Diversity & Welcome

Sermon planned for Sunday, September 11th, 2011

Text: Romans 14:1-12

My brother and I used to fight like that all the time. We’d be fighting over toys, over the Coleco Vision or the Atari. We annoyed each other all the time. Do any of your siblings annoy you? What do you do about it? Do you ever get annoyed with the actions of someone in our congregation? Maybe it’s the noise level of all the children having a ‘good time’ during worship? Perhaps you’re offended that some come dressed far too casually for your liking. Does someone’s approach to parenting frustrate you? It’s not just children around a Christmas tree that find reasons to fight, or get annoyed. Children are not alone in being offended when someone doesn’t say something right, or when someone does something very differently than how you were raised.

Isn’t it a joy to be a family of faith with people so different than you? This morning we are celebrating Communion – we’re coming to the same table, as disciples of the same Lord. Among other things, one beautiful aspect of Communion is that it reminds us of what unites us – the Lordship of Jesus Christ and our trust in Him. Thankfully, this congregation isn’t a place where everyone shares the same approaches to parenting. It is a gift that not all of us love hymns, and that some prefer choruses. It’s something to celebrate that we have children who know how to sit still and others who find life far too exciting for stillness. It is a beautiful thing that some of us resonate more with conservative politics, and others with liberal politics; it just means that neither side has ownership over the politics of Jesus and His Kingdom.

At the Lord’s Table we are reminded that we are no social club, bound together by common interests. We are the members of Christ’s body, bound together by the name Jesus, and our response to that name. Our unity is a gift to us. Communion is when we remember the cost of that Unity, and we celebrate our calling in the waters of baptism. In those waters, we took a stand together with Jesus – Jesus is the One who unites us. With that unity among us, it relativizes all the little things, and some not so little things, that are different about us.

Last week we looked at the topic of accountability. We learned that the Church is a place in which we hold each other accountable. We rebuke sin in a context of loving vulnerability. This accountability works at the one-on-one, small-group as well as congregational levels. In the old order – the one left behind in the wake of Christ’s cross and resurrection – in the old order, sin was dealt with through punishment and even using the death penalty. However, in the new covenant, Jesus Christ has given us a new method for dealing with evil and sin. Throughout. It’s called accountability, where we patiently win our brothers and sisters back to the path of holiness.

In the passage we heard earlier, we read how Paul was telling the Christians in Rome how to get along despite some very serious differences. Here we read him telling Christians to not judge one another, because we are each individually accountable to God. Now this we like! Don’t stick your nose in my business! We all have to answer to God, so don’t judge me! Do Paul’s words in this passage contradict what Jesus taught his disciples about accountability and rebuking sin? That’s the question I want us to explore this morning.

Does Jesus’ teaching about accountability not eventually lead to a congregation of people constantly looking over each other’s shoulders, like those children in that video? Wouldn’t Paul’s advice be more conducive to a peaceful atmosphere, where people tolerate each other’s offensive habits?

It is crucial for us to notice the specific ‘offences’ Paul is speaking about in this passage. Jesus’ teachings about accountability would only apply if these offences were a matter of sin. The ‘Offences’ that Paul addressed in Romans 14 were about food and the Jewish Sabbath. The churches in Rome were some of the most diverse congregations in the Church at that time. On the one hand you had Jewish Christians who still practiced circumcision, abstained from unclean foods, and regularly attended the Sabbath services in the Jewish synagogues. They were Jews who had come to believe and trust that Jesus was God’s Messiah. On the other hand, there were Gentiles who had heard and believed the good news about Jesus as it was preached by Paul and other apostles. They looked different from the Jewish Christians. They would likely have spoken a variety of different languages, eaten different kinds of foods, laughed at different kinds of jokes and much more.

