Living God’s embrace of the weak in faith
May 10, 2009
Jonathan Slater
Text: Romans 14:1-15:7
We are in the midst of a preaching series, “Living God’s Embrace: Who can measure”. Dave introduced the series three weeks ago, and then in subsequent weeks focused on living God’s embrace in the midst of racial and cultural diversity, and also in the midst of economic disparity and homelessness. While there are elements of both racial-cultural diversity and economic diversity at play in today’s text from Romans, the main focus is on differences of personal conviction, and what God’s embrace of both those Paul describes as “weak in faith” and as “strong in faith” means for our common life together. Before getting into the substance of the sermon, I will summarize what I am going to say in three points:
First: No matter how weak or strong we are in faith, God welcomes and embraces us. We are all strong in some senses, and weak in others; we all go through times of strength and times of weakness in life; but through them all, God loves us and embraces us. God’s love and embrace of us does not depend on the strength of our faith or belief, or whether we believe the right things.
Second: Similarly God has welcomed and embraced all of our neighbours, no matter how strong or weak their faith may be; no matter how different their convictions may be from ours. God’s love and embrace of others does not depend on the strength of their faith or belief, or whether they believe the right things.
Third: Living God’s embrace of both ourselves and others means seeking to support and build up each other, regardless of the differences of faith and conviction that we may have, and that we ought to be particularly concerned that the things we do to express our faith do not harm the faith of others. Perhaps the simplest way to say that is that mutual love and accountability take precedence over insisting on our own convictions about things. When in disagreement with others, we should be more concerned with how we can support and help one another than with convincing the other of our point of view.
Let us pray as we enter this time of speaking and listening:
Loving God,
Thank you that you embrace each one of us.
May your Spirit speak to us this morning, that we might learn better how to embrace one another,
not simply how to tolerate and co-exist,
but how to support and encourage each other
even in the midst of our differences,
Amen.
Convictions concerning meat and idols:
In the text from Paul’s letter to the Romans which we heard read this morning, Paul is addressing a situation where there is a strong difference of conviction about what is appropriate for Christians to eat. Some of the Christians in Rome believe that Christians ought to abstain from eating meat, while others think that there is no problem with eating meat.
It is important to realize that when Paul speaks of the ‘weak in faith’, he is not speaking about people who have less faith, or whose faith is weaker than others. In a sense, it would make sense to call the non-meat eaters the “strong in faith”, because they are willing to give up eating meat for the sake of their faith, and their concern to be faithful to Jesus Christ. Certainly from their own perspective they are strong, and it is the meat-eaters who are weak. From their perspective, it is the meat-eaters who engage in questionable eating-practices, eating meat even though it may have been sacrificed to an idol.
To understand the importance of this issue it helps to understand the historical context. Most of the meat that was available in Rome at the time Paul was writing would have been butchered in the context of a sacrifice, and so eating meat could be associated with worshipping idols. “In the ancient world the temples normally were the restaurants. Each town or city had plenty of shrines to local gods and goddesses, to the great divinities like Apollo or Venus, and, in Paul’s day, more and more to the Roman emperor and members of his family. And what people mostly did there was to come with animals for sacrifice. When the animal was killed, it would be cooked, and the family (depending on what sort of ritual it was) might have a meal with the meat as the centrepiece. But there was usually more meat than the worshippers could eat, and so other people would come to the temple and share in the food which had been offered to the god. Even that would often fail to use up all the sacrificed meat. So the temple officials would take what was left to the market where it would be sold in the normal way. In fact, most of the meat available for sale in a city like [Rome] would have been offered in sacrifice.” (From Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone: 1 Corinthians) For that reason, some Jews in the ancient world, in places where they couldn’t or didn’t have a butcher of their own who they could get meat from that had not been sacrificed to an idol, refused to eat meat at all.
The connection between eating meat and idolatry helps to explain why some of the Roman Christians felt that they should not eat meat. They did not want to compromise their loyalty to Jesus Christ by participating, even indirectly, in the worship of other gods by eating meat which had been sacrificed to idols. The high probability that the meat available to them had been sacrificed meant that it was safest to avoid eating meat altogether. This was not just a dispute over dietary preferences, but a disagreement over what was necessary to be faithful to Christ.
