Text used – 1 Corinthians 8:1-13

• I have another children’s book I want to share with you this morning.
  • Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen[1] → crucial element to this story clarified through the illustrations: connection

• • • Many times when Annabelle knits something for people, the individual creations are connected to each other by a length of yarn (e.g. – when she knits sweaters for her whole class)
    • Connection that makes space for uniqueness
      • Sweaters are all different colors: similar but individual
      • Same colors for Mr. Crabtree’s hat → creation that fits who he is but also includes him in the community
    • Color and familiar pattern of Annabelle’s knitting bring both a brightness and a kinship to her little village
      • Brightness and kinship that began to be recognized by others: “People came to visit from around the world, to see all the sweaters and to shake Annabelle’s hand.”
    • And what disrupts that connection? Vanity … hubris … and greed. → the archduke who first tries to buy, not a single sweater, but Annabelle’s entire box of yarn → archduke hires robbers to steal the box when Annabelle refuses to sell → gets this magical box home only to discover it was empty → box finds its way back to Annabelle … who begins to knit again
      • More color
      • More brightness
      • More connection
      • More togetherness
  • Within the cycle of the liturgical calendar, we find ourselves ensconced in the season of Epiphany.
    • Broad definition of an epiphany: an appearance or manifestation of a divine being
    • Christian context: the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles as represented by the Magi → Basically, the Epiphany celebrates the first time Gentile recognized and worshiped Christ.
    • But here’s the thing about the Epiphany within the Christian context: it’s not just a one-off sort of occurrence. Yes, within the realm of the church, we celebrate Epiphany on (or close to) January 6, but the phenomenon of Christ being revealed to others is not something that happened just that one time thousands of years ago. It’s something that continues to happen yesterday, today, tomorrow.
      • Rasche: What I love about the Epiphany of our lives of following Christ is the opportunity to see God in our neighbor. That’s just how creative God can be: that in wonder and amazement, we can turn to our neighbor and see the image of God in one another. This is God revealing to us that God is relational. God loves us and cares for us and wants to be with us.[2] → The ways that we get to see God in one another are just like Annabelle’s sweaters. They’re the connections that bring color and wholeness to our lives. They make us the body of Christ together.
• Paul’s point in this morning’s passage from 1 Cor
  • Story of Corinthian church = not so different from the story of Annabelle and her miraculous box of yarn
    • Location: large peninsula known as the Peloponnese → located off the southern tip of mainland Greece
      • Even more important: Corinth = still located on the narrow strip of land that connects the peninsula to the mainland → made Corinth a hub: wealth, commerce, culture, religion
    • Church established by Paul himself on one of his mission journeys (probably somewhere around 50 C.E.)
    • Diverse body that reflected the make-up of Corinth as a city – scholar: The congregation at Corinth reflects the socioeconomic and religious makeup of the city. In keeping with the “steep social pyramid” that was typical of that culture, very few believers were rich, and most were poor.[3]
      • Goes on to point out that names mentioned throughout the Corinthians letters include a variety of names: Roman, Greek, and Hebrew → continues: In 1 Corinthians, there is absolutely no evidence of any strife or even tension in the relation of Jewish believers and gentile believers.[4]
  • Clear from today’s reading that it’s not the cultural differences that have caused the rift in the Corinthian church that Paul is addressing … It’s vanity … hubris … and greed.
    • Scholar explains the situation: The occasion for Paul’s comment is that the Corinthian church has a strong faction of well-educated, well-to-do, relatively sophisticated members who believe that Christians should be free to eat meat offered to idols. … Also present in the Corinthian church were more ordinary working people whose incomes and habits allowed for very little meat in their diets. For these people … eating meat offered to idols threatened faith by drawing them back to the idolatrous culture from which they had only recently been converted to the Christian faith.[5]
      • Not so different from the archduke in Extra Yarn → He didn’t care about the needs or wholeness of Annabelle’s community. He wanted what he wanted when he wanted it. There was an entitlement to his want. He deserved to have the miraculous box of yarn, not because of anything he had done, but simply because he was who he was: rich, privileged, “better than.” The struggles of others … the impact that his demands would have on their lives … didn’t matter.
