Feb. 1, 2009 - Love Builds Up - 1 Cor. 8:1-13

            Several years ago, the Corps of Engineers stationed in Grandview, MO sponsored a series of races that were pretty unique.  They were called ‘Volkslauf’ – ‘people run’ – a take-off on the German Volksmarch, or ‘people walk’ where people gather together by the thousands to walk through the woods.

            Of course bring a ‘lauf’ or run, this was actually a 6 mile race and being sponsored by the Corp of Engineers, it was a six mile obstacle course – and they had been busy for some time laying out a course.  It left the starting point and went 100 yds. across a field before making a sharp right turn and going 100 yds. through a quagmire of mud that was more than knee deep.

            In the remaining miles, the course would go up and down hills and through drainage ditches that ran under roads.  It dove down into and across creeks and when Mother Nature did not provide enough of a challenge, the Corps took the runners under a rope canopy less than 18 inches high with lots of mud underneath.  The further the course went, the more difficult the course became – which leads us to the most interesting part of the event – It was a team event, designed for teams. And most interesting of all, if 5 people entered on a team, 5 people had to finish on a team – and the finish time the team received was the time of the last team member to cross the finish line.

            Usually in team races, 5 people may enter the event as a team, but it is only the time of the fastest runners that matter – it’s really every runner for him or herself and then the fastest times are added up at the end.  But in this event, the team was only as fast as the slowest person.  You couldn’t do the course alone and frequently, runners had to help each other get to the finish line.  Some of the fastest runners were terrible at crawling along on their stomachs.  Some of the bigger runners could not climb up stream banks as easily as the smaller, lighter ones.  Some of the shorter ones had to be helped up the taller obstacles by the taller ones.  If one of the runners fell, a team mate helped them up and occasionally, if one of the runners was injured, their comrades carried them to the finish line.

            Not every one understood this team concept.  Every year there were runners – many of them gifted runners – who came sprinting up to the finish line alone only to be turned away by the officials because their team was not with them.  They had gotten it wrong and they had run the race alone.  Often the hapless runners would go back to find their teams, but others would just pace back and forth at the finish line waiting for the others to catch up with them.

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            If anyone were ever to look for a book about all the things that can go wrong in a church and how to address them, they would not need to look any farther than the letters of Paul to the church at Corinth.  Scholars believe that Paul and the Church exchanged several letters and that the words we have here in 1 and 2 Corinthians are a compilation of some of those letters.  If only we had the other half of this correspondence - but since we are only reading Paul’s half of the conversation, it’s not always easy to get the entire picture of what was going on.  What is clear is that the first century church had much in common with the 21^st century church – it was filled with imperfect people who were trying their best to live the Christian life as they saw it – and they were not all seeing it the same way nor were many being as successful as they thought they were.

            Corinth was a ‘new’ Roman city.  It sat at the edge of the Peloponnesian Peninsula – on a major trade route in the Roman world.  It was a very cosmopolitan city that was excited about hearing of any new thing, new idea or new innovation.  If it was new, it was in – and many of the newest things were ideas.

            Paul of course made good use of the Corinthian hunger for knowledge when he came to Corinth and started a church there.  But as the opening verses of I Corinthians shows us clearly, they were still hungry for ideas when Paul left and many of the ideas they sated themselves with were the wrong ones.

            Even some of their good ideas could be taken a bit too far – and on the surface, it is one of those ideas we find Paul addressing today – the eating of food offered to idols.

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            In the ancient world, the common folk rarely ate meat – it was too expensive.  When they did have a chance to eat some, it was most likely at some huge banquet given at some pagan temple to celebrate some pagan deity.  If you were not lucky enough to be invited to such an event, you could still find meat in the marketplace, but even here the meat most likely had been offered beforehand to some god or goddess before it had been delivered to the butcher’s stall.

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            So here was the bone of contention – probably no one was going to attend a pagan feast, but was it OK to eat meat from the butcher’s stall?

            Some in the congregation said, Yes – of course it’s Ok to eat it.  We might compare it to eating meat that had the grocery store’s stamp of approval on it – something we know might be there, but something we don’t think about too often – and something that really doesn’t matter to us.

            But some in the congregation – perhaps even most of the congregation – said, No.  They thought that eating such things was the same as participating in the pagan rites they themselves had until recently taken part in.  For them, eating this meat was about the same as going to pagan worship itself.  Instead of leaving behind the things of their old, pagan lifestyle, they thought they were bringing it along with them.

