Romans 14:1-13 (NIV)
1Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment
on disputable matters. 2One man's faith allows him to eat
everything, but another man, whose faith is weak, eats only
vegetables. 3The man who eats everything must not look down
on him who does not, and the man who does not eat everything
must not condemn the man who does, for God has accepted him.
4Who are you to judge someone else's servant? To his own
master he stands or falls. And he will stand, for the Lord
is able to make him stand.
5One man considers one day more sacred than another; another
man considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced
in his own mind. 6He who regards one day as special, does
so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he
gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the
Lord and gives thanks to God. 7For none of us lives to himself
alone and none of us dies to himself alone. 8If we live,
we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So,
whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
9For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so
that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
10You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you
look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's
judgment seat.
11It is written:
" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,
'every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.' "
12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. 13Therefore let
us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to
put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way.
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A lady had a fascinating dream in which she saw a long
line of people waiting to get into the throne room of heaven.
At the end of the line was a magnificent door and behind
the door God was conversing individually with each person
as they were brought into His presence.
The main topic of each conversation was the person's discipleship—what
they had done; how they had lived out their faith. Some had done very well
while others not so well.
Each time God listened to the person, lovingly, without anyone else present.
Each person was held accountable for his or her own life.
And the wonderful thing was that no other human being was needed to help God.
God seemed to be doing just fine, all by Himself!
Isn't it amazing, or perhaps I should say frightening, how often we feel God
really needs our help in judging others!
After all we have developed criticism into a fine art. Whether
it be driving the car or watching our kids play baseball
or playing bridge or coming to Church, human beings have
a tremendous capacity to find fault with other human beings.
It certainly isn't new. It’s a part of our sinful
nature to build ourselves up by pulling others down.
The Apostle Paul knew all about it. He saw it running rampant
in the early Church.
Our Scripture lesson from Romans 14:1-13 is one of many
passages where Paul addresses conflicts in the Church brought
on by people taking sides and playing theological dodge ball.
Paul wrote to disarm disagreements about what one commentator
said was "the appropriate ways of being religious".
Paul wrote about the ways people viewed things—some
saw issues in terms of sharp distinctions—black and
white. Others perceived the same issues in terms of shades
of grey.
Our Scripture lesson offers some clues about the issues
at stake but there aren’t a lot of details.
It seems, very early on in the life of the Church, disputes
arose around the eating of meat and the honouring of former
sacred days.
For one reason or another some groups chose to eat meat and anything else while
others ate only vegetables.
Some chose to keep special days and honour them while others
considered every day special and failed to differentiate
between them.
In the midst of these differences the Church's unity was
being destroyed. Black and white vs. grey.
Paul addressed the conflict by not taking sides. He didn't
give anyone on any side the leverage they needed to claim
an authoritative victory.
At the beginning of our lesson Paul wrote:
1Accept him whose faith is weak, without passing judgment
on disputable matters.
At the end he summed up this way:
10You, then, why do you judge your brother? Or why do you
look down on your brother? For we will all stand before God's
judgment seat.
11It is written:
" 'As surely as I live,' says the Lord,
'every knee will bow before me;
every tongue will confess to God.'"
12So then, each of us will give an account of himself to God. 13Therefore let
us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to
put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother's way.
Basically Paul's point was this: God is more accepting of differences than
we suppose and God is more critical of our judging others than we would like.
So often Christians assume God is tremendously concerned about the way we worship
and the way we live.
Many Christians assume there is good music to use in the
Worship Services and not so good music to leave out of worship.
Many Christians assume there is a proper way to dress for
Sunday and a way that is not acceptable.
Many Christians assume that the way they live and the way
they worship is just right and any other way is either not
acceptable to God or is, at best, second rate.
God is interested in the way we worship and the way we
live but God’s
view is so often very much broader than our own.
The main issue isn’t the way we do things.
Paul wrote:
6He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord.
