I
Corinthians 8:1-13
In the very beginnings of
Christianity, communion was observed at the end of a shared meal, and Paul’s
first letter to the church in Corinth has a few things to say about that. One issue there was that the only meat
available came from animals sacrificed at the local shrine to Zeus or Apollo or
Athena. So if you bought and ate that
meat, were you connected to pagan idolatry?
Some said, “Yes,” and some said, “No,” and each gave their reasons.
“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 may be 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. It is not everyone, however, who has this knowledge. Since some
have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they
eat as food offered to an idol; and their conscience, being weak, is defiled.” [I Corinthians 8:4-7]
Paul
seems to have come down on the side of those who said that there was no problem
eating an Athena-brand pot roast, but that what really mattered more was what
effect it might have on somebody else.
“We are no worse off if we do not eat, and
no better off if we do. But take
care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling-block to
the weak. For if others see you,
who possess knowledge, eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since
their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed
to idols? So by your knowledge
those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed. But when you thus sin against members
of your family, and wound their
conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food is a cause of their
falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.” [I Corinthians 8:8-13]
It’s kind of like when
you’re eating at a Chinese restaurant and halfway through your kung-pao pork
you look up and see a shelf in the corner with a little statue of an Asian
deity with a flower or a stick of incense in front of it. Do
you stop your meal? Probably not. But if you were eating with someone from,
say, Thailand or Cambodia who had been ostracized by their family when they
became a Christian, you might have second thoughts.
There might be similar issues
that are closer to home, too. Let me
digress. This story leads back to where
Paul was going.
In
1834, a family left Glastonbury, England, and settled in Watertown, New
York. They had an eight-year-old named
Thomas who as a teenager in 1843 (I expect after a conversion experience)
joined the Wesleyan Methodists, who were a strong anti-slavery group. Being right on the Canadian border, Watertown
was a good place for people fleeing enslavement to cross over into freedom in
Canada, and Thomas became part of the Underground Railroad.[1]
The
Wesleyan Methodists also, from the start, were very much involved in the
temperance movement that opposed the very heavy consumption of alcohol that was
common at the time. Their Book of Discipline opposed (in this
order) both the
"manufacturing, buying, selling, or using intoxicating liquors", and
"slaveholding, buying, or selling" of slaves.[2] That was why they specified an innovation
that to some people at the time appeared sacrilegious: that "unfermented
wine only should be used at the sacrament."[3]
Thomas
became an ordained preacher, and served in upstate New York until his voice
eventually gave out on him (which suggests to me what his pulpit style must
have been like), and he moved to Minnesota and became a dentist.
In 1864, the General
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, our own predecessor body, caught
up to the Wesleyans’ practice and provided that "in all cases the pure
juice of the grape be used in the celebration of the Lord's Supper."[4] That increased demand. Thomas moved to Vineland, New Jersey, where
his sister already lived and, using a pasteurization process he had developed,
he began to produce and market “Dr. Welch’s Unfermented, Unchanged Grape Juice
for Sacramental and Medicinal Uses” whose label bragged that it was “Free from
Sediment”. Guess
what is in the communion chalice on the altar today.
We do that for a reason. Not everyone can safely drink alcohol. For the same reason, we’ve recently begun
using gluten-free bread, since we have several people in the congregation for
whom regular bread is a problem. At the
central act of our worship, where we recognize our communion, our being-at-one
with Jesus and with the Body of Christ that is made up of the people around us,
we take care to honor one another’s needs to the best of our ability, and that
is how it should be. There would be
nothing intrinsically wrong with using real wine or standard bread, but we try
to offer a welcome to anyone at the Lord’s Table and to recognize that we are
all equal there. (Remember how the
anti-slavery and temperance movements flourished together.)
All of this is about far more than
food. It is about mutual respect. It is about putting aside anything that would
hamper someone else from experiencing fully the presence of Christ. It is a way that you can
“Let
the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.” [Philippians 2:5-8]
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death—
even death on a cross.” [Philippians 2:5-8]
[2] Haines, Lee M.; Thomas, Paul William (1990). "A New
Denomination". An Outline
History of the Wesleyan Church (4th
edition ed.). Indianapolis, Indiana: Wesley Press. p. 68.
[3] Tucker, Karen B. Westerfield (2001). "The Lord's Supper". American
Methodist Worship. New York: Oxford University Press.
p. 151.
[4] Doctrines
& Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Cincinnati: Poe & Hitchcock. 1864. p. xvii.
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