Readings
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
Psalm 111
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
Today, I want to do something different with you. Rather than focus on the Gospel passage for my homily, I thought we might instead focus on the passage from Paul’s first letter to the church in Corinth.
Today, St. Paul raises questions about food offered to idols. Now we can presume that in the church in Corinth there are individuals who have been observed eating food that has been offered to idols. In other word sacrifices offered to pagan Gods. We may also presume that this has caused something of a controversy in that church and that there may well be conflict and confusion among its members. Our passage today is Paul weighing in on the matter.
Paul is quick to point out that food neither gets us closer to God nor estranges us from God. He makes it clear that love is ultimately what brings us to God and establishes a right relationship with God. As I said in last week’s sermon, it is faith made manifest as love that is at the heart of our practice as people who follow in the way of Jesus.
For Paul, then, this means that since idols represent something that ultimately is not real, then whether we eat sacrifices to pagan God’s or not is immaterial. Those who do so with the understanding of love as the heart of faith, who do not do so as an act of worship to an idol, are in a situation where Paul would say in today’s idiom, “no harm, no foul.”
But this does not mean that Paul is condoning such behavior. In fact, for the sake of love of others who are in the church, he raises concern. And what is that concern? Namely that those who have not come to understand the deep truth of the Gospel and shape their lives accordingly may well be led astray and confused by the behavior.
If we see people of deep faith engaging in behaviors that could be misinterpreted as worship of idols, then those less mature might be led to think that it is okay to worship those idols as well. They might, as I just said, become confused about what the way of Jesus is, and ultimately miss the point of following Jesus.
This is an important teaching because, while we do not live in the pagan culture of ancient Rome, we nonetheless live in a world ripe with idols. Ancient peoples worshipped gods who were not simply beings with different stories and personalities. These gods represented dimensions of nature, the varied realities of the human condition, and core values found within the culture. So, for example, Mars was the god of war. He represented not simply marshal power, but the deep desire to protect society and what is good. Or take Minerva, who wasn’t just the daughter of Jupiter. She represented wisdom, courage, and handicraft. Each of these gods were the perfection of what they represented. They were not simply to be worshipped, but to be emulated. In fact, worship was an attempt to gain something of the nature of the god.
This begs the question, what are the idols of our society? What values and vision do we take to the extreme and then seek to idolize and emulate?
I would argue friends that we live in a society that idolizes many things, but let us take a few as examples.
We live in a culture that idolizes wealth. And exactly what or who are those idols? Well, for at least some, they are those persons in our culture who are extremely wealthy, for example Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates or, even now, Elon Musk. We attribute moral power to their ability to accumulate wealth. We are taught and, to one degree or another, invited to define our lives by what we have and by what we get.
We also live in a culture that idolizes, in one way or another, desire and sexuality. While we moralize and ostracize those who cross certain boundaries, underneath that is a consistent pattern of sexualizing and or sensualizing everything from movie stars to automobiles. Who among us hasn’t heard the phrase, “sex sells.” Moreover, we are trained by social pattern to define ourselves, on some level, by youth, beauty, and desirability. We raise up what is gorgeous and ignore or shun what we deem to be less than desirable.
And finally, for today’s purposes, we live in a culture that idolizes power and the use of power. Whether it is the power of an individual to affect the fate of others, the power of the state to wage war in order to give us a sense of safety and security, or simply physical fitness and strength, we almost make unassailable the presence and exercise of power. Weakness, in any former is anathema, and those who do not have, at the very least, self-agency are of little to no value.
Now does that mean that money, material goods, sex and sexuality, or power are in and of themselves bad things? No, in and of themselves they’re not. But, like Paul says about the food offered to idols, neither power, nor wealth, nor sex will by themselves make us closer to God, nor will they in and of themselves separate us from God.
No dear ones, the issue for us is two-fold. The first is whether we are following in the way of Jesus and putting these things in their proper context and secondly the other issue is how we behave in front of others who are attempting to be people of faith as well.
Jesus consistently and regularly called those who sought him to “sell all that you have and follow me.” Was he rejecting money, no. We know from scripture that Jesus and his followers had a “common purse,” a wallet, if you will, where they held necessary funds. Furthermore, Jesus regularly spoke with authority and power. But, even though he was the son of God, he did not ascribe the power he exercised to himself, but to his Father. And his use of power was, with only a couple of exceptions, consistently non-violent and designed to build up others rather than exercise authority over them. And as for sexuality, other than telling the woman who committed adultery to “go and sin no more,” Jesus was concerned with us seeing the fullness of others, of being mutual with one another, and of marking our relationships with respect. In fact, Jesus said little to nothing about sex. For Jesus, desire alone, sexual or otherwise, was insufficient.
No, we are called to take the things that are offered to the idols of our day and use them appropriately, but we are also called to consciously and intentionally not participate in the culture the lifts them up to the status of the divine.
And secondly, we need to be careful when taking such things that are good and necessary, and to do no harm to those around us who are on their own faith journey. We need to be sure that we ourselves are not practicing the worship of idols, but also that we are not creating the appearance of such.
What does that look like? It means, whether we have a lot or a little, we resist the temptation to judge ourselves and others based on what we or they have. We need to share what we have graciously and generously. And we need to avoid the temptation to elevate financial security as a good above all others. It also means we need to make our relationships with others not based on desire or beauty, but mutuality and respect. We need to see our own inherent value in our existence and not on some arbitrary scale of desirability. And finally, for today’s purposes, we need to carefully exercise our power and authority, whether it is a little or a lot, with compassion and in non-violent ways. We need to set aside the fear that leads to coercion and violence. We need to create justice and peace by building up others and setting aside our need for control.
We are called to live in the world fully and completely. We are called to claim all that is good in this world and not be afraid to engage. But we are also called to be a people who walk in the way of Jesus. We are called to resist the temptation to not let those good things become substitutes for Jesus and for the living God who undergirds and imbues all creation with his/her presence. We are called to not let them be stumbling blocks to ourselves and to others.
If we do, then we will know the kingdom which Jesus proclaimed. If we do then we will find our fellowship and community built up. If we do then we will be an alternative to the idols of our day. If we do, then we will do nothing less than create that space where peace, joy, and love abide. A space where faith made manifest as love will be with us now and always.