Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church
11.00 am, 28 January 2018
1
Corinthians 8.1-13
Mark
1:21-28
“But take
care that this liberty of yours
does not somehow become a stumbling
block to the weak.”
This week, I attended a training course,
run by the
Mennonite organisation Bridgebuilders,
about
handling power in church leadership.
And as preparation for the day, I was asked to do a bit of
homework.
I had to
come prepared with a couple of examples,
drawn
from real life in my time here at Bloomsbury,
relating
to my experience of power.
Firstly, I had to think of an occasion when I’ve been
conscious of exercising power,
and I was
invited to reflect on how I felt about doing so,
and what I
had learned about power from this experience.
And secondly, I had to think of a personal example
of an
occasion when I’ve felt powerless,
and I was
invited to reflect on what it felt like to be powerless,
and what I
did in response to those feelings of powerlessness.
I didn’t find this an easy exercise,
not only
because any kind of reflective
practice usually has me running for the hills,
but because reflecting on power and powerlessness, on
strength and weakness,
is such a
deeply personal experience, and potentially so emotively fraught.
There are, of course, some Christians who think we should
never talk about power,
and they
will point to the example of Jesus,
who
goes to the cross like a lamb to the slaughter,
laying
aside his power, and taking on the mantle of weakness.
If we are to be authentically Christ-like, these Christians
suggest,
we too must
lay aside all power
and embrace
weakness and powerlessness as a virtue of discipleship.
We must be those who turn the other cheek, who embody
meekness,
who reject
all the temptations to act in strength.
But then, of course, there are those Christians
who seem to
talk about nothing other than power,
singing songs about there being power in the name of Jesus
to overcome all evil,
to cast out
all demons, and to resist all temptations.
They would claim that if we are to be authentically
Christ-like,
we should
embody this power in our lives,
allowing
the strength of Christ to flow through us
to
bring healing and release to a hurting and damaged world.
I’m sure that you, like me, have met people at both ends of
this spectrum.
And I
wonder where you sit on it?
I wonder where I sit on it?
I suspect
that personally, I gravitate rather more towards the powerful end of things.
Not
in a name-it-claim-it, ‘begone from here foul fiend’ way,
but
certainly in a kind of ‘highly competent for Jesus’ kind of way.
After all, I am a powerful person.
I’m white,
I’m male, I’m straight,
I’m
married, I’m Western, I’m English,
I’m
highly educated, and I’m comfortably off.
All of these things, in our society, give me power.
Some of
them I was born with, others I’ve worked hard for,
but
putting them all together, a picture emerges, somewhat uncomfortably,
of
Simon as a fairly powerful person,
albeit
one who wants to use that power for good.
“But take
care that this liberty of yours
does not somehow become a stumbling
block to the weak…”
…says Paul,
to the powerful Christians of first century Corinth.
They were a strong bunch of believers,
relatively
wealthy, cosmopolitan, and broad-minded.
They were also a nightmare,
as strong
people often can be when they flock together.
But their issue here was that they had decided that it was
perfectly OK
to eat food
that had been offered to idols,
on the entirely logical grounds that if the pagan gods don’t
really exist,
then the
fact that their cheap lunch might have been offered to
these
non-existent gods at some point
is
irrelevant to its taste and indeed, we might add, calorific value.
This is an example of how sometimes the strong, the
powerful, and the logical,
can be both
entirely right, and entirely wrong, both at the same time.
Here I’m borrowing a phrase from my colleague Dawn,
who said
exactly this to me fairly recently
when I did something that was absolutely right from a
logical point of view,
but
entirely wrong from and emotional perspective.
And this sums up the strong in the church in Corinth.
Yes, of
course it’s fine to eat food that’s previously been dedicated to an idol,
if
you are sure in your conviction that the idol is a fiction.
But if by
doing so you cause someone else to stumble,
someone
whose conversion may not yet have bedded in so thoroughly,
someone
who still feels the pull of the old gods
and
is trying hard to resist it,
then maybe,
just maybe, eating that meat might not be such a great idea after all.
This is why many churches embraced the temperance movement,
historically speaking,
at a time
when the evils of alcohol were ravaging society.
The artist William Hogarth captured something of the spirit
of his age, so to speak,
in his
famous engraving Gin Lane, drawn in 1751,
and set
just round the corner from where we are sitting today.
Was there anything inherently wrong with alcohol? No.
