“The Beginning of Wisdom”
1 Corinthians 8: 1-13; Psalm 111 – Rev. Rachel Cooley Shawler Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – January 28, 2024
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
8 Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. 2 Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge, 3 but anyone who loves God is known by him.
4 Hence, as to the eating of food offered to idols, we know that “no idol in the world really exists” and that “there is no God but one.” 5 Indeed, even though there may be so-called gods in heaven or on earth—as in fact there are many gods and many lords— 6 yet for us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.
7 It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol, and their conscience, being weak, is defiled. 8 “Food will not bring us close to God.” We are no worse off if we do not eat and no better off if we do. 9 But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. 10 For if others see you, who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? 11 So by your knowledge the weak brother or sister for whom Christ died is destroyed. 12 But when you thus sin against brothers and sisters and wound their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. 13 Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never again eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.
Psalm 111
1 Praise the Lord!
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart,
in the company of the upright, in the congregation.
2 Great are the works of the Lord,
studied by all who delight in them.
3 Full of honor and majesty is his work,
and his righteousness endures forever.
4 He has gained renown by his wonderful deeds;
the Lord is gracious and merciful.
5 He provides food for those who fear him;
he is ever mindful of his covenant.
6 He has shown his people the power of his works,
in giving them the heritage of the nations.
7 The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy.
8 They are established forever and ever,
to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness.
9 He sent redemption to his people;
he has commanded his covenant forever.
Holy and awesome is his name.
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom;
all those who practice it have a good understanding.
His praise endures forever.
Prayer
And now will you pray with me and for me as I ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart will be faithful and pleasing to the Living God. Amen.
I’m grateful to our ancestors in the church who discerned the need and co-created the Revised Common Lectionary such that we might experience some unity across place with other Christians around the world reading this this week too, and even across time as Christians have heard these scriptures in January for years and years.
I grew up moving around – my dad was in the Air Force and we attended Disciples of Christ churches every place we went, shopped on military bases for groceries alongside other families, attended schools & PTAs just like others in our neighborhoods. I am certain that historic inequalities kept my family apart from neighbors in certain demographics to some extent, but all in all I reflect that I am grateful I was surrounded by a diversity of military families and Disciples of Christ church members. It is, of course, only in reflection on my childhood that this becomes obvious to me, and I recall that particular experiences during my high school development began to draw my attention not so much to the differences among humans, but to our feelings about those differences. On a youth group “mission trip” from my UCC church in Concord, MA to serve recovery after Hurricane Katrina in Bay Saint Louis, MI, I overheard my church’s peers & adult leaders talking in stereotypes about “Southerners” and their ignorance. I felt uncomfortable & frozen in surprise. I’d lived in AL and elsewhere, learning that each place & people have cultural differences, yes, struggles and gifts, yes, but ultimately that humans are humans everywhere.
This moment may be the most obvious, and striking because it was a first time I observed hypocrisy in a church community, but there were many more subtle moments where social labels came with judgments: Talk among my peers about “base kids” and “Metco Kids” who were “bused in” from Boston to the suburbs and were predominantly youth of color. Friends saying I was not like most “base kids” and conversations about political party identification.
I know that you all could point to moments perhaps also in your adolescent development where diversity became an issue, something to be talked about and reckoned with. Perhaps before that, it was just part of the world, which was so big & beautiful & amazing to be explored. Maybe the beginning of wisdom is also in the beginning of our lives, when we feel such awe at God’s creation and have not yet been “carefully taught” identity labels and stereotypes.
As the Holy Spirit leads me to ponder diversity, I’m again amazed that political party becomes an identity label so often in the US, and a primary one at that. When there are so many issues, experiences, and diversities, why would we let one label come to represent so much? And seem to simplify complexity?
Back to adolescence, when there begins to be judgment of identity: as teens, we want to make sure we’re not disparaged, especially as our guiding questions at that age are “who am I?” and “how do I fit?” So in projecting confidence, self-assuredness in our opinions, maybe our brains jump to assuredness in our rightness, our way. As Paul says to the church in Corinth, “Knowledge puffs up.” I love this image of puffing up, like a head inflated like a balloon with ego, or a big proud chest, like a team mascot costume. Like we learn to put on that costume: the macho mascot with the broad shoulders and barrel chest. We’re taught to prioritize individualism not only as a US national value – I’m pretty sure it was an actual vocabulary word in my history textbook – but also as a mask to put on. And often, our embodiment grows to fit into that costume, puffed up as it is, and we become the puffed up egos.
