4th Sunday after the Epiphany
February 1, 2015
Deuteronomy 18:15-20; Psalm 111; 1 Corinthians 8:1-13;
Mark 1:21-28
My best friend from college is a medical doctor. One of the banes of her existence is
WebMD. The internet can be a great thing
and provide another way to communicate and connect with others, especially
people who are far away and give us video calls. On the other hand, you can’t believe
everything you read on the internet. For
example, when you’re sick and you go to a site like WebMD and type in your
symptoms to diagnose yourself, you may end up like the guy who went to the
doctor with a self-diagnosed ovarian cyst.
[pause] I’ll give you a second for that to sink in. [pause]
Or, like the man who walked into my friend’s clinic and claimed his legs
were paralyzed. [pause] This is the kind
of thing that happens when we have a little knowledge but not enough to
actually make an accurate assessment of what’s going on. A little knowledge can be a dangerous
thing. Unless you have the full story
with all the details, which websites like WebMD aren’t designed to ask for, it
becomes that much harder to figure out what’s going. The more knowledge you have, the more
effective you can be. On the other hand,
in his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes: “We know that we all have
knowledge. Knowledge makes people
arrogant, but love builds people up.”[1]
Let’s take that first part: “Knowledge makes people arrogant.”
Agree? Or if it’s rephrased: knowledge
can make people arrogant? Better?
Other translations say that “knowledge puffs up.” Knowledge is a good thing and education in
and of itself certainly has value, yet it can also fill us with pride, puff us
up, and make us think we’re better than others, which is another way of saying,
it can make us arrogant. Now, we all
have knowledge. No matter how much
schooling you have or how old you are, everyone has knowledge of
something. When I studied Teaching
English as a Second Language, this knowledge was emphasized, that just because
a child doesn’t know English or doesn’t know things about American culture or
objects that are common here but not in their native country, doesn’t mean that
that child knows nothing at all.[2] Instead, each student has knowledge from
their family and cultural backgrounds and one of the best practices for
teaching is to draw on those “funds of knowledge.” It’s just like Paul says, “we all have
knowledge.” And yet he also cautions,
“If anyone thinks they know something, they don’t yet know as much as they
should know.”[3] There is always more to learn. And we don’t know as much as we think we
know, which is how we get to misunderstandings and wrong diagnoses, or even a
false prophet who presumes to speak for God.
The false prophet dilemma is what comes up in our Old
Testament reading this morning. Moses
tells the people that God will send a prophet like Moses to the people and God
promises he will tell the prophet what to say.
However, God also warns against any prophet who arrogantly speaks a word
in God’s name that God didn’t command him to speak.[4] Again, we find that word “arrogance.” This is a false prophet who assumes he knows
what God’s message is, but that word isn’t actually from God. It raises the question: how do we know when a
prophet is speaking in God’s name? How do we distinguish true from false
prophesy? The verse that follows our passage this morning explains, “If a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord and what he says does not come true, then it is not the Lord's message. That prophet has spoken on his own authority, and you
are not to fear him.”[5] Knowledge puffs up and can
corrupt.
The antidote to arrogance is love. Love
builds people up. There is nothing
wrong with knowledge. We all have knowledge. But it must be tempered with love and
humility. I knew a couple in Chapel Hill, home of the University of North Carolina, who both had doctorate degrees in chemistry and taught at UNC; yet, socially, they went by Mr.
and Mrs. and did not insist on being called Dr.
Knowledge with humility is a very different thing, because it does not
boast, it is not arrogant… I feel like I’m starting to quote 1 Corinthians 13, which you may remember, is all about love. Knowledge with love and humility recognizes
that there is a lot that is still unknown.
We don’t know as much as we think we do.
And we need to be careful with what we do know, to use it to build each
other up and not tear each other down.
The example given in our Epistle lesson this morning
is about eating food that was offered to idols, or false gods. Paul explains that we know that these are
false gods and that there is only one God.
However, there were some Christians in Corinth who were really bothered
by the idea of other Christians eating food that had been offered to these
gods. Therefore, what Paul said, is that
it wasn’t worth it. Yeah, he knew it
wasn’t a big deal to eat this food; but,
and this is a really big but, it was causing major disagreements and divisions
in the church. And because eating this
food was causing so much harm, and certainly not building up the body of Christ, then Paul’s advice was to not
eat. As the senior pastor I worked with
in North Carolina would say, “it ain’t a hill worth dying on.” This phrase is a military one, from the situation of fighting up a hill,
with the enemy above you, and knowing that the battle can cost much time and
many lives. A military commander must judge whether taking that hill is worth
the high cost. Paul is saying that
eating food that was sacrificed to idols is not worth the high cost. If the cost of your actions is that you cause
division in the churches or others to sin, then Paul says the cost too
high. A lot of things
are ok, just be careful that they don’t cause others to stumble. It’s not worth it. Paul concludes that, “You sin against Christ
if you sin against other Christians in this way. If food makes a believer sin,
I will never eat meat again, so as not to make a believer fall into sin.”[6] Your actions should not make
a fellow believer fall into sin.
Regardless of what you know,
your words and your actions should be full of love and grace and charity.
How do we gain this wisdom to know how to act and what
to say? Our psalm this morning says that
“The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.”[7] Now, there’s a whole sermon just in that
verse, but let’s apply it to what we’ve been talking about. First, “the fear of the Lord” implies a
relationship with God. This isn’t just what we know, but who we know. Do we know
God? The evil spirit in our Gospel
reading this morning certainly knew Jesus.
He knew who Jesus was better than anyone else who was in the synagogue
that morning! The unclean spirit names
him as “the holy one from God”[8]
and knows that Jesus has authority over him.
What kind of relationship do we have with Jesus? Do we obey him, also, even when we don’t want
to? Even the evil spirit did that
much. Do we recognize that he is the
holy one from God? Now, this
relationship is a two-way street. Paul
writes that, “If someone loves God, then they are known by God.”[9] We know God and God knows us. Our relationship with God is the beginning of
wisdom. Talking with God, reading what
God has said, listening to God, obeying God, these things should guide all our
actions and our words.
I
don’t think knowledge is a neutral thing and it’s what you do with it. I think knowledge is a good thing, we just
need to be careful how we use it and how we react to it. Don’t use it to cause division or to cause
others to stumble. Use it instead to
build up the body of Christ, to encourage your brother and sister, to show
God’s love and mercy to everyone you meet.
In particular, what we do with the knowledge of God’s purposes, and how
we respond once we come to know Jesus, makes all the difference.
[1] 1 Corinthians 8:1, CEB
[2] For a more complete
explanation, see: http://www.amazon.com/Funds-Knowledge-Theorizing-Households-Communities/dp/0805849181
[3] 1 Corinthians 8:2
[4] Deuteronomy 18:20, CEB
[5] Deuteronomy 18:22
[6] 1 Corinthians 8:12-13
[7] Psalm 111:10
[8] Mark 1:24
[9] 1 Corinthians 8:3
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