Septuagesima
1
Cor 9:24-10:5
2/16/14
On Tuesday this past week I turned
forty four. Forty four itself is no big
deal. It’s still closer to forty than it
is to fifty. Admittedly, turning forty was something that was far more
notable. There was a sense that when I
turned forty, I really couldn’t consider myself “young” anymore. I certainly wasn’t “old,” but at forty years
with a wife, four kids, two dogs and a job there was no doubt that I had
settled into full blown adulthood.
The fact that I was now certainly an
adult, and no longer a young man didn’t really bother me all that much. The factors I just mentioned are all good
things. Life married to Amy is way better
than being single. The kids are a great
blessing … even if they are also a lot of work.
I always wanted a dog. And my job
is far more than a job. I have a vocation that I love doing and a great place
to do it.
Instead, turning forty proved to be
a major downer for another reason. All
the years previously, I was able to eat as much as I wanted of whatever I
wanted. I could do this and nothing
changed. Between Thanksgiving and New
Year’s Day I would indulge in all of the wonderful holiday eating. I might gain a few pounds. But after New Year’s Day I returned to my
normal pattern of eating and everything went back to normal – anything I might
have gained just disappeared.
However, almost like clockwork, I
turned forty and everything changed. Once
I had turned forty, in the month after New Year’s Day I realized that the extra
weight wasn’t just disappearing like it always had in the past. The ugly
realization dawned on me that for the first time in my life, I was actually
going to have to start watch what I eat.
I was going to have to watch what I eat,
and I was going to have to exercise. In
the past I had run just to stay in shape and because it made me feel good. But
now, I actually needed to do it. And I
have to confess, recently I haven’t been very disciplined about that. I was running in the fall with the intention
that when the winter arrived I would run on our treadmill on days when it was
too cold to run outside. However I got
sick with a cold. I stopped running …
and never started back up again. And so
when it warms up, I am determined to get going again. And once I get going, I will be disciplined
and stay with it.
In our text this morning St. Paul
talks about the discipline needed in running.
He does this in order to teach about the Christian life – about the need
to be disciplined in the face of a sinful world. During these three Sundays of
Pre-Lent, we are making the transition into the season of Lent. There we will focus on repentance and the
struggle against sin. This morning, our
text helps us to begin to think about this.
Our Epistle lesson this morning
drops us right into the middle of a discussion that covers chapters eight
through ten in First Corinthians. Paul
is addressing a situation that was part of the ancient Greco-Roman world. Most likely, you assume that every day you
are going to eat meat in at least one of your meals. If you want meat you go to
the grocery store and there you can find a basically unlimited supply. Or you
can just go to any fast food place or restaurant.
Things were very different in
the first century world. There, people
ate very little meat. It was expensive
and it wasn’t available everywhere when you lived in a urban setting like
Corinth. If you wanted meat – and
everyone needed to eat some – there was one regular source. There was a regular
supply of meat produced by the sacrificing of animals at pagan temples. The animal’s throat was slit, the blood
sprayed on the altar, and then it was also caught in a vessel to be poured on
the altar. Then the dead animal was
prepared. The bones and fat were burned
on the altar as an offering to the god or goddess, while the meat went to the
priest and the person making the sacrifice.
Now we are talking about hundreds of
animals being slaughtered at multiple temples each day. This produced a surplus of meat. Some was eaten on the temple grounds, in
areas that were set aside for this purpose.
The rest was sold in the market place.
The problem was that some Christians
at Corinth were going to the temples in order to eat. They weren’t sacrificing to the false gods. But they were eating in a religious setting
directly connected to paganism. They
were doing this because they thought they had everything figured out and that
they had it made. From Paul’s letter we learn that they said things like, “All
of us possess knowledge.” This knowledge was the fact that “an idol has no real
existence,” and “there is no God but one.” These Christians said that since
they knew the true God and knew that pagan gods were false gods, they were free
to eat at the temples. They could do so
because they had this knowledge. And in
addition, they were baptized Christians who received the Sacrament of the
Altar. They were protected. What could a false god do to them?
In addressing this problem, Paul
uses two different approaches. The first
is to emphasize that the Corinthian Christian needed to think about how this
action would impact other Christians. Some would not understand things in this
way. They too would eat at pagan temples, but for them this would be a return
to paganism. Paul objects: “And so by
your knowledge this weak person is destroyed, the brother for whom Christ died.
Thus, sinning against your brothers and wounding their conscience when it is
weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I
will never eat meat, lest I make my brother stumble.” Paul says that Christians
need to put the welfare of others before themselves.
Paul’s second point is that while
pagan gods are not the true God, that doesn’t mean that there is nothing
present in paganism. Instead, there are
demonic forces at work – and Christians are not to have anything to do with
them. What’s more the mere reception of
baptism and the Lord’s Supper was not some kind of magic protection for those
who chose to be involved with these things.
In our text Paul uses the children
of Israel in the Old Testament as an example of how mere possession of God’s
gifts did not protect those who willingly disobeyed Yahweh. He says, “For I do not want you to be
unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed
through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,
and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink.” But then he immediately adds, “Nevertheless,
with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the
wilderness.” Israelite involvement with
paganism and its accompanying immorality had lead to their destruction. The same thing would happen to the
Corinthians if they kept frequenting the temple of pagan gods.
Paul’s point in the midst of all
this is that as we live in a sinful world, Christians can’t just do whatever
they want. There are real threats out there and we need to be disciplined as we
face them. In our text Paul uses the
metaphor of running and athletics in order to explain this. This would have
been very natural for Corinthians since Corinth hosted the Isthmian Games –
athletic contests that were part of a series of games in Greece that included
the Olympic Games. He writes: “Do you
not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize?
So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all
things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I
do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my
body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should
be disqualified.”
So the obvious question raised by
our text is this: How’s your running going?
Are you living in a way that sees sin for what it is and seeks to avoid
it? Do you live as someone who
recognizes that the devil is always on the prowl, seeking to work every angle
in our culture to separate you from Christ? In the music you listen to, the
things you watch, the things you read are you choosing to immerse yourself in a
worldview opposed to God?
Earlier in this letter Paul reminded
the Corinthians about what they had been and what God had made them to be. He did this so that they would now live as
what God had made them. He wrote, “Or do
you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not
be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of
you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name
of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
Like the Corinthians, you were
washed, sanctified and justified in your baptism. Those same things are true whenever after
stumbling you return in repentance and faith to God’s promise about what he did
in your baptism. This same forgiveness
is present when your hear Holy Absolution and when you believe in the Gospel –
the fact that Jesus Christ died on the cross and rose from the dead in order to
take away your sins.
You live as people who each week in
the Sacrament of the Altar eat and drink the body and blood of Jesus Christ,
given and shed for you on the cross.
Shortly after our text, Paul goes on to say in questions that assume a
positive answer: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation
in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in
the body of Christ?” Through this food each
week Christ nourishes the new man in you.
Through his Word and his Sacrament
our Lord feeds you so that you are able to run, and to run well. This running does require discipline as you
seek to avoid sin and to live in ways that show faith toward God and love
towards your neighbor. Yet you run
knowing that it is the Lord through his Spirit who gives you strength. It is he who sustains you so that you can
press on in the faith and take hold of the imperishable wreath of resurrection
and eternal life.
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