Considerate

Read 1 Cor. 8:6-13

Today we will be eating and drinking in Church. It is Communion Sunday, the Lord’s Supper, a meal in which we commemorate Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice to the one true God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.

But Paul says, “Some people are still so accustomed to idols that when they eat sacrificial food they think of it as having been sacrificed to a god, and since their conscience is weak, it is defiled.” The fact is that in the Corinthian culture and city, all the butcher shops and restaurants were connected with the various idols of pagan worship. So in Corinth it was nearly impossible to get fresh meat that had not been offered to a pagan god or prayed over by a pagan priest. For Paul, you could even include the Jewish synagogue and kosher food since they usually didn’t acknowledge Jesus Christ as Lord and that resulted in them worshipping something other than the one true God known to us through Jesus Christ. Paul’s teaching is, “Don’t worry about it. He said, “Food does not bring us near to God; we are no worse if we do not eat, and no better if we do.”

Does that say something about the Lord’s Supper? In a way, perhaps it does. We know that historically the Church has still wrestled with this issue and this is seen in the fact that in some denominations the table is restricted to only members of the church that is serving. Catholics in particular are known to withhold communion from non-Catholics. But other denominations also do this. It is their way of saying something like, “If you’re not one of us, you may not even be Christian, so for your own sake we prevent you from partaking unworthily.” Because as it says in 1 Cor. 11: 27, “Whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.”

In other words, many Christians have decided that if you eat the Lord’s Supper in an unworthy manner you will be worse off is you do eat than if you don’t. But Paul says here, “No. You won’t.” And yet in this same letter, the one we are reading and studying, Paul seems to say later, “Yes, you will.” We will learn that the issue is not what you eat, but how you eat it. So once again, the teaching is spiritual, about what is happening in our hearts, not in our mouths.

What do you think about when you eat? Do you wonder where it came from? What is happening in your heart at each meal you enjoy? In one way we dealt with this issue two weeks ago when we decided that Paul’s teaching boils down to, “Don’t worry about rules and regulations. What really counts is how you are treating the people around you. Don’t make people feel bad about how they spend their money or how they live their lives. Be considerate and loving toward one another, careful to maintain good relationships as you work together to figure out how God really wants us to live.”

Considerate is the right word. And there’s two sides to the coin. One side is how much liberty can we grant to others around us without being upset by their choices? The other side of the coin is how much liberty can we enjoy for ourselves without upsetting others? That’s what we should reflect on today.

That’s where Paul goes in this teaching. He is willing to be considerate of others to the point of sacrificing his own liberties and preferences. And it is the weaker brother that gets the consideration. Paul doesn’t want to do anything that will hinder a weaker brother from getting closer to God. But who is the weaker brother? Does anybody here want to claim that? Would anybody want to say something like, “You have to do what I say, do things my way, because I am the weaker brother and I will stumble in my faith if we do it your way.” I really don’t think anyone wants to claim to be the weaker brother or sister. So how do we find out who really is the weaker brother or sister so that we can be considerate of them?

There’s another problem with this. Would it be right for anyone to believe himself to be the stronger brother when Paul asks us always to consider others as better than ourselves? So it all boils down to being considerate. And being considerate of others really requires us to know them better. Remember how knowing others is connected to loving others? Paul would not want to be giving any blanket rules such as never eat any meat because you never know when a weaker brother might be watching you. That would become a new legalism. It would be perfectly ok if you want to adopt such a rule for your own lifestyle. But Paul himself would rebuke you if you started to go around saying that everyone else ought to live the same way.

Paul’s teaching has to do with how much we love each other, and it has to be based on how well we know each other. For example, these days one big issue is the use of alcohol. There are those who make the blanket rule: Never drink alcohol, for the sake of the weaker brother, even though nobody knows who it is. On the other hand I heard of a way of applying this teaching that makes much more sense to me. There is a recovering alcoholic whose friends don’t drink when he is around. They still invite him to their parties. But they love him and support him by not including alcohol when he is with them, even though otherwise it would not be a sin for them to have drink or two.  That’s a very healthy thing. The alcoholic doesn’t try to tell his other friends that drinking is a sin for them. The friends don’t drink when he is around and everyone is being considerate of everyone.

You know what the sin would be in such a situation? If the friends of the alcoholic flaunt their freedom and enjoy their few drinks and at the same time tease their weaker friend about his problem.

But now let’s generalize this a little bit more. We do know who some of the weaker brothers and sisters are in one sense. We can say that anyone who is not a believer in Jesus definitely has a weaker faith than believers do. So wouldn’t Paul want us to be most considerate of them and go as far as we can to make them feel welcome and accepted, loved and comfortable? Furthermore, wouldn’t Paul want us to get to know those people so that we learn the best ways to care for them and lead them to the Lord? Shouldn’t we learn to speak their language and play their style of music rather than insisting that they get comfortable with ours?

Of course there are some things we can never give up, such as the Word of God that teaches and guides us, the Holy Spirit who proves the gospel is true by living inside of us, and of course the gospel itself that has the power to save our souls through faith in Jesus. But I was talking with the pastor of a growing church once, several years ago now, back in Maine. In fact it was at the Covenant’s Pilgrim Pines Bible camp in New Hampshire. His church was growing strong and he was telling me that for nearly twenty years he had been using contemporary Christian music in his church. People were being saved, baptized, and learning to walk with Christ. Then he said that recently some of his church members who had matured over the years had discovered an old hymnal and now they want to start singing those great songs. He said, “The baby Christians have grown up and now finally I get to sing hymns again!” But for all those years before, that wise pastor was considerate of the musical language that his young congregation could appreciate.

This consideration fits right in with Paul’s continuation of this teaching in chapter nine where he says in part, “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel that I may share in its blessings.” That’s how Paul uses his freedom, not for his own pleasure, but sacrificing it for the sake of others. He is so considerate!

But he is only following the example of Jesus Christ of whom we read the ultimate sacrifice of freedom and privilege in Phil. 2:5-11. And note Paul’s first six words here, “In your relationships with one another, (you see what this is about?) have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Since Jesus gave up so much for us, are we not equally called to consider what we should give up so that we may share in the blessings of the gospel by seeing lost souls come to faith because we were considerate enough to reach out to them get to know them and speak their language. To that end, let us celebrate the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper now. This is not food sacrificed to any idol. This is the food from the God who saves us so that we may taste and see that He is good, and always remember what he did for us so that we give thanks and find ourselves filled with the Spirit to be empowered and inspired to live the same kind of life he lived, that others may be saved!

Considerate God, we marvel at all that you gave up to meet our needs when we were so weak! God, the Son, gave up equality with God, gave up all that glory, made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!

Forgive us Lord for the rights and privileges we cling to at the risk of losing our effectiveness in ministry to our “weaker” brothers and sisters.