By The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
October 7, 2012
Text: 1 Corinthians 10:23-33
I had a very challenging moment this week. I had just given a lecture at the University of Toronto, School of Continuing Studies in Oakville. The title of my message was “Caring for the Other in a Broken World: The Legacy of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. “
Notwithstanding the content of that lecture, it was actually the question and answer that followed that I thought was the most challenging and, indeed, the most interesting. A member of the audience, realizing that I'd been talking about faith and how faith is manifested in a broken world, asked me this question.
He said, “Dr. Stirling, tell me, what do you think about the state of religious minorities in the light of the Arab Spring and are you concerned for the state of religious minorities, particularly as you're a Christian, Christian minorities in countries in North Africa or the Middle East or wherever, in fact, these freedom movements arise. To what extent are these freedom movements good things are they dangerous things?”
What an amazing question.
It was obvious from the audience that it's on a lot of people's minds these days. I made a long comment. It was not one from a political scientist; it was not one from somebody who is a diplomat. I have no firsthand knowledge of what is taking place there, but I made some observations borne out of a time in history that puts this very situation in context. Namely, when tyrants have been overthrown and there are movements of freedom, often what follows is uncertainty and uncertainty breeds fear.
Fear often paralyzes countries and nations and then you get a vacuum, but it's what fills that vacuum next that is the real challenge. Is it the vacuum that is filled with more tyranny, replacing a previous tyranny, but with other arbiters, other proponents of it or do you fill it with what we in the west like to call responsible government? Do you fill that vacuum with responsibility and with the recognition that with the freedom, there is the need to build something more?
In many ways, I draw on the apostle, Paul for that comment and I think it's very important to realize that often times Christians have found themselves in places of freedom only to find tyranny on their doorstep.
I was sitting the very next day after that lecture in a ministerial gathering of nearly every denomination imaginable here in Toronto, discussing the extent to which we can speak as Christians with a common voice and can minister to one another in a common fellowship. Not new, but certainly the diversity of this group, very large compared to anything I've been to before.
There were representatives from Black churches in Jamaica, from Armenian churches, from the churches from Roman Catholic traditions in various parts of the world from the Philippines and Africa. There were Presbyterians, there were Baptists, there were Anglicans, there were Orthodox, there were United; my goodness, it seemed that almost every form and breadth of the church was visible in this group. It was inspiring.
At the conclusion of the meeting, I found myself sitting next to an Armenian priest who told me about his fears for his own church and people. He explained to me, in great depth, something that I'd only read of in history books: About 100 years ago there was genocide. Beginning in April, 1915 in Constantinople, between 600,000 and 1.5 million Armenians were killed.
He said, “You know, Andrew, I think today that, indeed, my people are frightened again. There are changes all around in Nagorno Karabakh, in Iraq, in Turkey, in Azerbaijan.” He went on to say that the world is continually changing and when you're frightened it's very difficult to know how to practice your faith or to be thankful or know what to ask for. There was real pain in his eyes; pain of a pastor for his people and my heart went out to him.
I thought, “Yes, indeed.” Very contemporary issues of faith and freedom and tyranny and hope all seem to wrap themselves into one. But the apostle, Paul, as I said before, has something to say to this world and to us. The issue for him was not so much political as it was spiritual. It was about the role of freedom in the new emerging church going out into the gentile world, a burgeoning church, embracing the cultures around Israel and beyond, from the Mediterranean to the north of Africa.
The apostle, Paul understood one thing: The presence of Jesus Christ and the ministry of Jesus Christ changes everything. He shows that the presence of Christ brings great freedom. It gives great freedom from the restriction of dietary laws in order to be obedient. It gets freedom from the power of idolatry worship that actually constrains people and can be evil. It frees people to associate with whoever they want to associate with.
That's why this week at both The Xchange and at the homecoming service, I talked about the encounter between Zacchaeus and how Jesus goes to Zacchaeus' home for a meal. Even though he is an outcast, Jesus sits down and dines with the sinner. Jesus changes everything. Jesus gives freedom to eat from the marketplace, to take the bounty of God's creation and enjoy it. Jesus frees people to come to the table of His Lord, celebrate and worship with him at a meal called the Eucharist or the Lord's Supper. It's a free and a gracious invitation.
So the apostle Paul looks at Jesus and at the religious life that emerges from the very presence of Jesus and sees freedom as a powerful thing, but it is a freedom that is to be exercised for others. At the end of the passage he says, “I do not say this for myself, but for others that they might be saved.” In other words, he understood that the freedom he was talking about, the freedom that Christ brings is for others, not just for him.
In many ways, those very words were part of the genius of early Christianity. The early Christians grew in such numbers precisely because they had the courage to adapt to the cultures around them, but all the time holding up the place of Christ.
For Paul it was as if Jesus Christ could go into any culture and change it, be worshipped in any culture and language and tradition regardless of what it is. You worship Christ in freedom and therefore can worship with others. It was powerful. For Paul, freedom wasn't just from something, it was for something. It was to reach out. It was to bear witness, to have fellowship with the world.
At this gathering of nearly every denomination imaginable, there was the most incredible presentation given by an Aboriginal Anglican bishop for Aboriginals. He ministers to people from the north western tip of Vancouver Island, right through to the eastern tip of Newfoundland. His congregation, his parish, his diocese is Canada.
He gave the most incredible talk a based on St. Francis of Assisi and scripture. He had a high view of Christ. He said that one of the great joys is in ministering to and being with native Christians. And he reminded us that it wasn't so long ago that 90 per cent of the Aboriginal community in Canada were Christian. That number is going down.
