We Are Family

1 Corinthians 7:17-23
1 Corinthians 8:1b-13

Last week’s epistle lesson was from the 7th chapter of 1st Corinthians. Remember it? No? Ok, let me give you the Cliff’s Notes version: It was about circumcision.

And what Paul says about it, is by the way, a pretty big deal.

It’s a big deal because in Genesis chapter 17 we find these words:

“This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your offspring after you: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and you. Throughout your generations every male among you shall be circumcised when he is eight days old, including the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money from any foreigner who is not of your offspring. Both the slave born in your house and the one bought with your money must be circumcised. So shall my covenant be in your flesh an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin shall be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant."

Circumcision became a huge issue in the early Christian Church, because while some of the first Christians were circumcised Jews, others were uncircumcised Greeks. Did the Greeks have to be circumcised like the Jews were, and like Genesis chapter 17 said?

Well, there were several answers to that question. Paul’s answer in the 7th chapter of 1st Corinthians was this: no, Greeks don’t have to be circumcised. You can be circumcised, you can be uncircumcised, it really doesn’t matter to God. Paul says that what does matter is listening to God, and having faith in Jesus.

Very interestingly, the Book of Acts tells us that Paul sent his fellow apostle Timothy to minister to a Jewish congregation, and before he sent him, he had him circumcised. . . isn’t that interesting. . . and even more interesting is the fact that Paul absolutely hammers the Galatians for thinking they needed to be circumcised. . . but more Timothy’s little surgery in a minute . . .

This week’s epistle lesson is from the 8th chapter of 1st Corinthians and it deals with another hot-button issue from the ancient world: can you eat meat that’s been sacrificed to idols?

Of all the things that the Bible hammers over and over again, it’s that we cannot, under any circumstances, acknowledge other gods or worship them or idols made to them. After all, the first two commandments of the ten commandments are: 1) I am the Lord your God: you shall have no other gods before me, and 2) you shall make no idols/ graven images.

Pretty clear, huh?

So, here’s the other problem in the early church: in the pagan world people would take animals to their pagan temples and sacrifice them to an idol of some little god. Then, because only the best animals was offered for the pagan sacrifice, the precious meat from that animal was taken to the market and sold.

The problem came in the question: can a Christian go to the market and buy and eat meat that was sacrificed to a pagan god?

Some early Christians were doing just that, and other Christians were jumping up and down screaming that you couldn’t do that.

So, what does Paul say in the epistle lesson today?

He says that it really doesn’t matter. You can eat the meat, you can stay away from the meat. It’s not a big deal because the little god doesn’t exist anyway, so if some poor schlep wants to butcher his meat in front of a little silly statue, that’s not our problem - we don’t believe in the idol.

But, here’s the kicker: what Paul says IS important, is that if the eating of meat sacrificed to an idol causes trouble for someone in the community, then the whole community is supposed to stop it. Because there might be some people in the church who can’t fathom the thought of eating such meat – and for them it might damage their ability to have faith in One God to do such a thing.

For Paul, it’s all about the community: which means that it’s all about the good of the community. Eating meat just isn’t important enough to drive a community of Christian believers apart. Circumcision just isn’t enough to drive a community of Christian believers apart.

Which, by the way, was why he had Timothy circumcised. Paul knew that it didn’t matter in God’s eyes whether or not he was circumcised (what mattered was what was in Tim’s heart), but Timothy’s Jewish-Christian church might have a hard time accepting him if he wasn’t more like them. So, for the good of the community, Paul had Timothy go through that awfully painful surgery.

A few things about these two ancient-world problems:

First, don’t minimize them. These aren’t just petty little problems, insignificant in comparison to our own – for the first several generations of Christians they went right to the heart of biblical authority, salvation, and righteousness before God. Could you be a Christian if you weren’t circumcised? If you WERE circumcised? Would you go to Hell for eating that hamburger? Was eating that hamburger saying that you believed in other gods besides the One God who created us, redeemed us, and sanctifies us? These issues were no smaller, and no larger than the issues the contemporary church is wrestling with. The wisdom we can take from how the early church dealt with it’s problems is wisdom we can certainly use today.

Second, notice that these two issues, aren’t black-and-white right-or-wrong – at least not for Paul. Don’t get me wrong, Paul knew when to lay down the law (pardon the pun) when he needed to. Paul certainly taught that there were things that were right, and there were things that were wrong. These two issues just didn’t fall into those categories. It didn’t matter whether or not you were circumcised, and it didn’t matter if you ate a hunk of meat that was sacrificed to an idol. Also, don’t get me wrong by thinking that people weren’t driven by rage and concern over these issues. But, just because they evoked emotion, didn’t make them right-or-wrong problems.

And finally, see the major value lifted up in how Paul deals with these two problems: it’s all about the Church, the community gathered for prayer, worship, spiritual growth, and evangelism.

I don’t want to toot our horns too much, but I think we should feel a good sense of accomplishment in Paul’s words in 1st Corinthians, because we do community pretty good. We not perfect – in fact far from it – but in general we are a community of people who love God, who love each other, and who put our church high on the priority list.

