Snake Meat (Sermon)

“Snake Meat”

1 Corinthians 8:1-13

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

2/1/15

         I am beginning to think that if you were to ask Paul for directions from Jonesborough to Kingsport, he would send you through Knoxville.  His advice to his readers often ends up camouflaged so deep inside meandering thickets of theological jargon that one may wonder if Paul’s gift is rare brilliance or crafty ignorance. In Romans 7 we find one of the most memorable examples of the apostle’s circuitous rambling.

“I do not understand my own actions,” he wails. “For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want…”

You get the picture. It is exhausting, and Paul finally throws his hands in the air and cries, “Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

         What exactly is Paul talking about? And what is he talking about in 1Corinthians 8? Omnivore versus herbivore? Strong versus weak believers? Idols versus the God revealed in Christ?

         Now, in both of these passages, Paul does state the issue. He names it at the very beginning, but when he starts to explore the matter, it’s like someone releases a herd of rabbits, and Paul tries to chase every one of them. In Romans 7, he struggles with his own motives and means. I don’t understand myself, he says. The he goes around and around rebuking himself. The reader wants to look away, embarrassed for this guy who shares so much more than polite company wants to hear. But Paul is also modeling heartfelt and pastoral vulnerability.

I’m just like the rest of you, he says. And I know it isn’t easy being human, much less a Christian human. Thanks be to God that we discover and live our humanity not through perfection, but through our relationship with the Christ who lives within us and within the creation around us.

1Corinthians 8 can be summed up in the seven concluding words of verse 1: “Knowledge puffs up; but love builds up.” Everything else, all of Paul’s talk of meat and idols, becomes demonstration. In fact, his argument mirrors the relationship between the first commandment and the rest of the Law. “I am Lord your God,” says Yahweh. “You shall have no other gods before me.” Everything after that, the next nine commandments and all of the 600+ dos and don’ts and die-if-you-try-its are Israel’s attempt to illustrate Yahweh’s claim of radical singularity in, with, and for the creation.

Problems arise, of course. Some of those laws seem to be driven more by a need to control than by the wonder of contemplating God’s presence and grace. That is the very struggle between knowledge and Love that Paul talks about.

It is a natural thing to want to know all we can about something, be it music, or carpentry, or economics, or algebra, or God. And to know a subject well, to be able to speak about it with intelligence can be exciting and rewarding. But when knowledge becomes a source of pride, when we think that we have got something so right that we make ourselves the standard by which the basic value of others may be determined, we have created an idol. That is as true for knowledge of God as it is for knowledge of rocket science.

The God to whom we are reunited in Jesus Christ is no idol, says Paul. And on that, we in this room can agree – at least on our good days. Still, people of all faith traditions often worship our images of God rather than God, because the line between the two can be so thin. This is where Paul’s rambling becomes gospel. When motivated by genuine and holy Love, we build one another up; we do not puff ourselves up. Later, in 1Corinthians, Paul will remind us that we cannot Love one another, and we cannot build up the body of Christ while being “envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.” We cannot love God through irritability, resentfulness, and insisting on our own way. “Love,” says Paul, “is patient [and] kind…It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” (1Corinthians 13)

You and I will not agree on everything. So if, in fear, I make our worship and service of God dependent on your conformity to my way of thinking, I practice a dangerous idolatry. It’s like handling snakes. And in an absurdly transparent attempt both to control you and to convince myself, I will try to force feed you idol meat. Snake meat.

“Come on,” I’ll say. “It tastes like chicken. Eat it!”

All of us are prone to stopping part way into the journey of faith, and to making idols of what we know, or what we think we know about our images of God. The full journey takes us into the kingdom of God called Love. And it is a long, demanding journey, but we can know we are on the journey by the fact that it keeps going. Love never ceases to ask more of us, but it never ceases to empower us to do more, either.

In the Presbyterian Church we baptize only once. We view the sacrament of Baptism as a vivid reminder of God’s gracious initiative. Our place in the body of Christ comes not by some decision or merit of our own, but by the indestructible Love of God. Because of God’s timeless Love, Baptism is once-and-for-all.

We do, however, return to the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper time after time. We return to be fed for and restored to the journey of Love. There is no snake meat on this table. And it is healthy that we observe this sacrament by both distribution and intinction. Approaching the sacrament in different ways helps us to avoid idolatry of style, and to embrace, instead, the God proclaimed and revealed at this table.

So come, all of you. And may you welcome others as you are welcomed by Jesus, the Christ, the incarnation of up-building Love around whom we gather.