But if the
church of the eighteenth century was to minister effectively
to
those who still felt its destructive pull on their lives,
maybe
Christians for a time needed to set aside their freedom to drink,
in
order that those who were seeking escape from alcoholism
could
find a safe refuge in the community of Christ.
The legacy of this, of course, is that we still have alcohol
free wine at communion,
although we
don’t have a blanket ban on alcohol in our church premises
in the way
that some, earlier, churches do.
So I find myself wondering what the issues are in our time,
where
strong Christians might be called to set aside their liberty
for
the sake of the weak?
Alcohol is still certainly an issue in society,
but I’m not
convinced that reviving the temperance movement is the way to solve it.
Maybe on that one, modelling responsible drinking in
moderation
and helping
people engage with counselling and therapy where they need it
is a more
productive perspective than avoiding it altogether.
But what about other areas where our freedom to be strong
might cause
others to stumble.?
One of my favourite singers is called Neil Hannon,
who
performs under the name The Divine Comedy.
If you haven’t heard his version of the hymn ‘Dear Lord and
Father of Mankind’,
I’d
encourage you to go on YouTube and look it up.
One of his songs is called ‘Eye of The Needle’,
and in it
he highlights the way in which conspicuous consumption by Christians
can cause
others, including him, to look on in doubt:
They say that you'll hear him if
you're really listening
And pray for that feeling of
grace
But that's what I'm doing, why
doesn't he answer?
I've prayed 'til I'm blue in the
face
The cars in the churchyard are
shiny and German
Distinctly at odds with the theme
of the sermon
And during communion I study the
people
Threading themselves through the
eye of the needle
Another song, by the group Fat and Frantic, makes a similar
point:
Freedom is a sweet word
A taste to savour, say it loud
Exercise your freedom
Freedom means you are allowed to
make and guard your pile
against
the people who have freedom to do
As they please but haven’t used
it so constructively as you
Freedom is a sweet word
It shines and glistens like a
star
But where’s the joy in freedom
When you’re free to obey the
colour bar,
you’re
free to starve and free to die
and
free to do anything but express
That Jesus never gave to anyone
the freedom to oppress
You know that freedom is a sweet
word
But freedom without justice is a
freedom for a few
who have bought the right to tell
us
that
their freedom lie is true
Freedom without justice
Grows up into slavery
If you’re not a Barclay
card-carrying member of the free.
We simply have to recognise,
if we are
to appropriate our passage for this morning to our context,
that there is stuff that the world sees us doing
that causes
them to reject God.
Our freedom is a stumbling block to the faith of others.
It could be our wealth and our conspicuous consumption;
or it could
be our attitude towards minorities;
or it could be our unwillingness to engage in the issues
that really matter to the world,
and our
obsession with issues that really don’t;
it could be our hypocrisy.
All these and so much more
are places
where we have the freedom and strength and power to act as we see fit,
but where our doing so is entirely wrong
when looked
at from the perspective of the weak and the powerless.
And all this is true, and we who are strong need to hear it,
and we need
to guard our hearts and our behaviour.
But it is not the whole story,
and this
sermon is not merely a telling-off for those who have power.
There is a cautionary tale here that the powerful need to
note, and note well,
but I think
we can go further with this passage from Paul.
“But take
care that this liberty of yours
does not somehow become a stumbling
block to the weak.”
This verse has been used, and misused, down the years,
to justify
all sorts of oppression both within and beyond the Christian church.
I can think of one church, known to me for many years now,
where the
desire to not somehow become a stumbling block for the weak
was
used to perpetuate a status quo
that was
profoundly unjust for some others in that same congregation.
The issue was whether women could speak in church,
whether
they could pray, and preach, and teach.
The tradition of the church was that they could not,
but there
was a new generation of women, educated and articulate,
who were
starting to say that they felt God may be calling and gifting them
for
ministries of leadership, preaching, and teaching.
There was new insight emerging regarding how to interpret the
Bible,
as people
found ways of reading the ‘problem passages’ about women
in new ways
which didn’t prohibit female involvement in church ministry.
‘Ah’, said the church leadership, who were of course all
male,
‘we’d love
to have women ministering,
but
you see there are those in our congregation
who
have not yet got a point in their faith
where
they can cope with women in leadership,
because
of the way they interpret the Bible,
and
the way they were brought up.
Maybe in a
generation or so things will be different,
but
for now we mustn’t put a stumbling block in the way of their faith’.