  • Basically the richer, more upper-class people within the Corinthian congregation wanted to be able to eat the meat. They wanted it. They were accustomed to it. They could afford it. And in our text today, Paul is making it clear that their failing as Christians is not in the wanting of the meat itself … but in the way that, in pursuing that desire, they are neglecting the lives and spirits of their fellow Christians.
    • Text: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes people arrogant, but love builds people up. If anyone thinks they know something, they don’t yet know as much as they should know. But it someone loves God, then they are known by God.[6] → This is a powerful statement, friends. Paul is basically chastising those who think they know everything, reminding them that, while knowledge is never fully complete – while there is always more to learn, more to know, more to understand – love is complete. Love is whole. Love is all-encompassing.
      • Scholar: Love is not just a sentiment, not just a feeling, not merely a sort of disposition. Love works; it acts; it does things; and the chief thing it does is to edify, build up, cause growth in each of the persons who engages in it and who is engaged by it.[7]
• Paul spends the rest of this morning’s text explaining how love works in a situation like this – emphasizing how little importance meat has in comparison with the spiritual well-being of the rest of the body → And it’s in this part that we hear God speaking most prominently to us today.
  • True, it’s not meat sacrificed to idols that brings out the judgmental separations between us … but that certainly doesn’t mean those judgmental separations don’t exist. There are all sorts of ways we neglect … or refuse … to see the image of God in those around us. There are all sorts of ways we decide that the struggles of others are trivial … or nonsensical … or even deserved. But in the face of that failing, we have Paul’s example – text: You sin against Christ if you sin against your brothers and sisters and hurt their weak consciences this way. This is why, if food causes the downfall of my brother or sister, I won’t eat meat ever again, or else I may cause my brother or sister to fall.[8] → Paul is willing to go so far as to remove meat from his diet entirely just to build up his siblings in Christ.
    • Rasche brings this idea into our lives/conversations today: Not only do we exist for Christ; we are also created to exist for one another, to accompany one another, and to be accountable to one another. We gather in community so that if a sibling in the faith struggles, the community can accompany them. It’s both daunting and terrifying, because being in community comes with incredible responsibility for one another. Sometimes it takes a member of the community to be an epiphany for us, to show us where we are headed. God sent us a reminder of God’s creativity in the flesh of Jesus.[9] → It sort of all comes full circle here. God had such a profound and powerful love for humanity that God chose to come down in the person of Jesus Christ and dwell among us – to put on our flesh and blood and humanness all for the sake of love, to become not just God but God-With-Us. God knew we needed that Love Embodied to restore us to God – to bridge the gap of separation and sin that are an undeniable part of our world. Knowing we were imperfect … knowing we would continue to make mistakes … knowing how it would all end … God came to Love. God came as Love in Jesus Christ. And after his life and death and resurrection and ascension, Jesus’ teaching of love and grace continued through the early church and through Paul – Paul, who saw that disconnectedness, that brokenness, that lack of love and tried to help people see God in each other again. Because it was and is and always will be the love of God that brings us back to God … back to one another … and back to wholeness.
      • Scholar: Love works. Love transforms circumstances and people. The loved one is never again the same; the one who loves is never again the same. … Love, once under way, takes on a life of its own; like the grace on which it is built, it surprises. Love restores, love enlarges, and love makes whole.[10] → In that love, through that love, we get to be God’s revelation – God’s epiphany, God’s blessed presence – to and for and with one another. Thanks be to God! Amen.

[1] Mac Barnett. Extra Yarn (New York: Balzer + Bray), 2012.

[2] Tuhina Verma Rasche. “Epiphany Series: Created Anew” in A Preacher’s Guide to Lectionary Sermon Series: Thematic Plans for Years A, B, and C, vol. 2. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019), 93.

[3] J. Paul Sampley. “The First Letter to the Corinthians: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections” in The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary series, vol. 10. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), 777.

[4] Ibid.

[5] V. Bruce Rigdon. “Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany – 1 Corinthians 8:1-13, Pastoral Perspective” in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary – Year B, vol. 1. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2008), 302, 304.

[6] 1 Cor 8:1b-3.

[7] Sampley, 898.

[8] 1 Cor 8:12-13.

[9] Rasche, 94.

[10] Sampley, 898.