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| Image: John Hain from pixabay.com |
Introduction
I found a testimony the other day which I first heard a long
time ago, but it seems to be doing the rounds again. It’s about a man who sees
this guy on a bridge, about to jump off. Here is how he tells the story.
“I saw he was just about to jump so I ran towards him and
shouted, ‘Don’t do it!’”
He looked at me and said, “But nobody loves me.”
I said, “God loves you. Do you believe in God?”
He said, “Yes.”
I said, “Well that’s great. What are you a Christian, a Muslim
or a Jew?”
He said, “Christian.” I said, “Me, too!
“Protestant or Catholic?” He said, “Protestant.” I said, “Me,
too!
“What denomination are you?” He said, “Baptist.” I said, “Me,
too!
“Northern or Southern Baptist?” He said, “Northern.” I said,
“Me, too!”
“Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?”
He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist.” I said, “Me,
too!
“Northern Conservative Baptist Council of 1879, or Northern
Conservative Baptist Council of 1912?” He said, “Northern Conservative Baptist
Council of 1912.”
I said, “Heretic!” And I pushed him off.
Of course, we know that throughout Church history there have
been many splits and divisions.
The Great Schism between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox
Churches in 1054 was over many issues; some were important and weighty, but
tragically there were arguments over silly things too.
Should the bread used at Holy Communion be leavened or
unleavened? There was actually a bitter falling out over priestly facial hair;
should they be clean shaved, as the Roman Catholics insisted, or have long
beards in the Orthodox style? As if anyone even cared...
And it’s not just traditional or institutional churches. During
the great 18th Century evangelical revival, the two most prolific evangelists
George Whitefield and John Wesley bickered over the question of how sovereign
God is in our salvation and to what degree free will operates. They wrote
tracts against each other and denounced each other in sermons.
Down the centuries, churches have split over whether women
should be required to wear head coverings or not, over whether amplified
musical instruments can ever replace the organ, over whether clergy must wear
robes or can dress more informally.
It’s alarming how quickly we can develop blind spots of
legalism. Do you have one? How would you know?
There’s a story of an ecumenical conference where all the
delegates were asked to speak on the question, “What church would Jesus join?”
The Baptists, Methodists, Catholics and Pentecostals all said their bit,
complete with statistics and PowerPoint presentations.
Then the Anglican stood up and said, “I don’t see what all the
fuss is about. Why would Jesus want to leave the Church of England
anyway?”
During the second great evangelical awakening in the mid-19th
Century, the prince of preachers Charles Spurgeon and the anointed evangelist
DL Moody met up and were both shocked by each other’s behaviour.
Moody said to Spurgeon, who liked a good Havana cigar, “How can
you, a man of God, smoke tobacco?” And Spurgeon took one look at Moody, who was
obese, and said, “How can you, a man of God, be that fat?”
Moody remained excessively overweight and Spurgeon continued to
smoke cigars - and they became best friends.
The strain that Christian communities feel over differences of
opinion have been a fact of life since the earliest days. The whole of Romans
14 and the first half of Romans 15, as we’ll see next Sunday, is all about how
you handle differences.
Not all differences though. Last Sunday, Erin talked about works
of darkness.
Chapter 13 lists some of them; sexual immorality, adultery,
drunkenness, dissention and jealousy, murder. The New Testament is absolutely
clear on all that. But there are many other issues that the Bible doesn’t speak
about. Verse 1 calls these “disputable matters.”
We might, in this congregation this morning, have differences of
opinion on what films or TV series are appropriate to watch, which parties we
might feel comfortable attending, what fashions we might follow, boxing,
tattoos, martial arts, tithing, smoking, make up, lottery and raffle tickets,
shopping on Sunday…
We’ll draw the line in different places over these sorts of
things. And what we accept as normal and harmless might really shock our
grandparents.
There are also perhaps more weighty ethical issues we might
disagree on, over which there is no clear command in the Bible. Which political
party should I vote for? Is war ever justified or should we be pacifist? Is the
death penalty ever right?
When you cannot clearly draw a conclusion from an obvious
reading of scripture, then conscience comes into it.
As we’ll see when we get to chapter 16, there are serious
matters of disagreement that require from us robust defiance.
It says, “watch out for those who cause divisions and put
obstacles in your way that are contrary to the teaching you have learned.” It’s
talking about wolves in sheep's clothing who lead people astray with major
doctrinal or ethical error. Here, there’s no compromise or concession; it says,
“Avoid them.”
John Stott was one of the great 20th Century evangelical
statesmen. He was a pastor, preacher, scholar, evangelist and prolific author;
he was hugely ambassadorial and influential.
