I Can If I Feel Like It

The Rev. Dr. Skip Ferguson

Manassas Presbyterian Church

Manassas, Virginia

September 4, 2016

I Can If I Feel Like It

1 Corinthians 10:23-24

“All things are lawful,”

but not all things are beneficial.

“All things are lawful,”

but not all things build up.

Do not seek your own advantage,

but that of the other. (NRSV)

********************************************

It’s odd, to say the least –

the circumstances surrounding

Paul’s words from our text.

Paul was writing to the Christians in Corinth,

a town in Macedonia,

modern Greece,

just across the bay from Athens.

Corinth was a crossroads

between Rome and points east;

a place where people lived,

but also a place through which people traveled:

sailors, traders, merchants, pilgrims.

Corinth was cosmopolitan,

diverse,

a rich, heady stew of Roman, Greek, Jew,

Egyptian, Persian, Nubian—

people from every corner of the known world.

There were temples for every god,

every faith,

every belief:

Roman gods,

Greek gods,

Egyptian gods;

Differences were tolerated –

everyone managed to get along

side by side.

Animal sacrifice was something the temples

had in common – it was standard practice,

and after an animal was sacrificed,

the meat wasn’t burned on an altar;

it was sold in the marketplace,

sold through the local butchers whose shops

congregated near the many temples.

And it’s from this practice

that came the question

Paul sought to address in the chapter

our lesson comes from.

Corinthian Christians wanted to know

whether they could they eat meat

that had been sacrificed in a pagan temple.

Could they buy and eat the meat of an animal

that had been part of a sacrifice,

part of worship offered to a pagan god:

Zeus, Jupiter, Venus, Bacchus, Osiris?

The Corinthians also wanted to know

what to do if friends invited them to dinner

and served them meat

that had come from a pagan sacrifice.

Should they eat what their hosts offered

or should they risk offending their hosts

and refuse what they considered to be tainted meat?

To us, these seem like silly questions,

but Paul was glad to respond.

And he made it simple for the Corinthians:

go ahead and eat.

Meat was meat; the source didn’t matter,

since ultimately it came from God’s hand.

That was Paul’s rationale.

Paul knew, though, that many Corinthians

had already decided

that they were going to go ahead

and eat whatever they were offered,

with no concern for the source,

and they weren’t interested in Paul’s logic.

They were going to do what they wanted to do

regardless of what Paul might have to say to them.

They were going to do what they felt like doing.

In Corinth everyone did as they pleased.

Everyone lived by their favorite Corinthian maxim:

“All things are permissible for me”.

Their theme song would have been Cole Porter’s,

“Anything Goes.”

And this is what Paul really sought to address

as drilled down deeper into the mindset of

those first followers of Christ in Corinth.

In his response, Paul acknowledged the maxim,

acknowledged it and did not try to refute it

or challenge it,

the idea that each person was free to do

as she or he chose.

Rather, as we heard in our lesson,

Paul said, “Yes, you are right –

you are free to do as you please,

do as you choose,

do whatever you want to do.

But, think things through first,

think carefully,

because while you can do whatever

you feel like doing,

while it may be lawful,

while it may be your right,

it may not be a good thing for you to do.

It may not be beneficial,

it might not be constructive.

Now, Paul was not trying to come down hard

on the Corinthians

anticipating some 19^th century Victorian moralizer,

telling the faithful,

“Don’t drink,

don’t smoke,

don’t swear,

don’t dance,

don’t gamble,

don’t play cards,

don’t have fun of any kind.”

No, what Paul wanted the Corinthians

to think about it was,

how did what they wanted to do build up,

how was it constructive,

how was it beneficial,

and not just for the individual,

but for the larger community.

This is what Paul was trying to get

the Corinthians to think about.

He wanted them to understand that as Christians

they were part of community,

and they had a responsibility

to the larger community

“Do not seek your own advantage,”  Paul wrote,

“but that of the other.”

