Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
Sun 29, Jan 2006
Deuteronomy 18:15-20
1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28
Psalm 1
Children's Sermon: Heidi describes God's love as being like a ketchup packet and fries. You open it and share it or it's useless. Open your heart or it's useless.
Sermon: (Merv Desens)
We have freedom, but we are ruled by love. (Reads 1 Corinthians 8:1-13). It's easy to be an angel if nobody ruffles your feathers.
A professor, a German, was challenged to a duel. He was asked his choice of weapons. The professor said sausages. One sausage was poisoned, the other wasn't. The instructions were-choose one sausage to eat, and I'll choose the other. The other professor saw no honor in such a duel. He destroyed the sausages and invited him to dinner. They met halfway, but Christian love is beyond even that.
The Corinthian church had its feathers ruffled. They had a contraversy about meat sacrificed to idols. They learned that knowledge needed to be governed by love. Some Corinthian butchers lived next door to an idol's temple and sold choice cuts of meat at cheap prices. In those days in Corinth, gods were assigned to everything. Some people had weak consciences and couldn't handle meats that had been offered to idols. Paul considered other gods empty and meaningless. The earth belongs to God. He said that the other "gods" were unreliable.
(Recounts the story of Abraham).
Paul affirmed monotheism by his statements. But if you were born and raised in Corinth, you had superstitions about the various gods. Paul said our freedom should be governed by love, even if you don't believe in idols. As one person said, "the golden rule went platinum." Do unto others as Jesus did to you. If I have not love, I'm nothing. Be ruled by love, and unruffle those feathers.