Back in the 1970 s she was invited to attend a luncheon with wives of conservative

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1 SERMON: In Honor of the Lord TEXT: Romans 14:1-12 I read a story recently about Ruth Graham, wife of evangelist, Billy Graham. Back in the 1970 s she was invited to attend a luncheon with wives of conservative pastors in Germany. As any American woman would, she took great care in dressing and putting on her face in order to look her best for this prestigious occasion. The German Christians, however, had more conservative ideas regarding how women should look. They believed that married Christian women should not wear makeup or clothing that made them look too worldly. One pastor s wife, who was sitting across from Mrs. Graham, became very upset and even began to cry right into her beer. Mrs. Graham had no idea why the woman was crying, but became upset herself, that a pastor s wife would be drinking beer at a meeting to prepare for an evangelistic crusade. (Mark Reasoner, September 14, 2008) I just heard on the news the other day that Starbucks is considering whether to allow their baristas to expose their tattooed arms while working. They are trying to find a balance between self-expression and professionalism.

2 And I remember when I was a little girl; we attended the Catholic Church and I always wore a dress, little white gloves, and even a little lace veil on my head. It was unthinkable to ever wear pants, much less the t-shirts and jeans that lots of kids mine included often wear to church today. We all have different ideas and our ideas are always changing about what is proper and what is not in certain times and places. Even in the time of the early church, Paul wrote to the Romans about their quarreling and judging of one another over issues like what food to eat or not eat, and what special days should be observed. Remember that the early church was made up of Jews, who had grown up with certain dietary laws, and Gentiles, who had not. But they were together in one church because they believed in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. And Paul implored them to welcome one another. 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, he wrote. 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. 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

3 who observe the day, observe it in honor of the Lord. Also those who eat, eat in honor of the Lord, since they give thanks to God; while those who abstain, abstain in honor of the Lord and give thanks to God. Beyond the emphasis on welcome, there is another theme that seems important here. IN HONOR OF THE LORD. It is not the eating or abstaining, it is not the observance or ignorance of special days that matters. What matters is that whatever customs or observances we choose, our primary purpose is to HONOR THE LORD. Unfortunately, more often we tend to use our differences to judge one another, to set ourselves apart, to determine who s in and who s out. For instance, there are many, churches, cultures, religions, and individuals who believe homosexuality is a sin. But I know personally a number of homosexual people who HONOR THE LORD and love the Lord with who they are and how they live their lives far more than some the most pious, Bible-believing Christians I know. Another example comes from a video I saw on a website called ministrymatters.com. The person speaking was talking about the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri last month. He noted that people began

4 reacting to the story even before they heard the whole story. Everything is fueled by outrage now, he said. We don t give people the benefit of the doubt anymore or wait for all the facts. We pile on. (Shane Raynor, Friends, I m not pointing a finger at you without first having pointed at myself in the mirror. We all rush to judgment; we use events like this as an excuse to explode. But we weren t there. We weren t eyewitnesses to what happened. We probably don t even know anyone who was there. Yet, we take up for one side or another based on headlines we ve read or tiny sound bites that we ve heard, based on the color of our skin or the neighborhood we live in. Whatever happened to walk a mile in my shoes? If we ve never experienced a similar situation, then we don t know what we would do. We spend too much time looking around to make sure everybody else is doing things right and not enough time looking at ourselves to make sure we re doing things right. Are the practices we follow always in honor of the Lord, or do we sometimes have other motives? Whether you wear a three-piece suit or denim overalls and muddy boots to church, if you are seeking to HONOR THE LORD, then I have no right to judge you. Whether you worship on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday; whether you wear a yarmulke on your head, always face East when you

5 pray, or genuflect with a dab of holy water; whether you sing hymns out of a book, raise your hands in praise choruses, or chant the Psalms if you do so out of a desire to HONOR THE LORD, then I have no argument with you. One Bible scholar wrote this: Note that Paul does not adjudicate the dis - agreement; that is, he does not implore the weak in faith to become meat-eaters. Instead, he levels the playing field by pointing out that people eat or abstain from meat in honor of the Lord (14:8). The church should be a place of welcome, where unity is found not in particular practices of piety, but in the fact that we belong to the Lord (14:7-8). God has welcomed us, Paul says; we, too, should welcome those whose piety differs from our own (14:3). (Audrey West, September 14, 2014) And, I would add, we should welcome them differences and all not to change them, not to make them conform to our ways, but because they are our brothers and sisters, and we are ONE in Christ. Since the beginning of our merger discussions, I would venture to say that nearly every person has asked or at least wondered What will we get what will my church get out of this merger? Perhaps the question we need to start

6 asking is, What will God get out of this merger? How will we HONOR THE LORD with this merger? Furthermore, as we begin our joint stewardship campaign with Westminster/Southminster, let me remind you that the purpose of stewardship is not to use your pledge as your vote, to indicate whether you re pleased or unhappy about the decisions of the church, to show whether you re in favor of a merger or not. The point of stewardship is as it always has been to HONOR THE LORD with our gifts of time, talent, and treasure entrusted to God s church. We belong to God all that we have and all that we are. "We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves," wrote Paul. "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. Let us remember, when we point a finger at others, there are three others still pointing back at us. May we welcome others, along with their differences, and may we seek to HONOR THE LORD in all that we do and say to the glory of God! AMEN.