Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost

September 14, 2008

Exodus 14:19-31

Romans 14:1-12

Matthew 18:21-35

 

Some people are vegetarians because they don’t like the taste or the texture of meat.  Others are vegetarians because they think that it is better for their health to eat only vegetables, fruits and nuts.  Still others are vegetarians for aesthetic reasons; they simply don’t like the thought of eating another animal.   In our own time many people chose to be vegetarians for moral reasons.  They are against cruelty to animals, and today’s high demand for vast amounts of meat simply cannot be satisfied without mistreating the animals that we are interested in eating.  Others believe that a predominantly vegetarian diet will help to save the planet from environmental destruction.  It takes ten pounds of grain to produce one pound of animal protein – grain that could be feeding people instead of cows for human consumption.  Some scientists claim that you can reduce your carbon footprint by 1.4 times if you convert to a vegetarian diet.

 

These reasons – laudable or even urgent as they might be – do not begin to scratch the surface of the complicated history of vegetarianism.  Throughout history, meat eating has been invested with all sorts of religious and cultural overtones involving elaborate rites and taboos. Some cultures believed that you take on the spirit of the animal that you eat. If you eat a lamb, you become timid.  If you eat a chicken, you become stupid.  Others believed that powerful spirits or even divinities dwelt in certain animals, and it is therefore forbidden to kill them, let alone to eat them. 

 

We are all probably familiar with the Hindu rules about eating animals – above all cows.  Some people think human beings can be re-incarnated as animals if they have not behaved well in this life.  Some Jains (an ancient Indian religion) are so passionate about avoiding killing any life form that they wear thin veils to avoid inhaling insects, and sweep the ground in front of them before walking on it. Practicing Jews and Muslims will not eat meat unless it has been ritually slaughtered according to the rules for Kosher or Halal food.  Such rules are inspired by the belief that only God has the right to claim the life of a creature that He has created.  The creature’s life is thought to reside in its blood, and therefore it must be slaughtered in the name of God.  The blood is therefore offered to God before one can eat the meat. Some Christians used to feel similarly about the consumption of an animal’s blood.  Only in the eighteenth century did it cease to be a source of division and contention in the certain Protestant denominations in North America.  There is an echo of this dispute in the fact that Jehovah’s Witnesses still refuse to accept a blood transfusion.  The book of Genesis tells us that human beings were created as vegetarians.  “And God said, ‘Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” (Gen 1:29-30)  God only allows human beings to eat meat after Noah’s flood.   The Qura’an touchingly declares:  “There is not an animal on earth, nor a bird that flies on its wings – but they are communities like you.” (Surah 6:38)

 

So why did Paul call the vegetarians in Rome the ‘weak’ party?  Some people in the church thought that the coming of Christ had put an end to the dietary laws of Judaism.  Others thought that they had to maintain their religious purity by continuing to observe those laws.  Added to this, one never knew whether the meat one was offered had been laid at the feet of a pagan deity in the temple as part of a religious rite. Now, Paul – far from being the rigorous purist and regulation obsessed Calvinist that he is soften portrayed as being – could not care less about whether people ate meat or not. He calls the people with the biggest religious scruples – these who won’t eat meat on purity grounds – the “weak” party. He simply says that eating meat is a matter of individual conscience.

 

Such disputes about religious purity; about what you should or should not do with your body, other people’s bodies or the bodies of sentient beings continue into our own time. Now, just as then, such disputes are invariably conducted in a spirit of blame or scorn. Why do the strong despise the weak in these matters? Why do the weak end up judging the strong? The self-righteous moral crusdades of the Christian Right have their origins in insecurity and fear. The sweeping condemnation of religion in public life expressed by the liberal Left often arises from a smug sense of superiority or elitism.

 

Paul would take the part of neither side in this dispute. If you belong to Christ, your scorn or your blame jeopardizes your relationship with God. You ought to know better. Paul takes the discussion to a completely new level. He reminds us that only God can judge the living and the dead. He knows the secrets of our hearts. He wants to have us act out of love, not out of a sense of fear or a belief in our own superiority. Let us take time to listen carefully to each other, to respect each other’s consciences, and leave the outcome in the hands of our loving God.         The Revd Nigel Massey