A Sermon preached on 17th September
2017, Pentecost XV at St. Augustine’s, Wiesbaden
Genesis 50:15-21,
Romans 14:1-12, Matthew 18:21-35
This morning I
want to introduce you to a new Greek word: adiaphora.
I know it sounds like somebody's name, but in fact it is a word that theologians
use to describe or distinguish between what is core to Christian faith and
practice, and what can be considered to be a matter of indifference or
spiritually neutral: something we can do but do not have to do.
Let me give you
some easy examples. When I look around the church and watch you, I see lots of different
practices. Some of you kneel and some stand for prayers. Some of you make the
sign of the cross during the blessing, some don't. Some of you drink out of the
cup at Communion and some of you intinct or dip your wafers into the wine.
These are just some examples of adiaphora.
Both practices are good and acceptable, and should never be a reason for
division or conflict, although sadly in the history of Christianity they very
often were.
This is what Paul
is talking about in today’s extract from his letter to the church in Rome. In
Rome, there seem to be two camps with very different attitudes about certain
practices: “Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables,”
(Romans 14:2) he writes. And “some judge one day to be better than another,
while others judge all days to be alike.” (14:5) What does he mean? The first
issue is not just about being a vegetarian in the modern sense. The so-called
“weak” – that appears to be the nickname given to them by those who consider
themselves strong or stronger in faith – will not eat meat because they do not
know where it comes from. Some will have been Jewish Christians, still keeping
to their dietary laws, and worried whether the meat is kosher or not. Others
may be concerned, as were some Christians in Corinth too, that the meat had
previously been offered as a sacrifice to a pagan god. And so, to avoid
contamination, they avoid eating meat completely. For Paul, this is just as
acceptable as belonging to the other camp who are willing to eat meat, either because
they believe that the dietary rules are not necessary to be a Christian or
because they are sure that a non-existent deity can have no power. What is not acceptable, Paul makes very clear,
is for one group to pass judgement on the other or to look down on them. If
both practices are OK, and a matter of personal taste and devotion, i.e. adiaphora, then both must be tolerated
and neither judged by the other.
The same applies
to the issue of special days. This could also be about whether Jewish festivals
were still to be observed, or perhaps whether certain days of the week be
reserved for fasting. It is not just a laughing matter, many centuries later,
during the Commonwealth period in England when the Puritans where in power and,
on the one hand, all the traditional festivals had been abolished, and on the
other, special fasting days introduced, you could be brutally punished for
celebrating the one, and not acknowledging the other! All wrong, Paul says.
These are matters of personal piety. “Those who observe the day, observe it in
honor of the Lord. Also, those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they
give thanks to God.” (14:6) What matters is the motivation – is it to the glory
of God? Or just to make yourself look good in front of your fellows? Is it an
act of praise and thanksgiving or an excuse for excessive eating and drinking?
What matters most,
Paul says, is what and who we put at the center of our lives. “We do not live
to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord,
and if we die, we die to the Lord.” I know that sounds a bit morbid, but all Paul
is saying is that if not even death can separate us from Christ and from one
another in Christ, then all the other little differences in practice, behavior,
piety, and elements of faith certainly cannot and should not divide and
separate us. What is important is not what we do, not our practices, but what
Christ has already done for us: “For to this end Christ died and lived again, so
that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.” (14:9) That makes us the
same in the only way that matters: We are all God’s beloved, for whom Christ
died so that we might be free to live for him, now and forever.
Of course, there
are differences that matter. I am not saying that every variety of practice or
belief is indifferent. Any longing for unity and harmony must be balanced by a
desire for truth. How do we decide what is core and what is not essential?
One source is Scripture.
For Anglicans, and I’m quoting from our short list of four fundamentals, “the
Holy Scriptures contain all things necessary to salvation.”[1]
This is where we find our essentials. Please note however that we use the word
contain …. We do not say that everything
in the Bible is necessary for salvation. And looking for the essentials is not
just a matter of trying to find an appropriate individual proof text: what did
Jesus say about this or what did Paul write. Sometimes they didn’t say or write
anything at all. Or what we find is not clear, or was obviously written in the
context of their time. Then we have to interpret, to look for messages that are
often repeated, or identify the underlying narrative. In other words, we must
use our God-given reason to find meaning.
Secondly, as
Anglicans, we have the tradition of the historic creeds as “the sufficient
statement of Christian faith.” We have no other binding summary of faith of our
own, no Anglican Confession, just the Apostles’ and Nicene Creed that we share
either with the Western Church or with most of the organized Christian
denominations in East and West.
Today’s Gospel
theme, forgiveness, for example is clearly a core element of salvation. The
need to forgive and be forgiven, and the gift of forgiveness is scriptural. We
have Jesus’ command as we just head to forgive not just seven times, but 77
times (which means without limit). We have the parable we heard today about
forgiveness. It is really an extended illustration of the petition in the
Lord’s Prayer “to forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass
against us,” and a dramatic description of what happens if we do not forgive as
we are forgiven. We condemn ourselves to live lives that are like hell.
Forgiveness is also
creedal: “I believe in the forgiveness of sins” is part of the Apostle’s Creed.
In the Nicene Creed it is connected with Sacrament of Baptism, another
essential of our faith and practice, along with the Eucharist by the way. Last and
not least, being willing to forgive and accept forgiveness is key to unity and vital
in overcoming whatever differences may have arisen around non-essentials.
The Cross, the
unifying common symbol of Christianity stands for forgiveness. I have just come
back from meeting of the ACK in Trier, which included an ecumenical celebration
of Holy Cross Day. I was a bit skeptical about this as Holy Cross is not
celebrated in every tradition, the German Lutherans do not have it in their
calendar, and certainly not the Baptists and other Free Churches. But at our meeting
we first listened to and discussed presentations from different traditions on
the cross – its meaning and theology. And we found that beneath and behind the
different – and as it turns out indifferent practices – we had lots in common.
We may venerate the cross in different ways – with or without a physical cross,
or even a relic of the true cross, as a symbol. We may worship standing,
sitting, or kneeling. We may worship in the context of an elaborate liturgy, or
just with Biblical texts. All these ways and means are equally acceptable and
valid, as long as our motivation and intention is not to venerate a piece of
wood, or a picture of a cross, or a text about the cross.
Instead we venerate
and worship the crucified one. In Paul’s words, we are the Lord’s.
How we worship is
secondary or adiaphora, who we
worship and what we allow that worship to do with us is primary. What is
important, is the effect the cross and the crucified one have on us. Are we moved to love God as God loves us? Are we
changed and transformed by the Lord? Are we inspired to change and transform the
whole world? That is what we will
be accountable to God for, not our particular traditions, rituals, and practices.
Amen.
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