But of course, we are not those costumes, at our core, and ultimately. We are God’s, and God delights in us just as we are. I imagine God sees the costume we’re trying to fit in and understands why we try, yet wishes that we would be just as we are, because who we are makes God smile.
Who we are is also impacted by where we are in the moment, how we respond, who is in our community. Whether we realize or not, we are impacted by others because we are interconnected with them. And we impact those others too. Paul draws the attention of the people in Corinth to that fact. They have been negotiating how to live in relation to others around them, and debate here whether they should eat meat sacrificed by others to idols. This question has major impacts for their social lives, because much of society in Corinth surrounded that dining together. The pro-meat folks might also be, as some scholars suggest, the wealthier and more educated elites in the church, who often seemed to clash with the laborer families with less formal education. The elite folks are logic-ing that if idols don’t exist, it doesn’t matter if they eat the meat “sacrificed” to them. Paul responds that indeed they may know the idols don’t exist, but others around them, and those newer to the faith, do not understand that. It’s almost as if the pro-meat group is trying to get out on a technicality. But Paul draws their attention to the broader community and their impacts on it.
The pro-meat group, the educated one, is also positioning logic as the number one factor in decision making—unsurprising given their Greek enculturation and the influence of philosophers trying to make sense of all things with reason. And reason has its value. Paul uses reason with them too, to say that if all the church members had recognized that the idols were ineffectual, then the elites’ conclusions would stand. But this is not the case, so they need to consider the ethical dimensions and place their impact on others as the number one factor in decision making. “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up,” Paul writes. Our logic must be balanced with consideration and respect of others and their views and concerns. And they may not even be prioritizing the same factors as you—instead of logic, they may see something else as top priority, and you may actually learn from them too.
I imagine there are many examples of this that you could cite from your life and the world around us. What I’m most drawn to today is the prioritizing of “rightness,” and the sense of identity built around always being right. In our society, it often feels to me as if just having an opinion is the number one priority—almost no matter what that opinion is, as long as you can announce it boldly. Your conviction and insistence on your view makes it “right.” I think this happens all over the place: in family discussions, community meetings at churches & PTAs, on social media, and certainly in political speech on all sides. Have we made an idol of speech? Without considering how our speech impacts others, or without listening to the views of others?
I know I’ve gotten puffed up with sureness of my rightness on many occasions. With my family, where I finally grew up and wasn’t just the kid—13 & 15 years younger than my sisters—and could now participate in family debates and loudly hold my own. In classrooms, wanting to say something when my peers seem to be so smart, speaking critically without considering what I’m tearing down, or what we might offer instead. Ranting about politics. Insisting on my opinion on that church issue. Let’s pause for a moment to consider: Where do you see that puffing up of “rightness” in the world around you? pause Where and when have you felt that inflating tension in your chest or head, that intensity in your voice, that sense of being big? Pause Are there times here at VLM where – whether quietly or loudly – folks are holding tightly to their logic or argument on something and missing the larger view of the community?
Paul invites that we turn our attention to the Body of Christ as a whole, arguing that wounding or neglecting a member of the Body of Christ or their needs is like wounding Christ himself. Imagine if we all took that to heart! The reality is that there are real issues upon which we have differences of thought, often due to our varied experiences. We need each other, though, to discern the greatest good for the entire community. We need both folks who’ve experienced oppression and folks who’ve seen it enacted by family members & friends to discuss how to uproot it, for example. We need to turn to curiosity to the perspectives of others, to prioritize respecting & even learning from their experiences and viewpoints. To prioritize love for the entire body. To go back to that child-like love for all people, before identity labels & rankings caused us to put on puffed up costumes.
Psalm 111 invites us back to wonder and awe at the whole Body of God. It’s an acrostic poem in the original Hebrew, implying it’s a comprehensive, A-to-Z celebration of God’s works. We are to give thanks & praise with our “whole heart,” which in the Hebrew refers to all our reason, understanding, imagination, conscience, emotions, energy. We are to praise in the company of the congregation, and to study the works of the Lord, to turn our focus back to them again and again. To go on awe walks in nature, to observe & learn from the trees and ladybugs. To remember that we are forever redeemed through covenant with God. As we approach the end of the Psalm, the acrostic structure indicates that awe of God is both the beginning & the end of wisdom: the most important thing to prioritize every day, every hour. Awe at our fellow humans and all they’ve weathered, all they offer. Awe at God’s image reflected in them, under those costumes. May our worship and all our comings & goings help us to re-member, in all our hearts, the wonderful, awesome works of God.
May it be so. Amen.