And so the women were asked to keep silent,
and the
church was denied their ministry for another generation.
Here’s the point: The desire to protect the faith of the
so-called-weak,
can too
easily become an excuse to perpetuate the abuse
of those
who are in fact far weaker, because they have no voice.
The people who didn’t want women in ministry had, in fact, a
powerful lobby
to get
their argument across;
they had all the Bible passages lined up,
and they
had the friendly ear of the church leadership
who heard
their perspective loud and clear.
The women who wanted freedom had no power, no voice,
and were
entirely beholden to the decision of the male church leaders
who,
frankly, had nothing to lose and everything to gain
by
asking the women to keep quiet and in their place.
In fact, it was worse than this:
the women
were actually allowed to teach, but only children and other women.
It was a classic case of, ‘if you must do this, don’t do it
where we can see you’.
And just in case you think this is a redundant issue,
have you
seen the furore just this week regarding John Piper?
He’s a highly influential American Baptist pastor,
whose
sermons and lectures are hugely popular on both sides of the Atlantic.
There will be many sermons preached this morning
where the
preacher has consulted John Piper’s writings as part of their preparation.
Well, this week, he said in a podcast
that not
only should women not be allowed to preach or teach in church,
but that
female academics should not be allowed to teach in seminaries.
And I would just like to raise the question,
of where
strength lies here, and where weakness is to be found…
“But take
care that this liberty of yours
does not somehow become a stumbling
block to the weak.”
And so we come to human sexuality.
Many of you will know that Bloomsbury is registered for same
sex marriages,
and we’ve
so far had four same sex ceremonies here.
Mostly, the response of the wider Baptist family has been
one of quiet disapproval,
coupled
with some quiet gratitude that we’re taking a lead
where
others are not able or willing to follow.
The bottom line has appeared to be that as long as we keep
our heads down,
and don’t
make too much of a fuss about it,
others are
sort-of-reluctantly adjusted for us to do our thing.
However, a wedding we had here last autumn rather upped the
ante,
as it got
us onto BBC1 as part of a programme with Sam Smith,
who is
apparently a popular singer.
Millions of people have watched the short video of the
wedding,
either live
or on YouTube.
And suddenly, things changed somewhat,
because Bloomsbury
had transgressed the don’t-ask-don’t-tell status quo.
And here’s where it got interesting,
from the
point of view of our passage this morning.
It has been suggested to us in no uncertain terms,
through the
medium of a public letter,
and on the
basis of this passage from 1 Corinthians 8;
that in our exercising of our freedom to conduct same sex
marriages,
and
in our allowing it to be known about more widely,
we were
using our power in such a way
as
to cause others to stumble in their faith.
This, we (and everyone else) were told,
was
something that we should not have done.
Just because we have the freedom to offer wedding ceremonies
to same sex couples,
doesn’t
mean that we should.
Can you see the similarity here between this argument,
and the
argument of the congregation I was talking about earlier
who wanted
to prohibit the ministry of women?
And the thing is, I don’t think that the weak party in
either of these scenarios
are those
who have a problem with the exercising of liberty by the strong.
I don’t think people who argue against women in ministry are
weak.
I think
they’re wrong, but not weak.
Similarly, I don’t think people who argue against same sex
marriage are weak.
So if I affirm the ministry of a woman, or conduct a same
sex wedding,
I don’t
believe that the exercising of my freedom to do so
is causing
my weaker brother or sister to stumble.
In fact, I think the opposite is true.
The weak
are those who are dis-voiced, excluded, marginalised, and oppressed.
The weak
are the women, the LGBTQ community,
and,
if I may broaden it a bit, the asylum seeker,
the
person from an ethnic minority
the
person who has no home,
the
person weighed down by debt.
If I thought for one moment that my freedom to act
was causing
such as these to stumble,
I would
fall to my own knees in repentance.
But I don’t think that’s what’s happening
when we
take a stand of solidarity with the genuinely weak
and join
our voices with theirs to advocate their cause.
In fact, I would go further.
Those who
seek to use their influence and power
to
restrict the ministry of women,
to
prevent people of the same gender who love each other becoming married,
or
to stop those in same sex marriages from entering ministry,
are in my
view at risk of the very sin of which they are accusing others.
The thing is, it is notoriously difficult for the powerful
to judge
who is weak, and who is strong.
