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We have heard the text grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our

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Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

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Amen..

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Well apart from the observation that weak people are vegetarians.

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What else does this text have to say for us?

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For Paul it was easy enough to say something like that since he

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probably never met anyone hit in his entire life who was not

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following a Mediterranean diet. Vegetables and fruits and nuts and fish

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and hardly ever beef, but every once in a while, maybe a some mutton.

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Meat usually from animals that have been sacrificed in such a sparse

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world.

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Why would you take that extra step of deciding nothing but vegetables

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shall ever passed my lips.

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Why would this even become an issue?

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Unless perhaps it has been a part of a person's piety before she

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or she had become a Christian.

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Paul second example involves the same kind of issue some people were

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observing Festival days that were not on the Christian Liturgical

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Calendar, whatever that would have meant in the first century. And they

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could have been choosing Festival days on the basis of previous

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religious commitments. Estimates

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are that one out of every three days in the Roman Calendar was

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dedicated to someone or something,

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so there were lots of choices. When you became a Christian

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could you set aside the same time in your life and dedicate to the

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true God.

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What makes the text valuable for us?

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Is that here Saint Paul sets before us the goal that God's people in

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all their diversity should deliver a consistent message that we live

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as people who value each other and are able to live confident lies

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dedicated to reconciliation because we know that we belong to God and

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have forgiveness and life for Jesus sake.

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Paul never thought of the Christian faith as a private matter an

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assent to a collection of ideas that we can keep in our hearts and minds

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and untouched in an unbelieving world. No, Christian faith is it is an

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active faith, a living faith, a faith that is lived out in the world.

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As African Christians regularly remind each other.

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The first book the unbelievers around us are going to read is the

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lives of the Christians. There

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the unbelieving world will see if or how Christian faith makes a

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difference.

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So Paul starts with a categorical statement against quarreling.

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Paul has not introduced yet with the issues might be but he says there

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are people who like to quarrel all the time, but it better not be you.

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Paul knew that he lived in a broken world and he experienced firsthand

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the conflicts between Jews and Gentiles. And he had seen for himself

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how easy it was to invoke nationalist or ethnic pride to get a crowd

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stirred up and engaged in riotous behavior, but Christians offer

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something different.

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There lives our about reconciliation about forgiveness and

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reconciliation with God for Jesus sake. Paul found the way to speak

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about this in the first century and how important it is that we find

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the way to talk about this in the 21st century for American people are

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desperately seeking reconciliation.

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You can see it

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for example in the television dramas how the program reaches its

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climax and the violins play when child and parent when brother and

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sister when spouses get beyond the misunderstanding and anger the

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hopelessness and despair to finally find reconciliation.

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And open the door to hope and new life.

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Americans want reconciliation.

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God built us to be one and we Christians have found our oneness in

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the forgiveness of sins and the love of Christ the fruits of Christ

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reconciling work and we have something to offer the world.

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Well, that's fine until I'm all in favor of being together as one as

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long as you do it my way.

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And that's Paul's next issue.

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There they were in this small minority community in this sea of

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unbelievers.

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And you know, that's what they decided needed to be done.

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We must purify the congregation.

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There are some among us who refuse to eat the same food as all the

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rest of us and they say that it helps make them better Christians

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because they are showing their separation from the world.

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The problem of course is when we focus on what we or others do or

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don't do it's only a small step until our brightness is what Christian

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faith is all about and not the righteousness one for us by Jesus

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Christ in his suffering and death on the cross.

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I know that they think that they are better than we are they think

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that what they are doing wins God's favor.

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I don't know what the terminology for Works righteousness was in the

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first century, but it's clear that charges and counter-charges were

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flying.

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So what's Paul solution?

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He does not focus on whether vegetarianism is God's pleasing

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is a God pleasing lifestyle or not.

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They are weak, but he does not say they are wrong.

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He does not make a choice on the question of whether all days are the

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same or not.

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But instead he focuses on the issue of ownership.

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These questions are not to be at settled on the basis of the community

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made by majority opinion, but on whom we belong to.

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I probably I think we probably could not hear this these words in the

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same way that they were heard in that first century Roman

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congregation.

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They lived in a world where about a third of the population was

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enslaved and some people belong to a master in a way that we can learn

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about in textbooks, but we can't experience thankfully.

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Enslaved people did not have an identity of their own their work was

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deter their worth was determined slow solely by their masters. And

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their positions in society were determined not by their personal

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talents and abilities, but by whom they belong to.

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So on the one hand Paul gives us instruction about our relationship to

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other Christians.

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Remember that they are not yours under your control.

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They are required to give an account not to you but to their master.

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And their master will lead and guide and defend them. And you belong to

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that same master who will require of you all that he requires of them.

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As I live says the Lord every knee shall bow to me and every tongue

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shall confess to God.

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So then each of us will give an account of himself to God, we are

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accountable.

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But on the other hand.

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Our lives are secure in God's love for us for Jesus sake, there is

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forgiveness.

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Whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lords or did they send

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Christ died and lived again that he might be Lord both of the dead and

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of the living. A message in which are broken world can find forgiveness

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and life.

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That's our message to share for Jesus sake. Amen. In the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.