When Paul wrote to the Christians in the city of Corinth, Christianity was brand new. All Christians were new Christians. And like most new Christians, the early Christians in Corinth were extra zealous and passionate in their faith. But their zeal and passion gave rise to internal conflicts within the Christian community. Some of them believed that eating certain foods reserved for offerings to the Greek gods was sinful. They believed that eating foods offered to other gods was sacrilege. But others among them believed that none of that mattered. Since Christians believe in only one god, then the foods offered to other gods was just food. There was nothing special about it. It was just common sense, they said. If you believe that there’s truly only one god, then food offered to other gods is just food. Everybody knows this, they said. But these two sides argued with each other. Those who refused to eat food offered to other gods fought with those who thought there was nothing wrong with it. And their argument threatened to split the church in half. So Paul wrote to these arguing, passionate, newbie Christians. He explained that he agreed with those who said that there was only one God. Paul agreed that food offered to other gods was not special or sacrilegious. But, Paul explained, those who possess knowledge must not lord it over those who disagree with them. Knowledge could easily become arrogance, and arrogance would quickly turn to self-righteousness. Just like today, Paul knew in his day that the greatest danger to growing the Christian community was rooted in our certainty of faith. If we’re so certain of what we think we know, that will be the surest way of turning off and turning away others. Don’t let your knowledge become a stumbling block that prevents others from growing in their faith. Paul warned the Corinthians not to be so arrogant that they forget to show loving respect to those with whom they disagree. Theological debates are counter-productive, Paul explained, if we allow our debates to prevent us from expressing genuine love for one another. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

“Common sense” can be a dangerous concept. Too often, what we call “common sense” is no more than our perspective, so engrained in us that we take it for granted. How often do we say, “everyone knows that,” when in fact, not everyone agrees with what we know? I worked in a church where a parishioner was planning on leading a Sunday School class on the book “The Celestine Prophecy.” I suggested to her that she should be prepared to respond to people who’d be defensive about some of the books more unorthodox ideas. For example the book talks a lot about auras, the energy that surrounds our bodies. Not everyone believes in auras, I suggested. My parishioner got defensive. She complained, “But everyone knows that we all have auras.” To her, this was common knowledge. Even more, this was common sense. She had no patience for people who didn’t agree with what she knew. She considered those who disagreed with her perspective as ignorant and simple. Often, what we “know,” others consider to be only our opinion. And too often, we allow what we “know” to make us feel superior. We allow what we consider to be common sense to divide us into the intelligent and the ignorant, the profound versus the simple-minded, those who’re hip and with it versus those who’re stuck in the dark ages. The more certain we are of what we know, the more tempted we are to set ourselves apart and above those who disagree with us.

Knowledge is never an excuse to fail to show love. Superior understanding is never a valid reason to be condescending or patronizing. In the Christian community, our unity is defined not by what we know, not by what we believe, not by what we think, nearly as much as we are defined by how we live in loving community. Just because we “know” that someone’s wrong in a matter of faith, we must be careful not to allow our knowledge to convince us that we’re superior. Paul makes clear that there’s nothing that we can “know” with our minds that gives us permission to lift ourselves above others. I heard a story on the radio recently about a group of six women in Boston. Three of these women were passionate pro-choice advocates, and the other three were entrenched pro-life advocates. More than advocates, these six women represented the leadership of some of the most outspoken organizations defending and condemning a woman’s right to choose to terminate her pregnancy. A few years ago, a bomb exploded in a Boston clinic that provided services to terminate pregnancies. After the bombing, these six women came together in secret. They decided that they had to figure out how to speak to each other, and more importantly, they had to learn how to listen to each other. They feared that the violent words and the violent actions in the abortion debate would only escalate. They had to figure out how to get along with different opinions, different convictions, different world-views, or else they couldn’t imagine how our society would ever be able to live at peace in the midst of disagreement. And after a few years of meeting regularly, of working at the ground rules of respect and sensitivity, they discovered that they could be in relationship with one another, even though they disagreed. Nobody changed their minds, but together they learned how to speak and to listen and to show caring respect for those who disagreed. We must not allow our passion for what we know is right to prevent us from expressing love for those who disagree with us. God calls us to listen with loving respect to our brothers and sisters in the faith, even when we’re absolutely sure that their wrong. Some of you’ve heard me quote the movie Dogma before. In that movie, one of the apostles says that we’re always messing things up because of what we believe. People fight over what they believe. People die over what they believe. The apostle says that things would go more smoothly if we could just learn to say that we have a pretty good idea. If we had just a little more humility about what we believed, then perhaps we’d be able to get along and figure things out together. A lot of us are passionate in our faith. Many here in this congregation are passionate for social justice. We invest our lives and our resources into caring for the poor and advocating for the marginalized. We struggle against institutions that discriminate. We fight against the powers that segregate. We stand in the face of forces that oppress. But we must be careful, because as much as we know that God is on the side of the poor and the marginalized, we cannot allow what we know to prevent us from living in loving, respectful community with those who disagree. Others may demand that we conform or leave, but Paul reminds us this day that we are called to pursue understanding while we remain in intentional relationship with those who see things differently. In any debate that we have, in any struggle for justice that we fight, we will be shown to walk in the way of Christ not because of the truth of what we believed, but because of the love with which we treated one another.

It’s much easier to learn a new piece of knowledge, than it is to have a respectful conversation with those who disagree with us. It’s easier to educate ourselves on a certain matter, than it is to show love to those who don’t share our view of the world. It’s definitely much easier to state what we know with certainty, than it is to remain in intentional community with those who see things differently. God calls us to an ever-greater understanding in our faith, but God also calls us to the more difficult work of living in peaceful, loving community with all the diversity of life and perspective that God’s placed in front of us. Of all the facts and truths that we can know, of all the trivia and tidbits that we hold as certainties, the only knowledge that matters is our knowledge that God loves us, and that, in turn, God calls us to love one another. May God who gives us the will to do these things also grant us the grace and the strength to do them. Amen.