SCRIPTURE: 1 Corinthians 8:1-13
TEXT: 1cKnowledge puffs up, but love builds up. THEME: Love builds up the community of God. INTRODUCTION Knowledge or love which is more important? Don’t you hate it when someone says, “Oh did you hear that...Oh wait, maybe I shouldn’t say anything...” They have us hooked, they have information and now that they have power over us, as they know something we don’t and they won’t tell us. So, we say, “Tell me, pleeeeease, pretty pleeeease, I’ll be nice to you.” SCRIPTURE Knowledge or love which is more important? It is important for us to know things or it is important for us to be in loving relationships with each other. We could have a lot of knowledge and be very lonely, have no friends, be set apart, arrogant, snobbish and treat others as if they are mere irritants. Or we could have knowledge and not try to prove everyone wrong, but use the knowledge we have to help others and benefit others with what we have discovered fostering relationships around us. Paul makes this distinction, that knowledge builds up the individual but love can encompass our use of knowledge to build up the community. What good is the discovery of a vaccine if we are the only one saved and everyone else dies? This is what the Corinthians know; there is a connection in making sacrifices to gods and getting what they want. 1) If they have done something that makes them feel awful, sacrificing something of value is an act that shows contrition and gives them something to do to try and alleviate their feelings of remorse. 2) If there is something that they want, if they sacrifice something to the gods then there is a chance that this will smooth the tracks for the gods to act favorably on their behalf. They have developed a whole economy on requests of forgiveness and benefits with amounts and types of offerings that has turned the local shrine into a butcher shop with a meat market and County Fair on the back end. Roasted leg of lamb, garlic lamb chops, rack of lamb, beef steaks, street tacos, fajitas, stew and BBQ sticks. Where there is food, other produce and goods show up and the atmosphere in the back of the temple, might have been so high spirited that it could get you into trouble all over again. Imagine walking around this market place with you BBQ stick, tasting the local fruits and delicacies, and seeing all of the wares for sale and exotics. There was a whole culture formed around these sacrifices. Archeologists have found miniature figurines of the goddess Athena that were sold to pilgrims as part of a religious tourist trade. Knowledge or love, which is more important? This is where Paul takes the concept of ‘knowledge’ and turns it on its head. Paul has the knowledge they seek, the knowledge that God has created them, sees them as ‘good’, loves them, and has never stopped loving them. Paul does a ‘flip’ turning the knowledge of God into a thing. God is the only God. So, if sacrifice is the way that you get your gods to do your biddings, what if your gods didn’t exist? What if the one true God that does exist cannot be bought by your sacrificial bribes, but responds to you out of a loving concern for you, already desiring the very best for you? How does this knowledge inform your life? Then these sacrifices have no meaning, and by purchasing our BBQ stick we are supporting a culture of deception. Although it is a tasty confection at a good price, we have to give it up to help others know God the way that we do. In the mean time we have to get our meat from someplace else and search the internet for a recipe as amazing as the food we were eating. Knowledge or love which is more important? If God loves us, what spiritual power does a banana possess? There are stories, folklore, and exaggerations of the power that this humble fruit possess that if in your possession, it will keep fish in the water and not on your hook. These stories work on our psyche and have even expanded the power of the banana-to-banana bread, banana strawberry yogurt, to hunting and other such endeavors. What is more powerful, the knowledge of the banana (which God created) or the knowledge of the love God has for us (who will help a fish onto our hook)? APPLICATION While we are experiencing a life being loved by God and freed to live in relationship with God, how do we live, knowing there are those who are held captive to their culture of fear, punishment, good works and bribes? How are our lives reordered and reoriented by the love of God in Jesus Christ? Paul has us use our liberty in Christ, to be considerate of those who are struggling with their faith, and to be considerate of them, in the example that we set. I know a minister, who has seen families destroyed by the abusive use of alcohol and decided not to drink any kind of alcoholic beverage, for fear of giving the wrong message to those who struggle with alcoholism. The same can be said with smoking or swearing or telling jokes that make fun of people. So, this same minister told jokes only with puns. Not punning all the time, but laughing at the funny thing’s words can do, and not at the expense of others. The other way to look at this, is to live our relationship with Jesus and God, in real and genuine ways. We cannot always be responsible for other people’s feelings towards what we do, but we can try to be honest and true to how we believe Christ wants us to live, and to try out best, with the Spirit’s help to live in that way. As we grow and mature in our knowledge of God, it continues to shape and form our lives and our expression on how to live. And what we do. Not only individually, but also as a church. Last week, the discussion we had after church on the Wailuku Mission Housing was picked up by our Council meeting on Wednesday night. We looked at the documents that form and define our partnership with EAH and continued to ask questions and seek clarification. We feel really good about our partnership and what we will be able to accomplish together. One of the take aways of our Council meeting was that, as this project moves forward, our neighbors will get wind of this and ask, “What is happening to our neighborhood with this housing project?” So, we should begin to share what we are doing with our neighbors, when we see them. “The church has 2.5 acres between the Bailey House Museum and Kaahumanu Church. We are planning to build 40 rental units for Teachers, Firemen and young families. We have been working on what we could do on this piece of property for the past 20 years. We are following the parable of the Good Samaritan and reaching out to those in our community who need housing. We are partnering with the State, the County and a nonprofit developer in order to do this. We want this to be a blessing for locals to find housing close to where they work, in a great neighborhood, and bring some new energy to our community.” As a church, we are partners of this example of loving others with the Love of God. CONCLUSION Knowledge or love, which is more important? Having knowledge is great, but being able to live in loving ways forges new relationships that takes knowledge and creates vibrant lives, living in community with each other. We got a glimpse of what God would do with that piece of property and through our faith, we are beginning to live into that dream.
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