            At first glance it seems like this particular scripture has nothing to say to us in the 21^st century.  I don’t know anyone who worships Venus or Jupiter.  I have never met anyone who worships the sun or the moon or who offers up burnt offerings in hopes of having a good harvest.  Chances are, none of you knows anyone like that either – but there is a principle here that is just as important now as it was then.

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            But the country we live in has a lot in common with 1^st century Greece.   Like the Corinthians, we love to hear about some new thing.  We look for new ideas, new thoughts, and new ways of doing things.  We adopt new habits and we adhere to new styles – and we look down our noses on those who are not so cosmopolitan.

            We don’t worry about meat, but what about Drinking? Sure we say.  It’s OK if we do it in moderation, Smoking, it’s OK too if I do it outside and no one else has to inhale the smoke.  Go to bars, sure why not?  We just want to hear the music. And in themselves, none of these things will not keep us from heaven.

            But what about the brother or sister who is a recovering alcoholic and may be tempted to take a drink to fit in?  What about the one who may have just started a smoking cessation program and will get a whiff of your smoke and want some of their own?  What about the sister or brother who until recently went to the bar to get drunk, to pick up or be picked up?  What about those who wasted their living at a casino and understand the temptations that exist there?  How will they feel if you go to the same places?  If they are fleeing that lifestyle, will they be tempted to return to what they believe is wrong; to do what they believe is wrong, because they see you doing it?   If they have only recently been freed from slavery to some lifestyle and the evils they encountered or even participated in there?  Is it charitable?  Is it loving? Is it kind to flaunt our freedom when it can so easily hurt a brother or sister?

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            When Paul writes to the church at Corinth, he knows that knowledge of facts and knowledge of Christ are two different things.  That knowing right theology does not make us more loving, and that many times, being a leader in the church does not assure that we are more wise or more humble.  It does not assure that we, like Volkslauf runners, will consider the team - that instead of running the race on our own we will remember that we are running as a team and need to be careful of the slowest member.

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            Everywhere the gospel is preached, people change.  Every church where the Holy Spirit is at work is a place where people are constantly coming in from the cold of life without Christ to the warmth of fellowship with Christ.  And so every church has a two-fold responsibility to its members.  It must both teach and nurture.  It must lead them to the freedom of life in Christ but be careful never to put a stumbling block in their path - and it can never forget one for the sake of the other.

            Every church where people are changing into the likeness of Christ is a church that must attend to the spiritual, emotional and intellectual growth of all its members – wherever they are in their Christian walk.

            Being a member of the Church of Christ s not ‘every man for himself’ not ‘any woman for herself’.  Christians are called into community – into congregations – so that when one falls we can help the other up, when one has sorrow another can offer comfort, when one has doubts another can offer assurance.  This is the law of love that Paul will write about to eloquently in chapter 13.

            It is also the law that Jesus himself taught in what is known as the Jesus Creed that we will focus on during Lent:

            ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God: the Lord is One; you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’  The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  There is no other commandment greater than these.

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            In this morning’s scripture portion Paul writes, ‘Knowledge puffs up’ and so it does – Just like the Corinthians, we too can be overly proud of our school work and our degrees – Just like the Corinthians, we too can worship our intellect and our reason – Just like the Corinthians, we too can become so sure that we have all the answers and all the right theology that we forget to consider the theology and conscience of others.   Just like the Corinthians, we can also be so proud of the number of Bible verses we can quote or the number of years we’ve been church members that we forget that we are all on the same journey – all heading for the same finish line.  Just like the Corinthians, we can try to force our opinions on others and ridicule those who don’t agree with us and forget that the most important thing is to love one another – to show each other the same love that Christ has already shown us.  Like the church in Corinth, we can forget to love our neighbor as ourselves.

            Paul also writes that Love builds up.  Love considers that every brother or sister is greater than ourselves.  Love means helping one another across life’s obstacles and perhaps even carrying the doubting brother or sister when they are woo weak to make it on their won.  Love builds up when we remember that we are team members in the same race, heading for the same goal – and love builds up when we remember that we ourselves may need help getting over the next barrier in our path.  Love builds up when we remember that like members of those teams at the Volkslauf, have varying abilities yet we run together, we have varying gifts yet we need each other to live faithfully in Christ.

            If we think that we can run alone, we fool ourselves and make God a liar.  This is true even if you think that you have your theology all figured out; even if you think you can be a faithful Christian at home because you don’t need the church, even if you think you have all knowledge and all faith.

            Love builds up, because if it were not for the love of Christ, which has already built us up, we wouldn’t be here ourselves.  Love builds up because this is the true imitation of Christ in the church – and in each of us.  It calls us to love one another, defer to one another and care for one another – and through God’s grace, we can.

Amen.