Two of the many ‘offences’ that kept popping-up related to the kinds of food people were eating, and about whether all Christians should keep the Jewish Sabbath and attend synagogue services. These were not small issues. They were emotional and divisive. The question facing this community of diverse Christians was whether these two issues were central matters of faith that required discipline and accountability, or whether they were peripheral matters, a diversity that could exist within the unity of the Church.

The issue of food had been dealt with by the early Church at a council in Jerusalem, and we can read about their deliberations in the book of Acts, in chapter fifteen. At Jerusalem, the binding decision was made that Gentile Christians didn’t need to follow Jewish food regulations – that they could eat foods that Jews couldn’t.

Scholars estimate that the Jerusalem council occurred in the year 50, and their best guess is that the letter to the Romans was written in the mid-50’s. This means that this decision about Gentiles eating unclean meat had already been in effect for about 4-6 years by the time Paul was writing to the Romans. Yet it seems that the issue about meat was divisive among the Greek and Jewish Christians. Just because a binding decision was made by many of the Christian leaders in one area didn’t mean that Christians in other places accepted that decision in their hearts. The same happens today all the time.

Nevertheless, Paul’s argument in Romans basically assumes that the decision made in Jerusalem was binding. What you eat doesn’t matter. Nothing you eat makes you unclean. Jesus had already said as much in Mark 7 when he said that nothing that enters your body from the outside makes you unclean – but it’s the stuff that comes out of you, from the inside, that makes you unclean – the filth from a dark heart & mind.

So if the meat issue wasn’t a sin, if it wasn’t a matter of accountability, then how did Paul teach his listeners to think about this issue? He told them to welcome one another. Welcome the person who is ‘weak’. By this Paul was referring to those Jewish Christians offended by Gentiles eating unclean foods. Welcome the ‘weak’ but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions. You see, for Paul, these peripheral issues are not a matter of Truth… they are ‘opinions’. You and I are allowed to have different opinions on all kinds of things. Our unity is not a matter of opinions but of Lordship – we serve the same Lord Jesus. That’s not an opinion. That Jesus is Lord is a Truth that you and I celebrate and submit ourselves to.

The conflict in Rome also included the peripheral matter of celebrating the Jewish Sabbath. Should Gentile Christians have to come to the local synagogue and learn the Torah? This whole situation was possible, at that time, because Jews and Jewish Christians still got along in many places of the Roman empire. Paul and the other apostles still attended synagogues and went to the temple once in a while. Now, mind you, sometimes they were driven out because of their teachings, but not all the time. Early Jewish Christians still connected at the local synagogues, and were mostly tolerated by the Jews… after all, they were their brothers, sisters, cousins, etc…

Again, as with the eating of unclean foods, the practice of the Jewish Sabbath was not mandatory for Gentile Christians. In other words, it wasn’t a sin for a Gentile Christian to not attend the Jewish Sabbath activities. The crucial Christian practice was the celebration of the “Lord’s Day”, you could compare that to Sunday morning church services, where they gathered to worship Jesus, remember his death and resurrection, hear from scripture, and have communion together (‘break bread together’). This was enough for Gentile Christians, according to Paul. They didn’t need the synagogue on top of that.

These side matters were not an issue of sin, for Paul. They didn’t need to hold each other accountable for this. So if not accountability, then what do you do when you get terribly offended by someone’s actions in church? If someone sins against you, Jesus gives us clear instructions on what to do. But what if you get right ticked-off with someone, but its not because of sin, but because they do something that really bothers you? In this case, Paul says that we should welcome one another, but not for the sake of quarreling; not in order to convince the other person that they’re wrong.