It’s why when I ask people to describe this church, one of the first things that comes out of their mouth is: we’re family.

We’re experiencing a lot of success right now: we’re growing, our budget is growing, we have lots of good programming going on, we’re getting our physical plant in ship-shape order – and let’s face it, we know how to eat good!

Paul, in good days and in hard days wants us all to remember that we aren’t – and can’t be – Christians alone. We can only do this together, as One Body. For Paul, the first thing is to make sure that our One Body is ‘in Christ.’ After that’s settled, it’s up to us to live in love, live in support of one another, and reflect to the world God’s love and grace.

As family we can try, and as God’s family we can rest knowing that God will help.

Psalm 130
1 Out of the depths have I called to you, O Lord;
Lord, hear my voice; *
let your ears consider well the voice of my supplication.

2 If you, Lord, were to note what is done amiss, *
O Lord, who could stand?

3 For there is forgiveness with you; *
therefore you shall be feared.

4 I wait for the Lord; my soul waits for him; *
in his word is my hope.

5 My soul waits for the Lord,
more than watchmen for the morning, *
more than watchmen for the morning.

6 O Israel, wait for the Lord, *
for with the Lord there is mercy;

7 With him there is plenteous redemption, *
and he shall redeem Israel from all their sins.


The words of Psalm 130 speak of forgiveness, mercy, and ‘plenteous redemption.’

After reading the Psalm, did anything jump out at you?

How about this: WITHOUT looking at the Psalm, try finishing verse 3:

“For there is forgiveness with you [O Lord]
therefore you shall be ________.”

What might you add to finish that verse? ‘Thanked,’ ‘Praised,’ ‘Blessed?”

Those might be nice thoughts, but those weren’t the thought of the Psalmist.

Now you can red verse 3 of Psalm 130:

“For there is forgiveness with you [O Lord]
therefore you shall be feared.”

Feared? Would that be your first choice? Is that your reaction to forgiveness?

Personally I had read Psalm 130 several times through this week until I realized what verse 3 actually said, and as soon as I realized what it said I was stopped in my tracks. It changed the way that I look at the entire Psalm.

Verses 4-6 speaks four times about ‘waiting’ for the Lord: I wonder, what kind of waiting is that? Is it like waiting for Santa Claus to come on Christmas morning, or is it more like waiting for dad to get home when you know you’re in trouble?

The forgiveness that is offered for our sins: the acceptance that God offers us regardless of our sins, shortcomings, things we’ve done, or things we have left undone can be overwhelming – dare I say *should* be overwhelming.

Maybe on the surface, fear in the face of forgiveness seems odd today, but I think if we look a little deeper we will see that it’s probably a little closer to our actual experience.

All of us – ALL of us – have done things we’re not proud of. In our lives we’ve hurt other people, we’ve hurt ourselves, we deliberately turned away from God, we’ve blown it big time, and sometimes we’re even aware that we’ve done such things.

And sometimes these things we’ve done aren’t in the past: we’re still doing them.

Some of us carry these things around as great burdens. We feel shame, and unworthiness, and embarrassment.

Deep down – in the depths of our souls – we know that there is no escape from these things. They define us. They mark us. And they will always be looming in the back of our minds.

But, there is a deeper knowing, so deep that sometimes it is forgotten, or dismissed as nonsense: our sins and shortcomings do not define us, they do not mark us because we are marked by Christ’s wounds on the Cross, we are marked as Christ’s own forever in our baptism: with God there is forgiveness, mercy, and plenteous redemption.

The real fear of course, is dealing with what we’ve done in the first place. God doesn’t just wipe away everything without some work from us first: we have to name our sins and shortcomings, we have to own them, we have to say that we’ve done things we know were hurtful.

Yes, ‘waiting’ for God is like waiting for dad to get home, but the Good News is that every time our heavenly father comes home to hear what we’ve done, forgiveness and mercy pours down – rains down. Maybe that’s scary too: with everything we’ve done, and everything we are, God still loves us: JUST as we are.

One of the first situations I was thrown into not long after my ordination was the impending death of a man. He had a family, and his family was gathering around him as he rapidly got worse and worse, and as death got closer and closer.

What makes this death really stick out for me is that, like all of us, this man had done things that he hadn’t been proud of. He had committed some pretty flat-out identifiable sins. He knew that the things he had done were wrong, but my best guess is that the shame and regret was too deep and painful for him. And so, instead of deal with his brokenness and shame, instead of seeking forgiveness from God and his family, he hid it all. He buried it all as deep as it would go.

The trouble is, that’s never deep enough. In God’s good time all things are exposed, all things are brought to the surface.

Fear of the truth brought him to hide: and probably fear of forgiveness kept him in hiding

For this man, as he slipped into unconsciousness, as his breaths became shallower and shallower, the web of lies he had spun to cover his sins and shortcomings began to unravel. And in a matter of a few hours all was known.

For his children there was anger, feelings of betrayal, rage.

But, here’s the amazing thing: as I watched this family deal with its grief and anger over death and betrayal, I was drawn to watch his wife.