He also said that one of the reasons it's going down is that when aboriginal peoples migrate into urban settings, such as our own, they do not feel the same passion or welcome or sense of Jesus that they do in the churches they left. One of the things that he finds so encouraging and so remarkable is that we can enjoy and have the aboriginal way of doing things and of worshipping, but still worship Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is at the centre; not on the periphery. What a great country we're in that we're able to do that.
I couldn't help but think, after my conversation with the Armenian and with the question I'd been asked the day before that, about all of us gathered in that room, from almost all corners of the earth, ministering here in this great City of Toronto, that we really are blessed. We're blessed to be in a country that has the freedom to be able to do that, to talk to and meet honestly and openly and to pray with one another and to listen to one another and to have Christ in common.
This is what the apostle Paul saw the early church being like. That's exactly how he envisaged it, but our freedom is not just so that we all feel nice; it has got to be for others. It's got to be out of compassion for the others. It's got to reach out to the world.
I love the story that he's told. I don't know if it's apocryphal, but I've shared it with the Bethel series before of Abraham Lincoln, who went to a slave market, saw a girl being sold and decided to purchase her. The woman comes to him, for her just another white man, who might exploit and use her. He says to her, “You're now free to go.”
She says, “What do you mean? What does it mean to be free?”
And he says, “Well, you're free. That's it. I've bought you. You're free to go. You're free.”
“Am I free to say whatever I want, whenever I want?”
“Yes, you're free to say whatever you want, whenever you want.”
“Am I free to be whatever I want to be?”
“Of course you're free to be whatever you want to be.”
“Well,” she says, “I'm now free to go wherever I want to go?”
“Yes, you're free. You're free to go wherever you want to go.”
She paused. She was in disbelief. She wept and she said, “In that case, I'll go with you.”
It's like that with Christ. When Christ sets us free, we're free to go with him. Wherever it takes us, with whoever we might engage, whatever we do, we go with him. But that's not the whole of the story. The apostle Paul also says we have a responsibility for others. At the beginning of our text, he says everything is permissible, but not everything is desirable.
You can eat whatever you want to eat. You can mix with whoever you want to mix, but it doesn't always mean it's desirable. Sometimes you have to exercise constraint with your freedom. Sometimes - and this is a world for the world - when you have freedom, you have responsibility.
I really felt that not long ago when three of us friends went out for a meal and I'd forgotten that one of our friends had a particular problem, but the other friend that I was with was reminded of it. It came time for when we were ordering the meal and we ordered then the wine steward came by and asked if anyone wanted any wine and I said, “No thank you, just water.” One of my other friends also declined but then my third friend, who I know loves good red wine, remembered that our other friend was an alcoholic and he didn't order anything.
It was at that moment I took a deep breath and I thought how responsible of my friend to recognize that it's so easy to lead another one astray, so easy to cause someone else to fall. Paul would have said exactly the same thing when it came to meat that was supposed to go to idols. If someone came to him and said don't eat the food that has been sacrificed to idols then Paul says don't eat it. Don't eat it because if you eat the food that has been given to idols then it's as if you're participating in that very idolatry. Don't do it.
Sure, eat everything that's in the market. By all means, eat what is put in front of you, but if it's been sacrificed to idols, don't eat the food. Don't do it; not because it will harm you, but because it will convey the wrong message to those that are with you and it might cause them to fall. Paul understood that with freedom goes this great responsibility, this great need to protect and care for the other.
It requires discipline and it's like sitting down and playing the piano. You might want to have the freedom to be able to play everything from Bach to Chopsticks, but if you haven't learned the notes, if you can't read the music, if you don't understand the scale then all the desire for freedom to play will mean nothing if you haven't disciplined yourself to learn. The more you know, the more trained you are, the easier it is and the freer you are to play the great music. It needs discipline to do that. The Christian life needs some discipline, some responsibility.
Paul says to look to your conscience. Okay, we're free from some of the dietary laws, we're free from some of the restrictions that you might have grown up with or free from the fear of the idolatry that you might have known, but make sure that you feed your conscience. This is a word that implies a great sense of struggling, of wrestling with your inner soul. As Christians, therefore we should feed our consciences with the Word of God. We should feed our consciences with prayer. We have a responsibility, once we're freed by Christ, to live with him.
There's another part to all of this and I love the way it ends. Paul contradicts the title of my sermon. I say don't eat the food, but Paul says something different. He says “Whatever you eat and whatever you drink, do it to the Glory of God. Eat the food, but praise the Lord, that whatever state you find yourself in, give thanks for what you have been given. Do not take it for granted, but in thankfulness and praise, give the Lord his due. And oh, how that is needed in the world where we are.
When nations have been freed from tyranny, rather than to replace it with a tyranny, they should give thanks and when those have been set free, they should give thanks. For those who have been fed at the table, they should give thanks. Whatever we have been given in this free land, we should give thanks.
You know, this very day in this city, in this congregation, there will be some who will sit down with their families and have an incredible meal and give thanks to the Lord and there will be some who will have an incredible meal and sit down with their families and never give God a thought. There will be those who will be sitting at home on their own, making their own meal only for themselves and they will give thanks. There will be those who will be on their own in loneliness and never give God a thought.
There will be those who will be going to shelters today, to the Yonge Street Mission and the Gateway and others, and having a meal with people from off the street and the people from off the street will give thanks to the Lord and there are others who will go to those meals and will not say thank you at all and there will be some who will have nothing to eat and will still say thanks. There will be others who have nothing to eat and not give God a thought.
You see, what really matters is thankfulness for all that we have been given. The recognition that in this great land, we have freedom, we have food, we have the freedom to care for others and to feed the hungry, to be responsible for the welfare of others, to get on our knees bow down and say,” Lord, in this very uncertain world, thank you. “Amen.