There are some qualifications or criteria that Paul applies, which help us to think about these matters. First of all, in verse three, we read that we should not judge people who do these offensive things because God has welcomed them. We’re supposed to welcome people with different perspectives and practices because God has welcomed them. Secondly, it’s important to be fully convinced in your mind that what you’re doing is good in God’s eyes. If you’re doing something that you know bothers others why keep doing it? Unless you’re fully convinced that what you’re doing is good, then why not just stop it? The third qualification is that you should consider what you’re doing and if it honors and brings glory to God. If you’re doing or saying controversial things, ask yourself – how does this bring honor and glory to God? If it doesn’t, why be stubborn about something if it doesn’t build up the body of Christ? The last two criteria that Paul mentions is that our actions should display that we are living for Jesus and that our actions should submit to Christ’s Lordship.

How do all these criteria work in this lesson about being annoyed and offended? Paul explains that here are several things to consider when we’re offended by someone’s actions in the church. Think of them as a list of questions to ask yourself before you let someone else’s actions cause you to boil with anger. First of all, have you considered that God has welcomed them into the family of faith, just as he welcomed you into the faith, with all your weird and annoying habits and areas of stubbornness? Do you know whether this person is doing this out of ignorance, or whether they are fully convinced of what they’re doing – that it is the right thing to do? Could their action be bringing glory and honor to God in its own way, a way that might be difficult for you to understand? Is this action contrary to what it means to live for the Lord, to submit to Jesus’ Lordship? Or is it just contrary to your taste and preference?

At the communion table we receive the gift of our unity in Christ. It’s not something we manufacture by gathering as like-minded individuals. To put it bluntly, the only real thing we have in common here is that Jesus Christ is the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. But this is precisely what’s beautiful about it – that we, who are so different from one another, have been reconciled into one body. We have been given a shared mission: to proclaim the good news about Jesus Christ to everyone we meet.

In conclusion: as a community gathered together by the Spirit, we’re going to get annoyed with each other… because we’re so different from one another. Can we commit to patience? The next time you’re offended by someone’s actions in church – remember that this person has the same welcome in this place as you. Nobody here owns the church. It doesn’t belong to you any more than it belongs to the wandering stranger who joins us for worship from off the street. The church belongs to Christ. The Church is the bride of Christ – and you and I have a spot here because of the wonderful grace of God and that alone. I sometimes say that it makes complete sense that each of us individual Christians would get annoyed at people in Church. People in church do all kinds of annoying things… and if we ourselves were the groom, we probably wouldn’t have chosen the church as our bride; I know I wouldn’t have. But Christ is the groom. Christ has chosen us – yes, even those annoying folks sitting over there. Christ sees each one of us, in our stubbornness, in our quirkiness, and he wants us as His bride.

That guy that annoyed you the other day, that guy has received God’s welcome. That parenting strategy you see every Sunday morning, that’s been bugging you for weeks already, those parents are following their heart’s conviction about how to raise their children for the Lord. Why not pray for them? Why not praise God that we have children in our congregation?

We ‘the annoyed’, we ‘the offended’… we are gathered at our Lord’s Table. By opening his arms to tax collectors, prostitutes, revolutionaries, and fishermen – Jesus gave us a glimpse of the Kingdom of God, where even people like you and me can find a place, when we trust in Jesus. Diversity in peripheral matters is something to welcome among us because it proves the expansive embrace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Bible’s vision of the coming Kingdom of God includes a vision of all the nations of our world coming to God’s mountain to learn His law… to hear God’s voice. This picture is one of people from every tongue, tribe and nation – and they’ll come to the mountain with their annoying habits, odd smells, weird customs, and disgusting food preferences. But what a beautiful day, when we finally understand and fully see ourselves, and when we will see one another, as God sees us. We’ll see, then, that our differences are gifts; not something to be offended at, but rather something to celebrate. We’ll finally understand what it means to be created in the image of God who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the perfect picture of diversity in unity.

May you experience the expansive embrace of God; and may our fellowship be a foretaste of the day when all our differences will be seen as part of God’s beautiful plan. May you now already be given eyes to see those who are different from you, those whose habits annoy you, those who have offended you – may you be given eyes to see them as children welcomed into God’s family; a place where you are called ‘sister’ and ‘brother’. Amen.