Epiphany 4
I Corinthians 8:1-13
In just one word, what is the reason that thousands of our young men and women are being deployed half-way around the world to Iraq? Well, if you had to boil it down to just one word, that reason would be: freedom. Freedom for the Iraqi people from the dictator that’s been ruling over them for years. Freedom for the Middle East from one less volatile person to worry about. Freedom for our country from one less terrorist to be concerned about. We Americans are all about freedom.
And freedom is exactly what our text is about this morning. Jesus died to make us free. But what does that word mean: freedom? I didn’t look this up in Webster’s, but my definition of freedom would be: not having to answer to anyone. Being perfectly independent in all of your decisions. Not having anyone tell you what to think or do. Now, if that’s our definition of freedom, aren’t we somewhat limiting freedom by attaching the word “Christian” to it? I mean, total freedom would mean that you have no rules to govern you. But add the word “Christian” in front of freedom, aren’t we restricting freedom somewhat? Doesn’t “Christian Freedom” mean that we are no longer totally free, but we are ruled by the principles of Christ? And is that really freedom anymore?
You might have looked already at the theme and parts of this sermon in the bulletin. And I have to admit that I was not so clever to come up with that division on my own. Those are Martin Luther’s thoughts when he summed up what Christian Freedom was. Let me give you the full quote from Doctor Luther. In a treatise written on September 6th, 1520, Luther gave these two statements about Christian Freedom: 1. A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. 2. A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to everyone. It sure seems to mean that those statements are complete opposites of each other. On one hand, Luther is saying that we Christians are not answerable to anyone! And that’s exactly what we Americans would call Freedom! But then in the next breath he adds that we are everyone’s servant, everyone’s slave. And it appears that all our freedom is instantly taken away with that remark. Well, this morning, we are going to dig into the Doctrine of Christian Freedom as we study the 8th Chapter of Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthian congregation.
Part I
But before we get into I Corinthians, I want to tell you about another story from the Bible that I think has a lot to say about Freedom. The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Remember the son in that story? All he wanted was to be free! It wasn’t enough for him that he was given half of his father’s wealth. As soon as he got that load of money, he had to get out of the house. He had to be free. Because he couldn’t very well go out on Friday night and have a wild time and have to look at his heartbroken father in the morning. That would have cramped his freedom. And so he left. He indulged every desire that he had. He was, you might say, perfectly free. And where did this life of uninhibited freedom get him? The Prodigal Son lowered himself to the point where the pods that the pigs were eating were looking pretty tasty to him. The son’s “freedom” left him longing to be a servant in his dad’s house. That was the only way that he thought he could put his life back together.
When we talk about Christian Freedom the first thing we have to remember is the freedom that Jesus has given us from our sins. And a lot of people don’t see that as freedom. They look at Christianity as the 10 Commandments: rules that you follow, laws that take away a person’s freedom. And don’t we feel that way sometimes? I mean, just imagine that you were perfectly free to do anything that you wanted. You could see any movie that you felt like. You could go to any website on the internet. No form of this world’s entertainment would be off-limits to you. You would have no rules in your life. You would be free, but would you be happy? No. Filling ourselves up with the pig pods of this world only leads to guilt, depression, anger. And isn’t that the whole reason that Jesus died on the cross? So that we would be free from that guilt, free from the punishment that a sinful life deserves. Oh, when we talk about freedom in Christ, it sure is not a limiting thing, it’s a liberating thing!
You ever watch those shows about these submarines that go down 2 and a half miles to the wreck of the Titanic? That’s one thing that I think I could never do. To be crammed into a machine not much bigger than a telephone booth with 2 other guys, 2 miles below the surface of the water, with the incredible pressure of that water just trying to squish the vessel. Well, let’s say that you were down there, and you just couldn’t take it anymore. You were going nuts, and you said, “I have to get out of here!” Opening the hatch would be about the stupidest thing you could do. Yeah, you might get out of the sub, but you’d be crushed by the water before you got the chance to drown. The apparent captivity of the submarine actually gives you freedom. That confinement preserves your life. And it’s the exact same thing when we talk about Christian living. Living the way that God wants you to might seem restricting, but it’s sure a lot better than the alternative.
You’re going to learn a new word this morning. Who here knows German? You’ll already know this word: Mitteldingen. Vat ist ein Mittelding? Mittelding, you can even hear it in English: Middle Thing. Ein Mittelding is the German word for adiaphora, something neither commanded nor forbidden by God. The picture is that there are things on this side that God commands that we do, and on this other side these are the things that God commands that we don’t do, and in the middle are the Mitteldingen, the things that God hasn’t given us a command about one way or the other. And when we talk about Christian Freedom, this is what we’re talking about. Christian Freedom presupposes that we already know about the Freedom from our sins that Jesus won for us on the cross. Christian Freedom is about how we live our lives now, knowing that we are free from sins and on our way to heaven.
The church in Corinth had a number of problems with these Mitteldingen. And as you look at our text, you get a sense of what one of the major problems was. Corinth was a pagan town. There were a lot of temples to false gods there. A lot of sacrifices were made to those gods. And very much like the Jews, many of the sacrifices were not total offerings given to the gods. By that I mean, let’s say that you were bringing a cow to sacrifice to Apollo. Maybe one third would be burned up on the altar, one third would be given to Apollo’s priests, and the other third would be given back to you, where you could sell it or have a feast with it. And the question in the Corinthian congregation was: what do we do about this meat that has been sacrifices to idols? Can we eat it? Should we eat it?