After everything that had come into the light, after all that had become known, she cared for him still. She washed him, she anointed his skin with ointment so that it wouldn’t dry out and hurt. She turned him on his side regularly, so that there would be no pain.

There wasn’t anyone involved in that situation who wouldn’t have understood if she had turned away from him, as he had so obviously turned away from her. No one would have held it against her at all.

She didn’t have to lovingly care for him until his last breath, but she did.

In that death, I, and I hope he, got to see what the mercy of God is like: undeserved, uncalled-for, and totally overwhelming.

Is it so big, so incredible, so overwhelming that it should be met with fear and trembling? Yeah. But, it is there: mercy, forgiveness, and plenteous redemption.

Whatever we’ve done, whatever we’ve said, no matter how bad we’ve hurt someone else, no matter how far we’ve turned from God, grace, forgiveness, and mercy are there to meet us.

There may be fear in us – the fear of facing our own demons – but when God comes with his forgiveness, mercy, and plenteous redemption there is no need for deep-seeded fear, just profound thanks.

Moving Forward

Where are you on your journey – your spiritual journey – your journey to God.

Everyone who seeks God’s Face, embarks of a journey. The starting point is a commitment to Christ, a commitment to being an intentional disciple of Jesus. The ending point is God. And the journey is the spiritual life.

As in any journey you can move forward, you can stand still, or you can go backwards.

And, just so we’re clear, it doesn’t matter how ‘spiritual’ you are, how old you are, or how learned you are we are always on the journey. Billy Graham still has room to deepen his relationship with God. The Pope, as holy and good a man he is, still has work to do. We all do. I do, and so do you.

The question is, are we doing the work – are we on our way?

Last week you may have seen a picture of your priest on the front page of the region section of the Times-News standing on a labyrinth. And like many others, you may have asked yourself the question: what in the world is a labyrinth?!

A labyrinth is an ancient spiritual tool, which predates Christianity by millennia. In the middle-ages labyrinths were picked up by the Christian Church to take the place of huge pilgrimages. If you didn’t have the time or the means to get up and walk to Jerusalem and the Holy Land, you could maybe go down to your local cathedral and take a mini-pilgrimage into the labyrinth.

Labyrinths might look like a maze, but in reality they aren’t. There are no dead-ends or tricks. You begin the journey at the beginning, and you end the journey in the middle. If you just stay on the path it will lead you to the center everytime. You just have to stay on the path, and keep moving forwards.

As I’ve walked the labyrinth several times in the past few weeks I’ve personally found it to be remarkably similar to the journey of faith I try to be on. It meanders, sometimes it seems like I’ve ended up in a place I’ve already been before, sometimes it seems like I’ve ended up at the beginning, and sometimes it seems like I almost get there but then trail off again. But, I always come home. As long as I keep moving, and stay on the path.

Today, as we celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany, we remember another journey: the journey of the magi – the wise men – the “three kings” to Bethlehem to see the baby Jesus. They traveled from the East, probably Persia (modern day Iran), and sought to find God wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger.

These are probably some of the strangest figures in the Bible. Most scholars figure that the magi were Zoroastrians who practiced the weird magic we would call ‘astrology’ today. They looked to the skies to figure out what was going on in the world. And, as they were gazing up, they saw a star. Rising in the East, this star did something no other star does: it moved. Towards Bethlehem. And they picked up, and followed it.

Seems like they knew what they were doing too, because they followed this star with gifts: for a child. And, it seems like they knew who this child was: King and Messiah – for they brought gifts of gold, incense, and myrrh. (Myrrh was used for burial in those days – would you think to bring embalming materials to a baby shower?!)

Also interesting, is that these pagan astrologers figured out who Jesus was and where he was before the people who you might expect to figure it out did. You might think that the Jewish teachers, priests, and leaders might figure out that their King and Messiah had been born. Nope, leave it to the astrologers.

But, the most important thing is that they went. They recognized what was going on, and then they set out. They turned away from their strange ways and turned their faces towards Christ. They chose the path, and they took it until they ended up at the side of Jesus.

So again I ask: where are you in your journey? Are you moving forward? Or have you stopped – or have you turned back – or have you jumped off the track?

It’s not a hard question to answer: if you’re intentionally deepening your relationship with God they you’re probably moving forward. If you can look back over the past month, year, decade and know that you’re deepened your faith then you’re probably moving forward.

If you’re not taking the time to intentionally seek God and a deeper knowledge of God, then you’re probably stopped. If you haven’t made a commitment to walk the path, then you haven’t even started.

Remember, don’t think that you have to feel ‘holy’ or ‘look’ particularly righteous. Those pagan, magician, astrologers figured it all out. They stopped what they were doing, turned to Jesus, and started taking steps towards him.

And we too can take that journey, wherever we are. Moving to the side of the manger/crib, and to the foot of the cross, and the entrance to the empty tomb. And, we can know all along, as we are on our journey seeking God, God our Creator and Hope is always the end, is always seeking us too, and God is always holding our hand every step we take.