A Welcoming Welcome Sunday Sermon

Romans 14:1-12

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 slaves 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.

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 for the Lord. Also those who eat, eat for the Lord, since they give thanks to God, while those who abstain, abstain for the Lord and give thanks to God.

For we do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.

Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister? Or you, why do you despise your brother or sister? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God. For it is written,

“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
    and every tongue shall give praise to God.”

So then, each one of us will be held accountable.

What does Paul mean here, when he’s contrasting the “weak” and the “strong?” Despite the fact that it’s Welcome Sunday, despite the fact that our scripture today fortuitously begins with the word welcome, this passage, on the surface might not read as the most inclusive, welcoming passage. It’s honestly kind of impressive that Paul manages to sound judgmental as he writes a passage urging the Christan Romans to not be judgmental. To understand this passage, to get what we need to get out of it, we have to think a little differently about weak and strong. Paul isn’t saying that those who are weak are weak in faith, or weak in physical or mental strength; just has he’s not saying those who are strong are especially faithful or packed with muscle. We need to do our best to think of the words weak and strong as morally neutral. One is not better or worse than the other. They’re simply descriptors. It’s hard when words are so ingrained in our psyches and in our culture, to think of them in a totally different way. But let’s remember— Jesus challenges us in this way all the time. Matthew 5:5: Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. An absolutely unthinkable concept then, and unfortunately now.  

When Paul seemingly insults vegetarians as weak, he’s just using this this as a descriptor to explain those who are still keeping kosher, still holding onto rituals and customs that, in theory, they don’t need to anymore… they’re those who are afraid to rock the boat. He’s describing people who are, indeed, Christ-worshipers, but these rituals and laws are so ingrained, they just can’t let them go yet. And it doesn’t strike me that Paul is passing any negative moral judgement here— because he specifically tells those who eat with no restrictions to stop judging others, with no caveats. He’s not saying, yeah, you’re right and stronger than them, but be nice. Likewise, he’s not saying to the vegetarians, yeah you’re more pious than the meat-eaters, but be nice anyway.

What he is saying—is whatever you do, do it for God. If you’re vegetarian, do it because you honestly believe it’s how God calls you to be. If you’re eating meat, thank God for that food with every bite. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves,” says Paul in verse 7.

Remember, in all these epistles, Paul is writing to new Christian communities. Romans is his longest letter, and it’s believed to be the latest of all the definitively Pauline letters. So at this point in his life, his theology is mature. His theology is confident and certain. At this point in his life, he’s really seen it all. He’s been the bad guy, the Pharisee keeping all the rites and rituals, while simultaneously persecuting early Christ-followers. He had a vision and was changed and converted. He’s seen and guided new communities of Christ form and rise from nothing— the communities of Philippi, of Corinth, of Galatia, of Thessaloniki… and now for this final letter that we know of, he’s telling the people of Rome, the former Pagans and former Jews alike—it doesn’t matter what you’re eating or not eating. These minutiae that doesn’t harm other people doesn’t matter, as long as you’re living for God and doing the good works of compassion that Christ calls us to do. Paul is telling these new Christians in Rome that it will do no good and make no difference to judge one another for worshiping in different ways, for showing reverence to God in whatever way might make sense to them.

And you know—it brought to mind Breakfast Church a couple weeks ago, when the conversation went in a direction a really didn’t expect! It ended up being a time in which a lot of people processed some of the fear and struggles they had growing up in the Catholic church. (The psalm we read was about “fearing” God, and what they meant). And one thing I’ve noticed, being a UCC congregant and pastor in New England where I “recovering Catholics” make up what I’m sure is a huge portion of our parishioners, is that some of those former Catholics don’t give up their rituals. I’ve seen people crossing themselves before entering pews here. I’ve seen people in other UCC churches even kneeling at times they felt appropriate. At the church in Ipswich where I was a student minister, they took the time to paste the hymn On Eagles Wings into the hymnals because so many former Catholics missed that classic Catholic hymn so much. And I think that says something about faith in general, and about our faith. About faith in general, it says that rituals, prayers, rites we grew up on are hard to give up, and are a deep comfort to us. And so we don’t give them up. We allow them to keep comforting us. And that doesn’t make us weak. Nor should it warrant any judgement from our fellow worshipers. And you know, not to toot our own horns, but I think we have that part down pretty pat in this church, and in the wider denomination. We understand that people come from different backgrounds, we understand that their stories are their own and have affected and guided them in certain ways, and we allow them, even encourage them to worship here in a way that feels good and right to them.