God’s decision to embrace is the basis of our embrace of others:
While Paul makes it clear that his own conviction lines up with those who eat meat, his intent here is not to convince those who disagree with him to change their eating habits. The point Paul is making is not who is right and who is wrong. He is more concerned with how those who disagree with one another relate to each other, insisting that meat eaters and non-meat-eaters should not judge or despise one another for their choices.
Having instructed the “strong in faith” to “welcome those who are weak in faith”, Paul explains that
“those who eat must not despise those who abstain,
and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat” (14.3)
But why should the strong not despise the weak, and the weak not judge the strong?
Firstly, because judging is God’s prerogative;
“Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another?” says Paul.
“It is before their own lord that they stand or fall.” (14.4)
Beyond this conviction that judgment is God’s business, however, Paul reminds his reader’s that God exercises his judgment in love. God alone is free to judge. God has exercised this freedom as freedom to love both ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ in faith:
“Those who eat must not despise those who abstain,
and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat;
for God has welcomed them.” (14.3)
Yes, writes Paul, “each of us will be accountable to God”, and God will judge, God will decide; but in Christ it has been revealed what God has decided.
The good news of Jesus Christ is that God has decided in our favour, God has bestowed favour on all of humanity in Christ. As Paul says earlier, in Romans 5, God demonstrates his love for us in that while we were still sinners Christ died for us. (5.8) God did not wait for us to turn towards God, to have strong faith, or correct beliefs, but it was while we were turned away from God, alienated from God, that we received reconciliation through Christ.
God’s welcome of all precedes any faith they may have, whether weak or strong; God’s welcome precedes any judgment of the rightness or wrongness of their convictions. And since God welcomes all, both weak and strong, Paul insists that his readers, whether strong or weak, are to welcome one another, writing in Romans 15.7 “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.”
If God’s embrace is the basis of our welcoming others, our welcome is more than tolerance or forbearance:
This rooting of our welcome of others in God’s self-giving love and embrace of all people pushes us beyond mere tolerance or forbearance. Paul’s concern is not simply to exclude the negative activities of judging and despising each other. He is not interested in simple co-existence and absence of conflict, but in positive welcome and embrace.
The second half of Romans 14 emphasizes that love for one another trumps the principle that each of us is entitled to our own opinion, as long as our consciences are clear before God;
While Paul makes it clear what his position on the matter of eating meat is, saying
“I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself” (15.14)
He also insists that such knowledge needs to be tempered by love and concern for those who think differently. One commentator sums Paul’s point up as: “While people must follow the light they have, the must not do so in isolation from one another, nor in lack of consideration for the effect on others of their own practice.” (Zeisler, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 326) Those who, like himself, are convinced that meat is not unclean in itself should be willing to give up eating meat when their eating meat would cause problems for others. And here Paul uses very strong language, speaking of the possibility that one person’s eating meat might “cause the ruin of one for whom Christ died” (14.15)
Why does Paul use such strong language? Who might be ruined by others exercising their freedom to eat meat? One plausible possibility is Gentiles who have in the past worshipped at various shrines. After becoming Christian it would be difficult to split that old world up into different bits, rejecting some aspects and retaining others. And if they were surrounded by other Christians who were eating meat, they might be tempted to do so, not because their convictions on the matter had changed, but in spite of their convictions having not changed.
They might, in spite of their convictions, find themselves eating meat; and for them this would feel like disloyalty to Christ, a reverting back to their former way of life. “the weak are not in their hearts convinced that it is safe to eat the meat, and suspect that if they eat they will at least implicitly be taking part in the pagan cult. If they eat under such circumstances, they are in effect mixing their lordships and their worships, thus turning their backs on Jesus Christ as sole Lord.” (Zeisler, 331)
In such a context, you can see why the strong might be tempted to look down on the weak, as those who “are not liberated from their past sufficiently to be convinced” that meat cannot be contaminated by its history. And there would also be a temptation of the weak to judge the strong, to see them as compromising and mixing their loyalty to Christ with loyalty to idols.
Both are convinced of the truth of their own position, and pass judgment on those who disagree with them. What I think Paul is doing, however, is calling for a shift in perspective, away from, or beyond, simply what is right and wrong, permissible and impermissible; instead, we are called to think in terms of pastoral care for one another, and in terms of the health of the whole community.
