Hard Choices
AM Psalm 119:97-120 • PM Psalm 81, 82
Gen. 45:16-28 • 1 Cor. 8:1-13 • Mark 6:13-29
“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to everyone.”
The Bible gives us some definite “do’s” and definite “do not’s.” But then there’s all that middle ground where we have to decide for ourselves. Years ago, when we lived in southwest Georgia, we and four other couples of like minds met regularly for a meal in one another’s homes. We looked forward to our gatherings because as active Christians, although of various denominations, we felt free to discuss questions of faith comfortably and safely together. We all had young children and, as faculty of the same small college, were all of fairly limited means, so when we decided one month to splurge and dine instead in the town’s nicest restaurant, it was a rare and special event.
Bill, a coach and physical education professor, and a Baptist, decided, after some thought, to join us with a glass of wine. During the meal, the waiter came to the table with a note for Bill, sent from one of his former students dining at a table across the room. As he read the note, Bill’s head dropped in silence. Naturally, the rest of us wanted to know what the note said. Bill’s wife grabbed the note and passed it to us. “Coach,” it read, “you a Christian and drinking wine?” No matter what the rest of us rushed to tell Bill—“The Bible doesn’t say a glass of wine now and then is a sin!”; “You’re not getting drunk!”; “Remember Jesus’ first miracle!”—, Bill felt he had made the wrong choice and become, in Paul’s words in today’s readings, “a stumbling block” to someone weaker in the faith.
Paul’s first letter to the church at Corinth addresses Christians who are divided into two camps about eating meat that’s been “sacrificed to idols”: those who think it’s all right, and those who don’t. This is the meat that was sacrificed to various deities, with part used in the temple and the remainder sold in the city’s meat markets. Corinth was a city with many temples dedicated to Greek and Roman deities, gods the people in the church had left behind when they embraced the Christian faith. Some of the people felt it was fine to eat this meat because there’s only one true God; others were troubled that eating it might be interpreted as backsliding to their pagan religion.
Paul agrees with the first group. Go ahead and eat it, since it was sacrificed to a god that never existed in the first place. But then he qualifies this by reminding them that, although they have been set free by God’s love, they must be careful that exercising their freedom doesn’t cause a stumbling block for someone else. In chapter 8, Paul’s final words on the issue set some pretty clear guidelines: “If what I eat [and we can add ‘or drink or say or do’] causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again” (v.13).
Making the right decision in that middle ground can be difficult, and sometimes we don’t know we’ve made the wrong choice until the consequences come crashing down on us. Was Bill wrong to choose that glass of wine? Not in my eyes nor in those of the rest of his friends. But in his own eyes, he didn’t look good. We can give thanks, though, for a loving God who sees the intentions of our hearts, judging us less harshly than we judge ourselves.
Written by Kay DuVal
With a PhD in English and long retired, Kay misses the early days of teaching when she and John were not so encumbered with earthly goods (read: clutter).