"don't Sweat The Small Stuff"

“Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff”

Romans 14:1-12

There’s a story about Ruth Graham, who was the wife of the famous evangelist, Billy Graham.

Ruth Graham, dressed and made up as it seemed fitting for any American woman in the 1970’s attended a luncheon with the wives of pastors in Germany.

These German Christians had different ideas about how a woman should look.

They didn’t believe that a married Christian woman should wear makeup or clothing that made them look too much like the rest of the world.

As a result, a German pastor’s wife, sitting across from Ruth Graham, became very upset.

She thought it was shameful and unchristian for Ruth Graham to look so worldly.

Why, Ruth was even wearing mascara!

The German Pastor’s wife became so unsettled that she started crying right into her beer.

Meanwhile, Ruth Graham couldn’t understand why the woman was crying, although it did bother Ruth that a self-respecting Pastor’s wife was drinking beer!

(pause)

The early Christian Church was made up of two distinct groups of people, the Jews who had converted to Christianity and the Gentiles who had converted to Christianity.

The Jews had been raised with strict dietary laws, especially concerning meat sacrificed to idols.

In Rome, most of the butcher shops were run by pagan temples.

The butchers would offer an animal sacrifice to a pagan god in the pagan temple and then sell the meat to the public in the temple’s butcher shop.

The money they made from selling the meat went into the pagan temple offering.

For practicing Jews, eating meat that had been sacrificed to pagan gods or idols was the same as worshiping that idol themselves.

So, in their minds, it was a BIG sin…a big no-no!

And since these Jews lived in Rome and the only meat available was non-kosher meat, the Jews were vegetarian.

They also lived by a strict, hard and fast rule that the Sabbath was the Seventh Day (or our Saturday).

It had always been this way.

It was part of what it meant to be obedient to God.

The Gentiles on the other hand were raised without any knowledge of dietary laws and most of them had no concept of what Sabbath was all about.

But when they accepted Christ, they began worshipping together on the first day of the week, or Sunday, because that was the day that Christ was Resurrected, and the hinge on which Christianity swings is the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Every Sunday was seen as a miniature Easter.

It’s how we Methodists still understand Sunday.

And as far as Sabbath goes or a day of rest…

…well, most of us don’t really necessarily follow those rules too rigidly any longer.

Perhaps we should, but most of us don’t.

Some of us might rest on a Friday, others a Monday, others a Saturday, others a Sunday.

And as far as the day of worship goes, people who have to work on Sunday mornings might need to find a Sunday evening or Wednesday evening or other day to worship God.

Many churches offer worship services on other days of the week.

Most of us don’t tend to get real upset about it, as long as a person worships God.

So, in Romans Chapter 14, you had two groups of well-meaning Christians who were still all growing in their faith.

One group wasn’t necessarily trying to be mean-spirited toward the other group; they simply thought they were right!

But, this controversy over eating meat sacrificed to idols and which day was the Sabbath was getting out of hand.

So, Paul wrote our Scripture passage for this morning in order to address the issue and try and get the Christians to stop judging one another according to these things that don’t really have anything to do with being a Christ-follower.

“Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling 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…

…One person considers one day more sacred than another, another considers every day alike.

Each should be fully convinced in their own mind.

Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord.

Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God.”

Paul says both groups are doing what they are doing ‘for the Lord.’

Therefore, it doesn’t matter, it’s all good!

What does matter is judging one another over such things!

What does matter are divisions in the Church over such things!

Jesus doesn’t require that we agree on every single issue.