He was asked in an interview with Christianity Today in 1996 if
he could think of anything that would lead him to have to leave the Church of
England, and he named three things; (and I share this with you because this is
pretty well where I call it).
1) If it formally denied the humanity or divinity of
Christ.
2) If it formally denied justification by grace through
faith.
3) If it approved homosexual partnerships as a legitimate
alternative to heterosexual marriage.
But, he said, where there is no breakdown over these defining
doctrinal and ethical matters, he would affirm that the unity of the church
must make space for divergence over secondary issues.
Disputable Matters - Food
Right, let’s get into Romans 14. Verses 1-3 say this: “Accept
the one whose faith is weak, without quarrelling over disputable matters. One
person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak,
eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt
the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge
the one who does, for God has accepted them.”
The Greek word for “treat with contempt” is exouthenein which
is a really vivid word; it means to sneer at, to belittle someone. This
behaviour is inappropriate and unbecoming in a church.
Christians were rubbishing each other over the small matter of
food. What is actually all this about? It seems to be an argument over
veganism. Was that even a thing back then?
Maybe a bit of background might help. In 167 BC, an evil man
called Antiochus Epiphanes launched a ferocious attack on Jews living in
Jerusalem. He erected a statue of himself in the temple and slaughtered live
pigs on the altar.
As well as insulting their religion in the most unpleasant way
imaginable, he also tried to compel the Jews to break their own religious law.
I cannot describe to you (with children present) what he did to those who
refused, but suffice to say it involved dismemberment and frying pans.
Eating pork was a sin so reprehensible to the Jews, that they
would rather be subjected to torture and death than do it. That’s what
Antiochus Epiphanes was forcing them to do.
So, you can perhaps appreciate the depth of feeling Jewish
Christians in this church in Rome might have had about this particular aspect
of their diet.
And you can perhaps understand how shocking they found it that
the Gentiles were tucking in to pork sausages, black pudding and bacon like it
was going out of fashion at the church barbecue.
The Jews were really struggling being part of a church in
which all Old Testament food laws were ignored. The meat
they would eat (lamb, chicken or beef) had to be slaughtered
properly, the blood had to be drained, and it all had to be supervised by a
rabbi to ensure everything was kosher.
So, in a pagan city like Rome, where most meat was offered to
Roman idols at the point of slaughter, most Jews just became vegetarian to
avoid having it on their conscience. But the Gentiles just rolled their eyes
and ate anything.
To Jewish eyes, the Gentiles in their church were only
half-converted. Seeing ham, spare ribs, and pork pies at the bring-and-share
lunch was a step too far for them and it was building to a crisis.
But the problem was two-way. The Gentiles had grown up in a
culture that looked down on Jews with contempt, and they saw them as
only half-converted as well.
Still sticking to the old rules that Christ died to set us free
from – why can’t they see that we’re not wedded to the Old Covenant anymore?
Why are they so picky and fussy about something that Jesus declared to be all
fulfilled in him?
This is the back story to Romans 14; bones of contention in the
body of Christ... big tensions in the local church over not one issue, in fact,
but two; a separate diet and a special day.
Disputable Matters - Festivals
As well as their fastidious food laws the Jews were also
hard-wired to see the sabbath as special. From sunset on Friday to sunset on
Saturday, it was a holy day of rest. They’d grown up with it. It was part of
their cultural and spiritual identity and they could become obsessive about
it.
Even today - did you know this? - strict Jews do not wear false
teeth on the Sabbath because, technically, that counts as carrying a burden?
And modern Jewish are fitted with automatic timers on light switches, because
turning a light on is considered as work.
Turning a light off isn’t work, so that’s OK. Again, the
Gentiles rolled their eyes at all this, they just saw Saturday as any other
day, and saw the Jews as the problem – binding the whole church to an unnecessary
tradition.
Keeping the Unity of the Spirit
I want you to feel the tension there must have been in this
Roman church. Can you see how awkward and heavy it must have felt? How are
these two communities, so different from each other, ever going to get on? Is
it a lost cause? Will they have to go their separate ways? Wouldn’t that just
be easier and better for everyone?
And how do we handle our differences?
Is there a way that God wants for us to stay united, or is it inevitable that
we have to split whenever we don’t see eye to eye?
As I said earlier, this has been a massive problem all through
church history. Sometimes, the church as an institution is the problem. There’s
the story of a poor vicar who complained after six months of banging heads together
in his new parish, “The only thing that’s harmonious in this church is the
organ!”
