Glorious Weirdness--September 8, 2022
"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.' Indeed even though there are many so-called gods in heaven or on earth--as in fact there are many gods and many lords--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." [1 Corinthians 8:4-6]
It really is a mark of maturity when you can be grounded in what you believe without becoming anxious or threatened by the fact that others do not share your beliefs, even when they are core beliefs like our faith in God.
I'm not sure we give the Bible sufficient credit for how its voices sometimes model that kind of maturity. And to be sure, there are certainly plenty of episodes in the storytelling of the Scriptures where people vanquished and killed others who did not believe in the same God or gods as they did--sometimes doing it convinced that God was being glorified in the destruction of those enemies. But here is Paul the apostle, defender of the faith and theologian par excellence, modeling for his congregation the ability not to freak out over the existence of people who do not share his belief in God.
As we've noted over the last couple of days, Paul is responding to a question from the Corinthians about whether it was permissible to eat meat that had come from animals sacrificed at pagan temples. And they seem to have posed that question in a rather loaded way, something like, "It's fine for us to eat that meat, because we all know that the idols of the Empire, like Zeus, Apollo, Jupiter, or even Caesar himself, are not real gods, right?" And so now Paul is in the position of affirming that, indeed, the idols of those temples are just stone or metal or wood and not real deities. [He will also have more to say in the coming days about the importance of accommodating the folks in the congregation who were really struggling with what those idols meant, so there's more to that conversation yet to come.]
But what Paul also acknowledges here is that outside the Christian community, there are lots of folks who do not share their conviction about the one living God, and the one Lord Jesus. Sure, both Paul and the folks at First Church of Corinth, along with their ancestors in faith in ancient Israel, might all be clear that there is one God, the creator of heaven and earth. But Paul is well aware that the wider culture around them worships a whole pantheon, or rather several different overlapping and competing pantheons and mythologies, of gods, goddesses, demigods, and other supernatural beings. And yet, Paul doesn't get bent out of shape about that fact. He can hold to what he believes without being swayed by peer pressure, and at the same time, he doesn't assume that the entire culture in which he lives will share those beliefs. Paul can [and does] certainly share his faith in Jesus with anyone he can, and he is unafraid to be mocked, ridiculed, or even jailed and tortured for sharing that faith--but he doesn't expect everyone else to believe as he does about God, nor does he think he should be given special social privileges because of his faith.
From the beginning, the earliest Christians knew they lived in a pluralistic culture where many or most would not share their faith or core convictions about God. They didn't think it was unfair or outlandish that they as Christians did not dominate all of society or hold the levers of power. They just understood that they didn't have a monopoly on the public square, and so they took it for granted that they would have to live as an outlier voice rather than the dominant one. The early church, in other words, did not seek tools of political power or brute force to impose their faith in the One God revealed in Jesus Christ on their neighbors, and they certainly did not have any intention of forcing others into Christianity or mandating a "Christian" empire/nation. From the first generation, we have understood [so long as we didn't forget it] that we were supposed to be an alternative voice of unexpected and subversive good news--what theologian Stanley Hauerwas called, "God's counter-cultural option." All of that is underneath Paul's way of talking to the Corinthians here--they know there is only one God, while at the same time they live in a culture that does not share those beliefs, but rather names many gods, lords, and the like. And instead of throwing a temper tantrum about that diversity of faith in the culture where they live, they take that as the best way to embody God's Reign in all of its glorious weirdness and all the ways the Gospel makes us stand out.
That's really important to remember in a time and place like our moment in history. Sometimes voices claiming to follow Jesus [but often just more of the same old Respectable Religion, to be honest] say that Christians should be the ones dictating things for everyone else. They insist we should hold the reigns and control the levers of power--that we should try to build a "Christian" empire--er, nation. Sometimes they'll say that Christian holidays and practices should be privileged over others, and that a "Christian" perspective [they tend to assume there is only one, when there are multiple strands of Christian tradition, of course] should be the default setting for society in general. But that's just the opposite of the way Paul approaches things: he assumes he will live, work, and witness alongside people who believe in different gods, more gods, or even no gods--and that it is a more powerful witness to the way of Jesus to share his faith from a place on the margins than from the seats of power and privilege. So rather than imposing his core beliefs about God on everyone, Paul assumes that every day when he steps out into the world he is going to run across a whole spectrum of people with different faiths, philosophies, and ways of life.
I know--I really do get it--that it can sound so persuasive when the loud voices use the language of religion today to argue for building, or saving, or reclaiming a "Christian" nation, because it sounds like it is, you know, "Christian." But it's actually the opposite of how Paul and the early church saw their witness--not as a dominating force imposing the way of Jesus ON others, but rather as an alternative to the way of empire that drew people in by embodying the way of Jesus FOR others.
Today, we too are headed into a world where some of our interactions will be with people who share our conviction as Christians that there is one God and one Lord Jesus Christ, and some of them will be with people with different faiths, different emphases, or no particular faith at all. Rather than trying to force others to think or believe like us, maybe our most powerful witness is simply to live the Jesus way of life as authentically as we can, and to let that be enough in Jesus' hands to draw others into the extravagant love of God.
In this day, let's allow our lives to be the minority report, the outlier voice, the counter-culture option of the God we know in Jesus. Let us dare to be gloriously weird.
Lord Jesus, enable us to live authentically where you have placed us, as witnesses in a world that does not share our faith, rather than seeking to dominate others.
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