Theology of Food and Healing
a sermon based on Mark 1:21-28 and 1 Cor. 8:1-13
by Rev. Hollis Wright (HW in HI)

Today we’re going to consider two areas that were of great concern to the ancients. The first is eating the food of sacrifice. The second is demonic possession.

When Paul wrote to the Christians attending church in Corinth, the church was divided. The difference was theology and the issue was eating meat. Virtually all the meat sold in the market place had been offered up to false idols – the Roman and Greek gods. So, if you wanted to eat meat, that is what you bought. The meat of an animal that had been offered to an idol. Paul wrote, “some have become so accustomed to idols until now, they still think of the food they eat as food offered to an idol...” There were those in the church who were new to the faith and had once been involved in the pagan rituals of animal sacrifice. To them, eating meat sacrificed to idols was so much a part of their old way of life that they just couldn't do it any more. To them it was the same as bowing down and worshiping the pagan gods. Contrast them with long-time believers. To the long-time believers, idols meant nothing, so eating the meat that had been sacrificed to them had no meaning. In Corinth the "meat-eaters" were looking down their noses at the "non-meat-eaters" and saying something like, "Oh come on! Grow up! Get over it! Just eat the meat! It's not that big of a deal!" But, it was to them! In fact, to them it was unthinkable. What we’re hearing about is a food fight -- a food fight 2,000 years ago. The issue wasn’t really meat though, it was theology. One group clearly saw the eating of sacrificed meat as a tie to idol worship, the other just as clearly did not. It was important to be right.

What happened was instructive. Paul did not say, “Let’s ferret out the truth and run the losers out of town. Let’s rid ourselves of heretics.” But that was the approach taken by church leaders just a few years after Paul’s death. And Paul did not say, “Oh, well, let’s just split the church and start a new denomination.” Today, that is likely what would happen.

It is so important to so many of us to be right. We want to be right in our lives and in our beliefs. We are not so different than the earliest Christians. Today there are some 1,580 Christian denominations, largely because people insisted on being right. We can easily find churches claiming to be the one true church. The Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Roman Catholics each teach that theirs is the only true religion. Some would argue that Mormon’s and Jehovah’s Witnesses are not actually Christian, so that would leave only the Roman Catholics claiming to be the one true church. But no matter. Many Fundamentalist and other Evangelical denominations refuse to recognize the validity of each other's teachings, claiming that their beliefs are the only true beliefs. Then there are those who believe that the church consists only of those who have been “saved” or “born again”.

 

We do not want a church founded on falsehood. But we tread dangerous ground when we try to say who is right. Ambrose Bierce said, “To be positive is to be mistaken at the top of one's voice.” That would go for the Episcopal Church, as much as any other. There was a bishop about a century ago who pronounced from his pulpit and in the periodical he edited that heavier-than-air flight was both impossible and contrary to the will of God. His name was Bishop Wright. So far as I know, we are not related – he and I. But he had two sons, Orville and Wilbur! The Bishop was sure of himself, but wrong. We can get in the same predicament in the church. But Paul had another answer. He wrote, “ ‘Food will not bring us close to God.’ We are no worse off if we do not eat, and no better off if we do.” He told them it didn’t matter who was right. He said, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” The answer was not to be right, but to love one’s Christian brother and sister so deeply as to support them. He said of those who couldn’t stand to eat the meat that had been sacrificed to idols, “Therefore, if food is a cause of their falling, I will never eat meat, so that I may not cause one of them to fall.”

None of this is to speak against theology. I believe it was John W. Gardner who wrote, “An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent theologian. The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in theology because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good theology. Neither its pipes nor its sermons will hold water.”

(note to readers: Gardner is said to have written the same words about philosophy, and it may well be that his original reference was to philosophy and not theology.)

Our theology is important. Which brings us to the Gospel Lesson from Mark.: Jesus calls an unclean spirit to come out of a man. It is easier, I think, to understand people refusing to eat meat that had been sacrificed to idols – than it is to understand unclean spirits. Most of us know vegetarians, few of us have ever met anyone with multiple personality disorder. We don’t understand mental illness very well. We are fairly sure, most of us, that those who suffer from it should be able to control it. The exception would be our own depression, or the depression of loved ones. Depression probably gives many of us the best window we can find to relate to mental illness. If we have not personally suffered from depression, there’s an excellent chance we know someone who has. Health experts tell us that during any six month period, approximately 6.6 percent of women and 3.5 percent of men will have a depressive disorder. Further, some form of depression affects over 19 million Americans each year.

We know a little more about mental struggles than they did 2,000 years ago, but still, not much. The ancients had another way of dealing with it. People who behaved outside the norm were possessed by an unclean spirit. There didn’t seem to be a sense that a person had done something to bring on the unclean spirit, or that they could control it if they really wanted to. It was outside their control. If you’ve ever spent sometime dealing with someone who struggles with depression or a greater mental disorder, you know that’s true: for the most part, it is no more all in their heads than are heart attacks or cancer. So 2,000 years ago they had uncontrolled unclean spirits. And Jesus could call out the unclean spirit.

Jesus was teaching in a holy place, the synagogue. He was teaching with great authority and the man with the unclean spirit or mental illness or demon possession was there also. And Jesus commanded the spirit to come out. And so it did. The question for each one of us is: How do we bring our theology to bear on something like this? What is the church’s position? What do we think?

To begin with, it seems that Jesus had a tremendous capacity to heal. He laid hands upon people and they were healed. It is so widely reported in the New Testament as to be indisputable. He was perhaps most gentle to those struggling with mental illness. He laid his hands upon them, or he simply said the word, and they were healed.

The church supports healing of all sorts. Healing that comes from diagnosis by qualified physicians. Healing that comes by eating right and exercising and Chinese medicine. And healing that comes through prayer as well as the laying on of hands.

What about exorcism? That’s the real question, isn’t it? How can we, 2,000 years later, accept exorcism? The first thing to address is demonic possession. If we start from the premise that all illness somehow comes from that which is evil – if we can accept that God would never wish illness upon us – then we can perhaps move to some more active form. We are more likely to call it multiple personality disorder than demonic possession. Our church allows for the possibility that that could happen. We allow for the possibility of exorcism. Our theology says that God has the power to do anything. That includes resurrect his Son. That includes heal his people.

There have been instances when people were told that if they really prayed they would be healed. So, since they weren’t healed, they must not really believe in God, they must not have really prayed. The truth is, we don’t know why God sometimes breaks through all the natural laws he created, and heals. But sometimes it happens. We do know that when Jesus dealt with sick people he had great compassion for them. You know, he never went up to the townspeople and said, “Where are your sick?” Rather, they sought him. They always sought him. It would seem that our theology around illness both of the body and the mind should have something to do with seeking God first.

Let’s see if we can tie together the theology of food and the theology of healing. In ancient Corinth Paul said that fighting over whether a certain diet did or did not support the worship of idols was wrong. What was right was for each side to support the other. The theology of food was really a theology of ecumenism, which is to say supporting other Christians. Healing is the work of God, whether it comes through prayer, medicine, changes in diet or any other way.

Theology helps us define our belief system and helps us figure out where we stand. But I would suggest that when we insist on theology over the truth that is Christ, we can get confused. Hans Kung is a noted theologian of our time. He was addressing a group of seminary students in New York City. When he finished speaking there was time for questions and answers. He was asked, “What is the greatest truth of God that you’ve personally uncovered?” He answered, “Jesus loves me, this I know.” Amen.