Any loss of power by the powerful runs the risk of becoming,
in their mind,
an
experience of persecution;
whereas in actual fact it might just be an equalising of
power
with those
who until now have not had any.
And so Christians sometimes fail to challenge injustice
because of our
deep-seated, internalised, and unacknowledged commitment
to
maintaining our powerful place in the status quo.
And we then end up passing judgment on others who challenge the
status quo,
because we have
become so smugly entrenched in our position of strength,
that we
cannot see the alternative as anything other than an attack on our liberty.
Putting it very bluntly:
one
person’s stumbling block is another person’s justice issue.
And we need to take a long and hard look at ourselves
before we
decide whose side we are on.
And assuming we end up siding with the weak,
we need to
decide what we’re going to do about it.
How courageous are we willing to be,
in the
cause of lifting up the broken and the damaged?
What price are we willing to pay,
in our
efforts to welcome the stranger, and love the unloved?
This last week has been the Week of Prayer for Christian
Unity,
and there
have been many words preached, and many prayers prayed,
for the
unity of the body of Christ,
both within
and between denominations.
And amen to all of it.
I would
love to be able to share bread and wine with my Roman Catholic friends;
I would
love to be united in ministry with my Anglican colleagues;
I would
love to live at peace with my Baptist family,
both
in this country and throughout the world.
But sometimes, I wonder if we prize unity over principle.
Sometimes, I
fear we turn a blind eye to the oppression in our midst
in
the interests of preserving the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace.
Sometimes,
I think we fail to realise that to discover true unity,
we
will have to unite around a cause
rather
than around avoiding an issue.
I just don’t think that sweeping issues under the carpet and
hoping they’ll go away
is a viable
strategy for Christian unity.
The thing is, you can stumble trying to avoid something,
every bit
as much as you can tripping over it.
The issue of women in ministry is not going to go away,
however
much some might still wish it does.
Neither is the issue of same sex marriage
and our
broader response to the LGBTQ community.
The issue of asylum seekers is not going away,
neither is
the issue of homelessness,
nor our
struggles with ethnic tensions.
Clearing the streets of Windsor of those who normally sleep
there
may make
for better wedding pictures,
but it does
nothing to solve the problem
of
vulnerable lives lived in hardship and danger.
Sometimes, the way to help the weaker to not stumble in
their faith
is to shine
a light on the object that might be causing them to stumble,
to highlight the issue at hand.
Trying to hide things in plain sight is a far more dangerous
path,
certainly
for those who are weak and most likely to trip.
So perhaps we shouldn’t worry too much that as a church
we’ve put a
stumbling block in the path of Christian unity
by
allowing our voice to be heard loud and clear
as
we speak and act to include the excluded.
Perhaps we should instead focus on highlighting the issues
so the
truly weak can learn to stand tall and feel welcome,
while those who persist in tying themselves up in knots over
it all
can use our
light to begin untangling themselves.
After all, when Jesus met the man who heard voices,
he didn’t
say that he should be locked in an asylum,
hidden away
from others because of his disruptive behaviour.
Rather, Jesus spoke to him, and loved him,
and took decisive
action to restore him to his rightful place in society.
And new issues that challenge our worldview will continue to
emerge,
and so will
people who make us feel uncomfortable
because
they aren’t quite like us.
Our definitions of normal will continually be re-written if
we allow them to be,
because
normal for me is not normative for all.
And we will have to decide, again and again, what we’re
going to do
with our
power, and our privilege, and our freedom to act.
Will we take decisions that include the excluded,
restore the
broken,
and empower
the weak?
Will we allow the Spirit of Christ to guide us
into new
places of being,
where we are no longer threatened by the loss of our power,
because we have
learned to give it willingly to those who have none?
“But take
care that this liberty of yours
does not somehow become a stumbling
block to the weak.”
One final song lyric to close:
I went this week to see the Welsh singer Martyn Joseph in
concert,
and his
ability to take my soul and strip it bare,
and bring
tears of sadness and anger and repentance to my eyes,
is as
strong as it was when I first saw him perform thirty years ago.
And he sung his song for the NHS, celebrating the vision of
Nye Bevin,
who dreamed
of a society where no-one was left behind.
The song’s chorus is a combination of quotes from Nye Bevin
and Nelson Mandela,
and on this
note I’ll close:
“The purpose of power is to give
it away
This is my truth tell me yours.
Freedom isn’t freedom until
poverty is gone.
So Nye your dream’s alive and
strong.”
x
