"&request.querystring("c")&"

A Common Human Behavior

The Very Reverend Sam G. Candler
The Cathedral of St. Philip
Atlanta, Georgia
14 September 2008 – Proper 19A

Welcome those who are weak in faith, but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions.  Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables.
Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat; for God has welcomed them.
Who are you to pass judgment on servants of another? It is before their own lord that they stand or fall. And they will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
–Romans 14:1-4

I want to speak this morning about a common human behavior. It is a fundamental act in which every single human being participates. Our human race depends upon this activity.

Though this behavior is common to us all, we have different ways of doing it. Some of us do it one way, and some of us do it another way. Tribes and cultures and nations have developed wildly various customs around this act.

It is the act of eating. Eating. Human beings, all of us, engage in eating. It is a common, primal, and necessary part of our existence.

Eating has brought human beings together throughout time. Friends share a meal together. Families gather at the dinner table. Reunions and celebrations gather around the banquet table. Our very church gathers around an altar for a sacred meal. Each of those occasions is sacred, and each one is necessary.

I had at least three such sacred dinners last week.

The first one was last Sunday night, when my children, their special friends, and I, had a small birthday dinner together in honor of my wife’s fiftieth birthday. The actual food was about the most normal, “southern comfort” food we could imagine; baked chicken, rice, mashed potatoes, peas, spinach, and biscuits. It was great comfort food to celebrate a milestone in life.

However, the next night, I had a second sacred meal. An old friend insisted that I just had to meet him in a most unusual restaurant. There was no way we could secure reservations, but the maitre d’ had told him that if we arrived in time, we could eat at the bar. And so we did.

What a fascinating array of courses we had! It was not your usual steak and potatoes and salad restaurant. Between us we sampled some of the most bizarre foods I have ever seen prepared. Lamb tongue. Beef cheeks. Pig’s feet. We had squab liver. Then, we had an Italian pasta that the chef prepared with squid ink. Yes, black squid ink. Fascinating. And there was still much on the menu that we didn’t touch—like the sweetbreads.

I realize that the very mention of some of these items causes some of you indigestion. Eating is a primal, visceral activity. We care what we put into our mouths. We devise laws and traditions about it. Some people would surely take offense at what I ate last week.

The bible contains a history of describing what we should eat, and what we should refrain from. Entire chapters of scripture are built upon prescriptions and prohibitions.

But the bible also describes how Christianity changed many of those laws and customs. Jesus himself was accused of eating the wrong thing. Later, St. Peter had a vision in which he saw a huge net of animals, traditionally clean and traditionally unclean, all together. “Rise and eat,” came the voice of the Lord to Peter. Peter said, “I can’t eat what is supposed to be unclean.” But the Lord said, “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” (Acts 10).

Still later, St. Paul spoke these very words to the Romans, the words that make up our epistle lesson for today.

“Some believe in eating anything, while the weak eat only vegetables. Those who eat must not despise those who abstain, and those who abstain must not pass judgment on those who eat. . . those who eat and those who abstain. . . [do so] in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God.” (Romans 14.2, 6).

St. Paul will conclude that our allegiance to Jesus Christ, our unity in the Spirit, is much larger than our different customs about such a necessary act as eating: “the kingdom of God is not food and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14.17). Strong Christianity allows for different dietary customs.

I shared a third sacred meal this past week. We were a small group of seven rectors—priests—of the largest Episcopal parishes in the country, engaged in common conversation. Each of our parishes is large and thriving, and each of our parishes gives honor and thanks to God. But we also disagreed on some matters.

One of the matters on which we disagreed is a matter of deep human behavior. This behavior, or activity, is common to human beings. It is primal, visceral, and even necessary to humanity.

I do not mean “eating.” I refer, this time, of course, to sexuality. Sexuality is common to all humanity, but there are sexuality issues that many of us disagree about.

In the past generation, I believe that the three most divisive issues in the Episcopal Church, and maybe in our culture, have all been issues related—in some way—to sexuality. These issues have been the ordination of women, abortion, and homosexuality. My title for these issues is “the pelvic issues.”

People of genuine, good faith, have disagreed on particular issues of sexuality. At my dinner last week, several rectors and I disagreed on them. But all of us around that dinner table agreed that the Episcopal Church is still a place where we can honor the Lord, where we can honor one another, even when we disagree. Our own parishes can be evidence of that fact.

We did not mention this upcoming epistle lesson from Romans, but we could have. Paul’s exhortation to the Romans is very similar to what we said to one another at dinner.
Romans, chapter fourteen, is about a particular, primal, and universal human act: eating. It could well have been written about another particular, primal, and universal act: sex.

Different traditions on the matters of eating and sexuality run very deep. They go beyond opinion. They go beyond the head. They go to the heart of who we are. They go even deeper than that. People argue about them. Satan threatens to divide us according to those differences. But not in this church.

I am thankful for this church community, this Cathedral of St. Philip. We do not belong only to ourselves in this church. We do not belong only to our own opinions. Paul reminds us that, “we do not live to ourselves.… we live to the Lord.… we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14. 8-9)

We contain many faithful people who eat in different ways. We contain many faithful people who have different perspectives on sexuality. But we share a common and glorious allegiance to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. “We are one in the Spirit; we are one in the Lord.”

When I serve the sacred meal of Jesus at this altar, I know that we have different opinions and outlooks and expressions—on a whole myriad of issues. I do not even know who has the weaker faith. I might be wrong on one issue. You might be wrong on another issue.

But God calls us, and welcomes us, to this sacred meal, where we honor and give thanks to the Lord. Listen again to what St. Paul said at Romans 14:

“Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds. Those who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God.

"As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall give praise to God."   (Romans 14. 5-6, 11-12).

There is one more common human behavior that I want to observe today. It is common and visceral to all humanity. In fact, it is necessary to all of us. We all do it, but in different ways. It is the act of giving glory and honor to God. That is the activity that truly unites us.

We gather today to engage in that common human activity: to give glory to God, to honor God, to give thanks for the salvation and love of God. That love, that honor, unites us in a truth that goes deeper than anything else we do.

AMEN.

The Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip

Comments? Contact Dean Candler at: SCandler@stphilipscathedral.org

view other sermons