Sometimes, the problem lies less with the church and more with
the individual. I have known Christians who repeatedly get upset over a small
matter, take umbrage, and leave their church. Every six months or so in some
cases...
I’ve known church leaders’ meetings when one of us would ask,
“who’s got so-and-so at the moment?” We all knew a few disgruntled individuals
who, instead of working to resolve differences and learning to live with
differences, become spiritual nomads, unable to settle anywhere.
The teaching of Romans 14 is this; maintaining unity, despite
real differences over disputable matters, is precious to God. Me understanding
and loving my Jewish brother or sister in Christ is more important to God than
the total freedom I have in Christ to eat bacon.
If my eating bacon, or drinking wine, or getting a tattoo, or
wearing shorts and trainers when I preach, or whatever, causes a brother or
sister in Christ to falter in their faith and lose their focus on Jesus – even
though I am free in Christ to do all these things, and though I may feel
strongly that they just need to get a grip – Romans 14 says I should go to
great pains to avoid offence out of love for them.
Look at v13: “Let us stop passing judgment on one another.
Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling-block or obstacle
in the way of a brother or sister.”
And v15: “If your brother or sister is distressed because
of what you eat, you are no longer acting in love. Do not by your
eating destroy someone for whom Christ died.”
And v21: “It is better not to eat
meat or drink wine or to do anything else that will cause your brother
or sister to fall.”
Does that mean I have to compromise? Yes. Not on essential
things, not on things that the Bible commands, but on secondary things, on
things that God’s word is silent about.
Come to your own conviction; don’t be guided by custom or
convention.
And if you feel perfectly able to get a tattoo or watch a
controversial film, fine; but don’t goad those who find it unacceptable or
unhelpful.
In the world, the strong dominate the weak. But through the
gospel the Church is where the strong nurture the weak.
There is nothing in the Old or New Testament about Sunday being
special; in fact it was a normal working day until about the 4th Century. It
may be the easiest day for us to meet to worship God in this country, but that
isn’t so everywhere. In many other places it’s still just another working day.
If a Christian has thought it through and come to the conclusion
that they honour the Lord best by working or shopping on Sunday then I would
say to them, ‘God bless you.’
If they have come to the honest conviction that they cannot
honour the Lord on Sunday by shopping or working, because that’s the only day
they can meet with other believers to worship, then God bless them too. The
question is “What honours the Lord?”
It would be much easier to say, “No one in our church must ever
work or shop on Sundays. We’ll have a rule in our church and anyone who doesn’t
abide by it can’t be a member.”
But this is not the way. Christian love means we bust a gut to
respect other people’s convictions on debatable matters. Remember, you will be
judged by how you lived, not by how they lived.
Bottom line, what is important in the Christian life; is it the food
and drink people consume or don’t consume, or having some days more special
than others? Is that it? Or is it the Holy Spirit’s anointing of abundant life?
Verse 17, here’s your answer: “For the kingdom of God is not a
matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy
Spirit.”
Ending
I know I’ve shared some pretty unedifying stories today, and we
must face it and admit it when we don’t live up to the teaching of Romans
14.
But I want to finish with two testimonies from the recent past
of when the church has got it right despite differences and how that impacts
the community and glorifies the Lord.
The first is a survey that was conducted a few years ago that
showed that the Church is actually the most socially diverse group in the
entire United Kingdom. It was reported in all the national newspapers.
The survey found that, more than anyone else, we are able-bodied
and disabled. We are old and young. We are left-leaning and we are
right-leaning. We are male and female. We love opera and we love rap music. We
are black and white. We are leave and remain. We are rich and poor. We are
single and married.
Being church is living with, and loving, people who are not like
you at all. The church is not niche community. It is all-encompassing, it’s
made up of all sorts and because we all honour Jesus. One day, every tribe and
every tongue will come together and confess that he is Lord. This is just a
small foretaste.
The second is proof of that from the Christian academic Amy
Orr-Ewing. And she tells about her local MP, who is an atheist, and who was
invited as a guest to one of her church’s services. What would he, an avowed
atheist, make of this large, so-called ‘happy-clappy’ evangelical church?
Answer: He totally loved it - and he tweeted these amazing words:
“Wow, this church is the only place I know in my constituency
where such diverse people get together. You just don’t see anything like this
anywhere else.”
Unfortunately, he didn’t get the Jesus bit. But the Jesus bit is
precisely why it all works. It’s Jesus who brings people together, it’s Jesus
who breaks down barriers, it’s Jesus who teaches us to handle our differences,
and it’s Jesus who shows the world what real community can look like.
Let’s pray…
Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 18 August 2019
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