And the first part of Paul’s answer is: yes! It’s no problem to eat food that was sacrificed to a false god, because that god does not really exist in the first place. If Apollo does not exist, Apollo can’t own anything. On the other hand, doesn’t everything in the world belong to the True God, even meat that was given to an idol? That’s still God’s! And so Paul says, “So then, about eating food sacrificed to idols: We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.”
This isn’t a problem that I’ve ever run into. When I go to Albertsons I never have to worry about if the hamburger that I buy was ever given to an idol. So at first, this reading seems to be an interesting story about something that has nothing to do with us. But, let’s remember about die Mitteldingen: the things that were neither commanded nor forbidden by God. That’s what this is. And we can use this story and apply it to our lives and all the Mitteldingen that we run into. And there’s a lot of them. There are literally hundreds of things that God has neither commanded nor forbidden. For instance, as we were driving down to Conference the other day, one of the cars in the lane next to us had one of those personalized license plates, which read, “BAN GUNS.” And it was really funny that the car ahead of his, from Illinois, also had a personalized license plate that said, “I HUNT II.” Well, what side should a Christian take? Should we be for guns or against them? Well, I don’t recall the Bible giving any commands one way or the other about guns. It’s a Mittelding. We as Christians are free to have whatever opinions we want on the subject. Take this upcoming War in Iraq. Some Christian groups are saying that it is biblically wrong for the US to go to war. And while people are free to have their opinions, this war isn’t something that God commands or forbids in the Bible. In fact, as you read the Scriptures, you see just how many times God’s people were forced to go to war. A few months ago, I saw on the news a Christian group throwing around the slogan, “What Would Jesus Drive?” Any of you see that? Basically these were a group of people who didn’t like gas-guzzling S.U.V.s, and they tried to make a case that if Jesus were here on earth at these times, he would purchase the most economical, earth-friendly vehicle that he could find, though I wonder what vehicle Jesus would drive if he had to tote along his 12 disciples. It might just be an S.U.V., or two. But the point is, God doesn’t tell us in his Word what kind of car to drive. It’s part of Christian Freedom! It’s a Mittelding! There are so many other issues, like smoking, like birth control, that Christians try to make rules about. But they can’t and they shouldn’t, because God doesn’t. A while ago we had a discussion about how often to celebrate the Lord’s Supper in this church. And God tells us to celebrate it often, but he leaves up to our Christian Freedom to decide just how often is often. In the Lutheran church that my father grew up in, “often” meant that the Lord’s Supper was celebrated four times a year. Here, “often” means that we have Holy Communion twice a month. Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Neither! Nobody! Just how often isn’t something that God has commanded. And we need to be careful that we do not make sweeping judgments about people in regard to Mitteldingen. Remember what Luther said, “A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to none.” And when we’re in a discussion about Christian Freedom, the first thing we need to keep in mind is that in matters that God does not specifically address in the Bible, we are subject to no one. People are free to have their opinions, but when they begin to insist that their opinions are binding for my life, they have just abused Christian Freedom.
Part II
But Christian Freedom is not all about rights, and making sure that I can do all the things that God leaves open for me to do. Listen to what Paul says in verse 9, “Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak.” Christian Freedom in regard to Mitteldingen is all about Christian Love, a love that puts everyone’s ideas and feelings ahead of my own.
What was going on in Corinth was that there were some Christians who knew that meat sacrificed to an idol was really no problem at all. And so they were buying and eating this meat, and some of the newer Christians were wondering, “aren’t they participating in the worship of an idol buy buying this meat? Should I as a Christian be doing that?” And then when one of these old Christians invited a new Christian over to his house and served him some meat that had been sacrificed to Apollo, the new Christian would eat that food, thinking ,”should I be doing this? Isn’t this sin?” And he would be filled up with all sorts of questions, all sorts of doubt, all sorts of guilt.” And it turns out that this new Christian actually was sinning, because he was doing something that he thought was wrong, but he was doing it anyway.
That’s why Paul says about these Mitteldingen, “if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.” Do you see the great lengths that Paul goes into in regard to Christian Freedom to make sure that the way that he lives his life does not offend a fragile, infant faith? Jesus himself said, “If anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to be thrown into the sea with a large millstone tied around his neck.”
We have a tremendous responsibility in regard to these Middle Things not to turn off people to the Gospel. Someone might have a hard time understanding how a Christian can smoke. And to that person, should I light up in front of them? Should I force them to have a cigarette to prove to them that it’s not against God’s law? No wonder Paul says, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” In regard to these Middle Things that God does not specifically address in his Word, we need to be governed by love, not by looking out for our rights. I need to do whatever I can to make Christianity as appealing to people as possible. And if my insistence on a certain point where God doesn’t insist keep someone from the Kingdom, causes someone to stumble in their faith, that responsibility is on me. Paul said it’s a sin. He said, “So, this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ.” No wonder Martin Luther wrote about Christian Freedom: “A Christian is a perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to everyone.”
Conclusion
So where to we go from here? First of all, remember the freedom that Jesus won for you from your sins! None of us has been perfect in regard to our treatment of the Middle Things. And if our salvation was dependent on how well we’ve used our Christian Freedom, none of us would be going to heaven. But Jesus died to free you from all guilt. And now he tells you to live, freely, and lovingly. Amen.
sdg