Or, for those of you who are reading through

the NIV translation we are using for

the Year of the Bible,

“No one should seek their own good,

but the good of others.”

(NIV)

Even when something was lawful,

an obvious right.

Community needs should come first,

individual wants,

desires should come second.

For Paul, this was such an important lesson

for Christians to understand, to absorb,

to weave into their lives,

to make a part of their lives

that he said it twice in his letter –

first in chapter 6

and then again in chapter 10 in our lesson.

We celebrate individualism in our society,

and we are schooled in the mindset,

“It’s my right

so I’ll do whatever I feel like doing,

I’ll do whatever I want”,

in much the same way

the Corinthians were 2000 years ago.

And Paul would respond to you and me

in the same way

he responded to the Corinthians.

“Sure, it is your right;

You’ll get no argument there:

you are free to do

just what you tell me you want to do.”

“But, how is it beneficial,

how is it constructive;

How is helpful,

not just to you,

but to the community of disciples

you are part of.

How does it build community,

the community of Christians?”

In many other states,

it is illegal to talk on your cellphone

unless you are using a headset or

your car’s hands-free Bluetooth set-up.

But here in Virginia,

you can hold your phone in one hand

while you drive your car.

You can, as I have seen too many times,

hold your phone in one hand

even as you drive your massive truck,

steering and shifting gears

through heavy traffic.

Legal? Yes.

Your right? Yes,

But is it beneficial,

constructive,

good for the larger community?

In Eugene Peterson’s paraphrasing of our text

in the Message, Paul’s words come out this way,

“Looking at it one way, you could say,

“Anything goes. …

But the point is not to just get by.

We want to live well;

but our foremost efforts should be

to help others live well.”

(The Message)

And isn’t that what Jesus teaches us:

“to help others live well”

so we can all live well together?

Isn’t that Kingdom living,

reflecting the Kingdom of God?

Isn’t that what building a society

on a foundation of love is all about?

Paul comes back to this notion

in his letter to the Philippians:

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit,

but in humility regard others

as better than yourselves.

Let each of you look not to your own interests,

but to the interests of others.

Let the same mind be in you

that was in Christ Jesus.”

(Philippians 2:3-5)

Let the same mind be in you

that was in our Lord Christ Jesus,

who always put the needs of others

before his own needs,

even to the point of death on the cross

for you and for me.

American Airlines has launched a

rather interesting new ad campaign,

built on the theme,

“The world’s greatest flyers, fly American.”

Now flying has become a sharp-elbowed,

take-no-prisoners, unpleasant way to travel,

where rudeness abounds.

American is trying to change that

by saying that those who fly on American

are polite, civil,

respectful of others,

ceding the armrest to the person

stuck in the middle seat,

sharing space in the overhead bin,

asking seatmates before raising or lowering

the window shade.

Everyone trying to make the flight

as pleasant as possible

for everyone else,

including the airline’s crew.

Commenting on Paul’s letter to the Corinthians

one biblical scholar wrote,

“Love calls for people

to seek the good of another;

this is not an option,

it is basic faithful living.

The love of others should be at the center

of one’s purpose.

Paul’s conviction is that when one

looks to the interests of others

then one’s own interests are taken care of.”

As Paul teaches us as he concluded his letter

to the Corinthians,

we can have all our rights,

our privileges,

our power,

but if we don’t have love, we are nothing,

nothing more than noisy gongs,

clanging cymbals.

Love, which doesn’t insist on its rights;

love, which bears all things,

endures all things.

Paul wrote to the Corinthians

to teach them a different way,

a different way to live, to go through life.

Paul teaches you and me the same lesson:

“All things are lawful,”

but not all things are beneficial.

“All things are lawful,”

but not all things build up.

Do not seek your own advantage,

but that of the other

…the point is not to just get by.

We want to live well;

but our foremost efforts should be

to help others live well.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God.

AMEN