When Paul Isn't Really Talking about Idols

The Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
The Rev. Joshua Rodriguez-Hobbs

Taken at face value, this morning’s epistle hardly sounds like the basis for a relevant sermon, much less an interesting one. After all, when was the last time someone offered you food that had been sacrificed to an idol? This is not a pressing issue in the church today. At the same time, though, it is. Paul is talking about specific issues within a specific community at a specific time, but the conclusions he draws are still things that we should pay attention to today.

To appreciate those conclusions, though, it’s helpful to know a bit about the specifics Paul was addressing. In Paul’s day, whenever you went to a temple to present an animal as a sacrifice, you didn’t sacrifice the whole animal to the god whose temple it was. And this was true whether the temple was the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, or the temple of Zeus in Corinth. You’d give the animal to the priest, who would slaughter it and cook it on the altar. Some parts would be given to the god, wholly consumed by fire. But the priest would take a few cuts of meat for himself, as well. And you’d get some of the meat for yourself, too. And in cosmopolitan Greek cities—like Corinth—the civic guilds would sponsor these sacrifices, and would have a huge feast for their members. This would be like the Maryland Club or the Engineers Club sponsoring a sacrifice today. To be a member of those civic guilds, to enjoy the prestige that went along with that membership, you had to participate in the feast. Paul is asking all of the Corinthian Christians to resign from the L’Hirondelle Club.

But Paul, the well-connected in the church at Corinth said, you’ve told us that there are no such things as idols. When you came and converted us, you made it clear that there was no Zeus or Artemis or Hera. So since the idol doesn’t actually represent anything, what’s the harm in participating in the Hopkins Club’s sacrifice next Tuesday?

We heard Paul’s response this morning. Knowledge puffs up, put love builds up. It doesn’t matter what I told you, he says, it doesn’t matter that you’re right. What matters is that there are other people in your church, the Johnsons in the pew in front of yours, and these people don’t understand that. They’re not as sophisticated as you, Paul says, and you are causing them to sin by participating in idol feasts. It’s not a sin for you, because you know an idol is nothing, but Johnny over there is afraid that Zeus is real, so it’s a sin for him.

You know, I think we could substitute any number of issues in the space of “food sacrificed to idols,” couldn’t we? What would you substitute? What isn’t a sin for you, but could be an occasion to stumble for your neighbor? Or turn it around: what isn’t a sin for your neighbor, but would be for you? The fact is, Paul isn’t really talking about food sacrificed to idols. That’s merely the example that is closest to hand in Corinth when he wrote this letter. Paul’s really talking about how do you live in Christian community. We still need help figuring that out today, don’t we?

Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. That’s Paul’s advice for us today. You’re not saved by what you know, in other words. Do you notice what Paul doesn’t do? He doesn’t try to correct the person with the weak conscience. He doesn’t really attempt any explanation at why eating food sacrificed to idols isn’t a sin, not really. What he does do is say, if this thing that I am doing is something that destroys my sister or brother in Christ’s faith, then I will never do it again.

And oh, but that’s hard to preach to all of you today, because I really want to be right, and Paul says that that doesn’t matter. Paul says that concern with being right, the one that we all have, the one that is displayed every second of every day by the talking heads on the 24-hour cable news channels, that concern with being right that our society is sick with, that doesn’t matter at all. Being right doesn’t save us. Love saves us.

And love is really what Paul is talking about all the time in First Corinthians. It’s easy to get distracted by all the bits about fornication and prostitutes that we’ve heard in the Lectionary for the past few weeks, but if you sit down and read First Corinthians through, Paul is talking about love. Remember, this is the epistle of Paul that has that most beloved of wedding passages: Love is patient, love is kind. That’s the climax of the letter. That’s what Paul builds to. That’s what Paul wants us to remember this morning, and every morning. That’s how he ends the letter, in fact: Let everything that you do be done in love. (1 Cor 16:14)

How do we focus on loving one another, instead of being right? God only knows. God only knows. That’s what Paul would tell us if he were here today. None of us have this love thing figured out, but God does. God, who in Jesus Christ, loved us to the end. Who showed us how to walk in love, and gave himself for us, an offering and sacrifice to God. A better sacrifice than what was available in the temple of Zeus. Probably still a better sacrifice than what’s down at the club of your choice today. And I don’t have this walking in love thing figured out, but I do know how it starts for me this morning: right up those steps to that altar. To stand there and to receive the bread and the wine, to hold Love Himself in the palm of my hand, to receive strength to let go of the need to be right, to receive grace to love my neighbor as myself.

Amen.