He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to
God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks
to God. 7For none of us lives to himself alone and none of
us dies to himself alone. 8If we live, we live to the Lord;
and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or
die, we belong to the Lord.
The main issue isn’t the way we do things.
The main issue is motivation.
We belong to the Lord so what we do must come from the
central motive of honouring and serving God.
But there is even a danger here because we can do something
to honour the Lord and very easily criticize anyone else
who doesn’t do the same thing—in the same way.
So there needs to be a balance that also recognizes the
importance of relating to others with the central motive
of love.
The motive of honouring and serving God goes hand in hand
with the motive of loving others.
Holding these two motives together allows for there to be
differences without judgement.
It allows for openness while still maintaining different
opinions or positions.
A family won four goldfish at their school's carnival, so the next day they
went to buy an aquarium. The cost of what they saw ranged from $40-$70. Then
they spotted a discarded 10 gallon display tank. It came with a filter and
gravel and was only five dollars.
It was very dirty and grungy but for $5 the two hours of cleaning was no big
deal.
The four fish looked great in their new home—at least they did the
first day. The next day one of the fish went belly up. Too bad but three
remained.
Over the next couple of days, though, each of the fish died.
The family went back to the store and discovered what had gone wrong. In cleaning
the aquarium they had used soap and the residue from the soap had killed the
fish.
In trying to protect the fish they had actually destroyed them.
Sometimes, in the midst of our differences, we can use killer soap too.
We try so hard to clean up our own lives and the lives of
those around us that we turn our differences into tensions
that hurt and harm. We may think we’re doing the right
thing. We may even see it as being helpful in the Lord, but
the reality is the tension that’s created is destructive—self-destructive.
Paul's counsel is informative to us.
I’m not thinking so much here about differences within
a congregation. What concerns me much more is the recently
increasing gulf within Christianity, itself—the gulf
between conservative Christians and liberal Christians. We
see it a little bit here in Canada, but it’s even
more pronounced and distressing in the U.S.
There is a very disturbing trend, when differences occur,
for one group of Christians to proclaim themselves true and
declare the other group of Christians as either lacking in
faith or not being Christians to begin with. Issues such
as abortion, same sex marriage, capital punishment, neo-natal
ethics and all kinds of things a lot less significant are
building up a polarization within the Church. Such polarization
is destructive for the general Christian Community. It also
offers a horrible witness to the outside world in terms of
who we are and what we are about.
Paul wrote that we all live and die to the Lord—all
of us—Christians on the left, Christians on the right—Christians
in the middle.
God is over us all.
We are all accountable to God.
Our motives are all known by God.
We are all in this together!
Judging others can originate in a lot of places. It can come from self-righteousness,
intolerance, a sense of superiority or a feeling of inferiority.
No matter where it comes from, it’s destructive.
Keeping the twin motives of honouring God and loving others
as central will go a long way in helping to develop compassion
and build community within the Christian family—a
family made up of so many diverse denominations.
I'm sure God looks down upon us in our conflicts over how
to worship; how to understand Communion and Baptism; how
and where to show tolerance and compassion and a whole
host of other issues and sadly says: "Those things aren’t
as important as how well do you love each other. What image
of the Body of Christ are you showing to the world?"
In Japan there is a Christian organization called the Asian
Rural Institute. Its purpose is to learn techniques for
improving farming and living standards.
In doing this they seek to "learn respect for other cultures; ways
of resolving conflict and ways to strengthen community."
This organization draws Christians from 30 different countries and many different
denominations.
I conclude with a prayer which comes to us from these cooperating
Christians in Japan and offers a wonderful lesson:
"Creating God of wholeness, Redeeming God of brokenness,
Sustaining God of all that makes for abundant life, we
come before you in our desire for wholeness. Give us strength
to sustain each other as we confront and name our areas
of
pain and brokenness, that compassion might be born within
us and shared with the world."
(1604)
© The Rev. Dennis Cook, St. Timothy’s Presbyterian
Church, Ajax, ON, Canada