Paul writes, “Let us then pursue what makes for peace and mutual up-building. Do not, for the sake of food, destroy the work of God. Everything is indeed clean, but it is wrong for you to make others fall by what you eat; it is good not to eat meat or drink wine or do anything that makes your brother or sister stumble.” (14.19-20)
Paul assumes that the church contains both strong and weak, and that it is the responsibility of the strong to take special care of the weak. The presence of both strong and weak within the community is not just a situation which the strong are to endure, but rather an opportunity for Christian service to one another.
And so Romans 15 begins: “We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak” (15.1) This is an unfortunate translation. The Greek word which the NRSV translates as “put up with” is more literally translated as “bear” or “carry”. Paul’s intent is not simply that the strong should “put up with” the weak, endure their presence among them, but rather that it is the responsibility of the strong to carry the weak, to give help to them. It is the responsibility of the strong to help, to look out for the well-being, of the weak. And in this they will be bearing faithful witness to God’s embrace of both the weak and the strong, welcoming them as God has welcomed them in Christ.
Living God’s embrace of the weak in faith:
The good news for us is that God welcomes us, regardless of our convictions, whether we are weak or strong in faith. And God’s welcome of all people calls forth a similar welcome from us; God invites us to live God’s embrace through welcoming and embracing all people, regardless of their convictions. The responsibility for welcome falls in a particular way upon those who are strong in faith, in that they have a special responsibility to attend to the well-being of the weak. So far, so good. But what does this look like for us? WHO are the strong and who are the weak?
This past week, I found myself thinking about Miriam Toews’ novel A Complicated Kindness. Somehow this book seemed to connect with the issue Paul is dealing with in this text. And this is a bit odd because the Mennonite community portrayed in this novel is not one of welcome and embrace, but of exclusion. It portrays a Mennonite community whose strict morality is rigidly enforced by shunning all who deviate from the accepted norms of the community.
The character who narrates the story, Nomi Nickel, tells us that as a child she had relished the clarity of the belief system of the Mennonite community within which she was raised, where there was no doubt as to what was right and what was wrong. Toews portrays Nomi’s journey as one from childhood certainties and binary clarity to adult appreciation of freedom and responsibility. Nomi, unlike her father Ray, no longer needs to cling to “irrefutable facts as thought they were life rafts”. Toews portrays Nomi’s coming of age as a putting aside of childish weakness in favour of maturity and strength. Toews portrays faith as a kind of weakness, something which the weak need, but which is unnecessary for the strong, for the adults. It is the story of Nomi becoming an adult in a town full of children.
One thing that struck me is that I wondered if many of us would find it easier to welcome Nomi than we would most of the other characters in the book. I wonder if perhaps we find ourselves looking down on the other members of this town, such as Nomi’s father Ray, who feels the need for clear boundaries, and irrefutable facts. Do we feel a sense of superiority to him, as those who, like Nomi, have put aside such childish things? Are we tempted to thank Go
d that we are not like the narrow and simplistic Mennonites portrayed in this novel, but are rather urban and sophisticated?
Would we be able to welcome Ray, or even Uncle Hans, if he came among us just as much as we would be able to Nomi? Are we as willing and able to embrace the one who turns to rules and certitudes just as much as the one who rejects these things? I think especially in our modern, or post-modern world, there is a temptation to look down upon, to dismiss, despise or reject, those who want to hold on to more traditional values; who seek certainty and stability.
Is this the right example? I’m not sure. Some of us probably can identify with Ray. There are certainly both people like Ray among us just as surely as there are people like Nomi. And I don’t mean in Toronto, but actually among us – here at TUMC. And I think we each need to attend particularly to how we might welcome those we find it hardest to welcome. I think it is important for us each to admit that there are people that we find it difficult to welcome. I do tend to think we are tolerant people, and yet I wonder if sometimes we stop with toleration, with peaceful coexistence, without positive support and help of those with whom we differ. How do we move beyond tolerating differences of conviction to welcoming, to supporting and encouraging one another in love even in the midst of such differences?
I have one concrete suggestion to offer: Think of a person who you suspect that you have significant differences of conviction with, and share a meal with them. Get to know them better, and see if there are ways that you can support and encourage them. Perhaps even talk about the areas of difference that you have with them, but not with the intent of finding out who is correct, or of convincing them of your conviction. Instead try to understand what their deep convictions are, and listen to see how you might walk along-side them wherever they are on their journey of faith.
May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant us to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, so that together we may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen