nor fowl.
If that sounds Medieval, you’re right. It’s a ritual understanding of the days of the week that some Protestants move back to during Lent when they give up something as a sign of devotion. And of course, there are the Seventh Day Adventists who, for the most part practise vegetarianism as a statement of faith. They take the perspective that our bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit and we should keep them as pure as possible.
Meat was obviously an issue in Paul’s situation as he was writing to the Romans. In those days, they didn’t have McDonald’s. Yes, there’d be stall-keepers flogging sticks of souvlaki but there was a major industry in cooked meat from the Pagan temples. People would bring in animals for sacrifice, more than the priests and their families could eat, so they cooked them and sold them as convenience foods. A quick and handy meal for the Roman on the go!
The theological question was: if you eat food offered to a Pagan god, are you being unfaithful to our own God? Are you honouring Jupiter or Mars or Venus and thus being a heretic or religious back-slider?
Paul’s logic was straightforward, and befit his training as a Pharisee: There is only one real God, he reasoned. All others are idols: false gods that don’t exist, so meat sacrificed to them is meaningless in Christian terms. There is no Zeus or Mars or Venus in real life, so eating meat sacrificed to them does not make you a worshipper of those non-existent beings.
Easy logic for him because he had never believed in those gods but much harder for many new Christians who had converted from Paganism and who used to be convinced that those gods were very real indeed. Eating that meat would feel like back-sliding to them, returning to old, Pagan habits. It might feel like serving wine to an alcoholic.
That’s why Paul described vegetarianism as being for the weak of faith. He wasn’t making a judgment on the food choices, just on the reasoning of faith that led to the choice.
You’ll notice that Paul extends the argument into another sphere altogether: holy days. He says that all days may be celebrated as holy, or specific days may be celebrated as holy, and neither approach is better than the other as long as they come from a sincere desire to be faithful to God.
Paul is promoting a very individualistic approach to faith here. It lands on each of our shoulders to work through what we believe and how we choose to live our lives in reflection of God’s values. It reminds us that we are not God ourselves; we have no right to judge others for the ways they choose to honour God even if we disagree deeply with their perspective.
This passage helped define the United Church when it was formed. We chose to welcome each other across denominations, despite our differences. We didn’t go for uniformity. We chose to celebrate what we had in common and to allow for a great range of diversity in worship, in understanding and interpretation.
You’ll notice that Paul’s teaching didn’t stop the church from developing some very specific rules about food and indeed, about holy days over the centuries. Many of those conversations still go on today and divide denominations even now.
And within the United Church there are still passionate arguments about who is right in which interpretation, not often about food anymore, but about the many ways we try to be faithful to God.
The principle Paul taught us is a good one even if it is hard to back off when we are convinced we are right. As Paul says, no one of us is God; we are not in the position of Christ; each faithful person has to answer to God for how they live out their faith and follow the calls of their conscience.
Paul was not the first person to take this point of view. We saw Joseph say this in our Genesis lesson when his brothers were afraid of him seeking vengeance and lied about their father’s final wishes. Joseph’s reply was: I’m not God. Who am I to judge you? God is doing a greater thing here!
As we go forward and try to discover what Christianity will look like in a very different sort of future, we have to find it in ourselves to welcome difference, even where we have strong opinions about what is the right way forward. We must leave room for all those people who have a different understanding and are just as committed to God as we are.
Differences will always exist because our life experiences will give us different perspectives, but they don’t have to divide us. We don’t have to follow the old path of schism and splitting off.
In fact, we will be stronger, more creative; we will be wiser if we can find room in our hearts and our gatherings for expression of the sincere differences that make us individuals.
Paul held this up as an ideal in the 1st century; let’s see if we can make it come alive in this 21st century.
Amen.
Knox United Church Nepean 