Love or doctrine? Peace or purity?

 This week's verses are Romans 14:16-23:

Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For the one who serves Christ in this way is acceptable to God and approved by other people. So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the person who eats and causes offense. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother or sister stumbles. The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is the one who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But the one who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.

These verses bring the conclusion to the topic we have been studying in the last few weeks. Paul is still talking about doctrinal differences, and the conflicts between the different lifestyles we choose when we are at different stages of our faith journey.

 He tells us to look at the big picture: It's not about the food but about God and obedience. We can sometimes find ourselves hyperfocusing on small details, and that makes them seem bigger than the big things we already agree on. Like the Pharisees, we strain out a gnat and swallow a camel.

What Paul is saying is that instead of trying with all of our might to iron out that last doctrinal wrinkle in our brother or sister, we should focus on making peace and building each other up. Can we enjoy righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit together? Is God's grace big enough that there's room to welcome you both?

When we hyperfocus on our brother's differing beliefs and behavior, we bully him into legalistically conforming himself to an imitation of our own beliefs. The meat-eater is shamed into not eating what is healthy for him. The abstainer is arm-twisted into not abstaining anymore, when they can't handle it. 

Both are then stuck secretly trapped in a different place where their beliefs can't be allowed to evolve, because they can't expose them to the outside world. How are we helping our fellow Christian to build himself up if we are encouraging him to build an empty façade instead? Why does the way he lives out his Christian faith have to be about us anyway?

Paul says, "do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food." When you try to make your brother exactly like you, or ignore the fact that he's in a different place, you tear down God's work of grace and dissolve the glue that holds his church together. You are either saying that God's grace is only able to extend to people like you, and your brother therefore has to work for it, or you are saying that your brother is not part of things at all, that you are clearly the only one pursuing God.

If you think your "weaker" brother is wrong because he has not yet advanced to where you are, and you don't take steps to accommodate him, you are destroying the work of the cross, the grace that accepts him into God's kingdom starting from where he is. And the same is true if you judge your "stronger" brother for not exercising the same caution you do around your stumbling blocks. In that case, you too are saying the the grace of God only extends to people like you, and not to those who are in a different place in their faith.

Imagine you had a genetic mutation that guaranteed that you would never get cancer from nicotine. You could smoke 25 packs a day, two cigars at a time, cheek pouches full of chewing tobacco, while snorting a line of snuff off of the part of your hand that doesn't have nicotine patches already on it, and nothing would happen to you.

You could smoke at your desk, and in your bed, and even while eating your breakfast with the kids, and your family members with the same mutation could smoke at the same time, or chew nicotine gum while they played with their toys, and nothing bad would happen to them.

But imagine if the rest of us came over, who were at risk of lung cancer, and who, perhaps, never got used to the smell of smoke. If you saw us for who we were, in our vulnerable condition, and were compassionate, you would likely stop smoking when we arrived, and maybe even open the windows to be sure that no smoke would linger when your "weaker" cancer-prone friends came over.

But if you were like the "strong" Christians in Paul's day, you'd probably say that the cigarette smoke doesn't harm you, and that the weak people should look out for their own weakness and not expect you to accommodate them. You might say that they should wear a gas mask when they come over, or just stay away entirely, or maybe even find a good oncologist so that if they did get cancer they would have a good chance of surviving, instead of trying to control you by asking you not to smoke around them.

Or you might not think of them at all, and as your friends began to get cancer one by one, you wouldn't make the connection between the enjoyment of your freedom and their disease and death. You might think to yourself, "There's nothing wrong with these cigarettes. I'm fine. My family is fine. What else is there to say? I have the right to do as I like, don't I?"

And if your friends were like the "weaker" Christians, they might resent you for smoking even when they were not around. They might say "doesn't he look at the labels on the pack?" or "why is he destroying himself and his family, just to exercise his freedom?" They would judge you, ignoring the fact that for you and your family, there was no harm done.

So, to that "strong" Christian, Paul is saying that it is better to abstain than to pollute. Abstaining is not an admission of wrongness but a decision to respect your brother's boundaries and weaknesses. If you're not allergic to peanuts, but your roommate is, don't eat pbj sandwiches at the table with him and throw peanuts at his head, just because it isn't your allergy. You're not allergic, but if you don't want to get him killed, you should live as though you are when you are around him.

But Paul would also say not to permit yourself to be bullied into violating your convictions. If you can't tolerate hot pepper and your church is having a chili cook-off, don't ask for the five alarm habanero chili just because you don't want to be called "weak." Yes, the people who can tolerate it are admired for doing so, but that's not you, at least not right now. You will just bring hellfire and eternal burning on yourself and won't impress anyone in the long run. But you should be happy for the sweating, clown-lipped people with tears in their eyes, for whom the hot pepper is a good thing.

Your conviction is yours. Your brother's conviction is his. But you are brothers first. Better to join hands in love and peace as you pursue God than to trample each other to death in your self-righteousness.