Looking after each other

Sermon for 15th February 2009 (1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1; Mark 1:40-45)

A little girl was in church with her mother when she started feeling ill. "Mum," she said, "Can we leave now?" "No" her mother replied. "Well, I think I have to throw up!" "Then go out the front door and around to the back of the church and throw up behind a bush." A minute later the little girl returned to her seat. "Did you throw up?" Mum asked. "Yes." "How could you have gone all the way to the back of the church and returned so quickly?" "I didn't have to go out of the church, Mommy. They have a box next to the front door that says, 'For the Sick'.

The moral behaviour of a person is ruled by what they see as right or wrong. For the traditional Jew right and wrong is determined by the Law. What the Law permits is right and what the Law forbids is wrong. In our present culture, right and wrong depends, often, on how you feel about a course of action. The author Ernest Hemingway write, “What is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.” Traditional Jewish morality tends to legalism, rules, that is, putting the letter of the law before flesh-and-blood human needs. Popular Western morality, on the other hand, leads to a subjective morality in which the rightness or wrongness of what we do depends on how we feel about it. The Christian in the modern world is caught between these conflicting systems of morality.

Today, in the 2nd reading from 1st Corinthians, Paul gives us an alternative standard of morality based specifically on the teachings of Christ. According to Paul, whether an action is right or wrong depends on whether or not it contributes to the spiritual welfare and practical of others. In using this standard of morality, Paul the Jew rejects both traditional Jewish legalism and popular Western individualism.

Paul rejects traditional Jewish moral legalism by reaffirming the freedom of the children of God in Christ regarding the Jewish Law. For Christians “All things are lawful but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful but not all things build up” (1 Corinthians 10:24). He also rejects popular Western relativism by reaffirming the guiding Christian duty of love of neighbour; that implies that we put the interest of others before our own. “Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other” (verse 24). The freedom of the children of God and the Christian duty of love of neighbour are the two sides of the one coin that Paul sees as the standard of Christian morality. To show how this principle works in practice Paul takes the example of whether or not a Christian should eat meat offered to idols.

To resolve the case, Paul first appeals to the fundamental Christian belief that there is only one God and the world and all it contains belongs to Him. That means we are free from ritual acts regarding beliefs in other gods; these we know to be nothing but superstitions. So, we can eat meat offered to idols since there are no ‘gods’ other than the one God that we believe in. So following Christian belief, Christians could eat meat offered to idols.

Eat whatever is sold in the meat market without raising any question on the ground of conscience, 26 for “the earth and its fullness are the Lord’s.” 27 If an unbeliever invites you to a meal and you are disposed to go, eat whatever is set before you without raising any question on the ground of conscience (1 Corinthians 10:25-27).

That however, is only one side of the coin. The other side of the coin is thinking about the effect that might have on others. We are free to eat, yes, but if our eating scandalises a weaker brother or sister and leads them astray, then we should not eat. That is not because it is wrong or sinful but because we care for our less-informed neighbour.

But if someone says to you, "This has been offered in sacrifice," then do not eat it, out of consideration for the one who informed you, and for the sake of conscience-- 29 I mean the other's conscience, not your own (1 Corinthians 10:28-29).

So, in practice, love of neighbour overrides our freedom to eat meat offered to idols. Love rules.

Paul here gives us a new absolute standard of morality, which the Society of Jesus has adopted as its motto: Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam (AMDG) = To the Greater Glory of God. “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God” (verse 31). Whatever we do is for the greater glory of God not just in our lives, in the lives of our neighbour, in the community, in our workplace, our bank or building Society and in our world.

This is the Christian standard of right and wrong that Paul teaches us today. We pray God to give us the wisdom to follow this rule of life rather than either rules or ‘what feels okay to me’, wherever we are and whoever we are with, for their sake, as well as ours.