But it’s taking that same non-judgement out into the secular world where we struggle, I think. Or maybe I should only speak for myself… it’s where I struggle. I struggle when I see performative public prayer in public spaces. I struggle when I see the powerful using the Christian faith to condemn and harm others. And I don’t think in these cases it’s necessarily wrong to judge, per se; abstaining from judgement and condemnation isn’t relevant when it comes to the safety, well-being, and freedom of our fellow humans; and we should, as Kate Bowler so beautifully writes in her prayer that I adapted for our invocation today, “quicken our rage when it’s directed to our best efforts,” and fight to make this world a kind and just place for all people; but we mustn’t get bogged down in the judgement and self-righteousness. We mustn’t take some kind of perverse pleasure in feeling like we’re right and above everyone else. And in a world or algorithms and echo chambers, it’s really easy to do that—to build ourselves up to be holier than thou when everyone around us validating every one of our opinions. But this problem isn’t just one of our internet-social-media-artificial-intelligence age.

In Karl Barth’s seminal work, his commentary on the Epistle to the Romans, originally published in 1919 he writes, in reference to our passage today, “Deprive a Total Abstainer, a really religious Socialist, a Churchman, or a Pacifist, of the pathos of moral indignation, and you have broken his backbone.” In other words, the mostly well-meaning, but ultra-self-serious folks among us, denied of feeling a constant moral outrage while atop their high horse, will essentially cease to exist; because they exist only to be angry, to be outraged, and to feel above everyone else in the process. So this was a problem in the early 20th century, and it’s a problem now. What maybe makes it worse now though, is that those feelings of self-righteousness, that moral indignation, is constantly being preyed upon and exploited. A buzzy, rage-inducing headline means more clicks. The angrier we get without being able to property redirect that anger, means more stagnation and a keeping of the unjust status-quo. And if we can’t do anything about the mess this world is in, we might as well feel holier than thou, right? That’s what those click-bait stories do. They validate not only our opinions, but our worst impulses, creating a perpetual us against them society. In his book Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, Nicolas Carr writes,

The polarization and extremism we see online aren’t manufactured out of nothing by algorithms. They’re expressions of deep-seated tendences in human nature that have always shaped and strained social relations and political debates. What’s different now is that we have crowded ourselves into a virtual public square that lacks checks on our zeal and vexatiousness.

So yes, our differences and judgmental natures are certainly exacerbated now, but that need to judge others, to feel like we’re better than other people, to want to segregate ourselves from those we feel are less pious or less moral— these are the ugly facets of human nature that have been around since the dawn of humanity. We want to feel like we’re better than other people, especially when things feel confusing or hopeless or uncertain. It’s human nature.

But think about how good we are within these walls at not judging one another. We don’t think anything of it if someone chooses not to take communion; we don’t get offended if someone decides not to sing the hymns. We don’t hold it against people who don’t come to coffee hour. We don’t think that someone who expresses their faith in a different way than we do, inside these walls is weak or wrong. How can we take that nonjudgemental way of being that we’re so good at in this building and translated to outside these sacred walls?

Maybe, to start, we can think about what you all wrote about why you come to church. I know for some people, it’s about unplugging. It’s about silencing your phones and listening to scared words, scared songs, and being together. It’s about getting away from the chaos of the world out there. You can do that, to an extent, outside those doors too. Now, don’t get me wrong, I make sure to stay informed, but I don’t read comments on news articles anymore. I don’t get notifications, I don’t allow strangers and bots on the internet to bring my blood pressure up, even if it’s tempting to feel that sense of moral superiority over someone I vehemently disagree with—but it’s just not worth it. There’s no reason we can’t take some of the reasons we come to church and figure out how to implement outside these doors— find ways to unplug and, instead of finding quick serotonin spikes of moral superiority and outrage, we redirect our efforts into living for the kind of work of love and compassion that we’re called to by Christ…

And then, think about what you wrote for the hopes and dreams of for this congregation. How can some of those hopes and dreams be translated to the wider world? How can we, as we often say in this denomination, “be the church” out in the world? How can we take the extravagant welcome that this church offers to all who walk through those doors out in the world? “If we live, we live to God, and if we die, we die to God; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are God’s.” When we’re in the confines of these walls, it’s easy to remember that we are all God’s children, that we live for Christ’s commandment of love. But that doesn’t go away when we walk out those doors, when we’re met with people who worship or simply just live in ways that might be baffling to us, or even offensive to us. Again, this doesn’t mean to ignore those who do real harm in God’s name. But it does mean that we have to really think about every one of our actions, every one of our thoughts. Out in the world, we make the effort to do what’s right in the name of our faith, in the name of Christ— not in the name of our own sense of superiority, not in the name of our ego; but rather, in the name of the Christ that always, always guides us in the name of love.

So on this Welcome Sunday, let’s really think deeply about how to bring this church’s unconditional welcome out there into the world—how we can take the peace and non-judgement of this space out to everyone we meet—how we can unplug from the economy of moral outrage—how we can find that tricky balance between judgy self-righteousness and despairing self-deprecation to a place of conviction and love.

May we live out this unconditional, extravagant welcome together.  Amen.