Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand. One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone. If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living. You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat. It is written: “As surely as I live,” says the Lord, “every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.” So then, each of us will give an account of ourselves to God.
(Romans 14:1-12)
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“Little things mean a lot.” You've probably all heard those words somewhere along the way. The words actually come from a song that's been performed by a lot of fairly well known singers over the years. The best known version is perhaps from Willie Nelson. It includes the words:
Blow me a kiss from across the room
Say I look nice when I'm not
Touch my hair as you pass my chair
Little things mean a lot.
Give me your arm as we cross the street
Call me at six on the dot
A line a day when you're far away
Little things mean a lot.
Little things do mean a lot. When Willie Nelson sang those words, they were a reference to positive things. We can make the people who are important in our lives feel pretty good by doing little things, like the things that are talked about in the song. Not every act of love has to be a big production in other words. But it's also true in a negative way. Sometimes – maybe most often – it's little things that cause the most trouble; seemingly unimportant things that for some reason take on a life of their own and become a big issue. When I served in Sundridge I once had the sister of a groom who for some reason had taken charge of the wedding hit the roof and scream at me in my own home because she didn't think that the liturgical colours that were in the church because of the time of year would be a good complement to the bridesmaids' wedding dresses. True story. Ask Lynn. She was there. She heard it. So, I've developed a theory. There are three kinds of church fights: there are fights that have to be won because they're over an issue so important that if I don't get my way I just can't in good conscience stay; there are fights that have to be fought, because they're over meaningful issues and I think my opinion has to be made known but I can live with not getting my way. But then there's the third kind – there are fights that shouldn't be fought. They're over issues of no real significance. Maybe we have strong opinions, but in the overall scheme of things they just don't matter. In my experience, 90% of church fights I've seen over the 20+ years I've been in ministry probably fall into that category. Sure, little things mean a lot. But they don't have to mean a lot. Sometimes they're better off being ignored.
Last week I was speaking about the importance of the community in making sure that we work together to resolve problems before they become big issues. Here's a practical example of a church with a problem, and Paul's thinking about how to look at and resolve the problem. This passage seems to suggest that the problem in Rome is that some people are vegetarians and some aren't. We look at that and think – so what? But that's what's going on here. At its core, the issue here is each group setting itself over and above the other group, claiming the high moral ground for its particular practices and opinions. On one side are the vegetarians and on the other are people who will eat anything, with each side apparently sneering judgmentally at the other about their behaviour. The meat eaters say the vegetarians are weak; the vegetarians say the meat eaters are sinners. You know what? It's hard to praise God when you're busy passing judgement on everybody else over little things. And what Paul is trying to say is that in the life of the church, what really matters aren't little matters of spiritual or religious practice (and maybe not even weightier matters of doctrine.) What matters most is the relationship between God and believers. Paul saw himself as one of the meat-eaters. It was they who he saw as strong in the faith, because they realized that they could eat anything, while the vegetarians weren't vegetarians out of health or dietary reasons, but because the meat had likely come from pagan animal sacrifices. Their faith was weak because they didn't realize that in the face of Christ, pagan idols were nothing and so even if the animal had been sacrificed to a pagan idol, it didn't matter. Christians could still eat it. So Paul's advice was directed to the meat-eaters: don't look down on someone because you think their faith isn't as strong as yours; or just because you're convinced that you're right and they're wrong. Make room for the person whose faith is expressed differently than yours.
Situations like this one in Rome still happen all over the place in the Christian world. It might not be vegetarian vs. meat-eaters. I suspect no one would care if at the next church potluck a few people brought vegetarian dishes. But there are other little things that divide people in various churches. Wafers vs. bread for Communion. Or wine vs. grape juice for Communion. Or should we come forward for Communion or should Communion be brought to us? How about contemporary music vs. traditional music. Now there's one! Or should we read from the NIV or the NRSV? And there's still a few King James only folks in the English speaking Christian world! Should we baptize babies or only adults? Should we just sprinkle or should we fully immerse? And who should we be willing to marry anyway? There's one that's still controversial. And all those disputes shine the light on exactly the wrong place. They put the spotlight on us and on our views and our opinions. But you know what? This is the church. Where's the spotlight supposed to be? Who's the spotlight supposed to be on? Paul's pretty clear about that too.
God is the centre of everything. “God has accepted them ...” “... the Lord is able to make them stand.” “Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.” “If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” “As surely as I live,” says the Lord, “every knee will bow before me; every tongue will acknowledge God.” The point seems to be that where people are striving to honour God with their actions and practices (even if you do things in a different way) you accept them.
There's a story about Ruth Graham – Billy Graham's wife. Dressed and made up as most American women in the 1970s would have been, she attended a luncheon with wives of pastors in Germany. These German Christians had more conservative ideas about how women should look. They didn't believe that a married Christian woman should wear makeup or clothing that made them look too worldly, and one German pastor's wife, sitting across from Ruth, became very upset. She thought it was shameful that the wife of this famous evangelist looked so worldly. Ruth Graham was even wearing mascara! The German pastor's wife became so angry that she started crying right over the beer she was drinking. Meanwhile Ruth Graham couldn't understand why the woman was crying, but it sure bothered her that a self-respecting pastor's wife was drinking beer at a meeting that was supposed to bring Christians together as the unified body of Christ.
Sometimes we all get caught up with the little things. And – yeah – little things mean a lot. But the point is they don't have to mean a lot. Not all the time anyway. Sometimes it's better to focus on the big thing – God, revealed by Jesus.
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