Thursday, 23^rd week in ordinary time – 10^th September 2026 – 1 Cor 8:1b-7 & Luke 6:27-38

 In Corinth, as in other cities of Paul’s day, the public and private worship of the many deities of the Greco-Roman world included animal sacrifices. Slaughterhouses were often located next to temples. Parts of these slain animals would be consumed by the altar fire but the leftovers might either be given to priests or other worshipers or be sold in the market places. Some persons used portions of this consecrated food to give banquets at home or in the temples in honour of a god, and persons were invited to the feast or to eat in communion with the deity.

The question that arose among the Corinthian Christians was, as a believer in Christ, living in Corinth could one buy and eat this meat?

Corinth was known in the first century as the quintessential pagan town, and it would have been difficult for believers in Christ to live in Corinth in a manner completely separate from the world around them. Some Christians at Corinth had a simple solution. They held that the whole range of questions relating to should we eat such meat or not was of no consequence. If one ate or did not eat it he was none the better or the worse (vs. 8). Keep in mind that when Paul deals with the community, he always tries to establish a behaviour that takes into account both, the fact that the believers in Christ live inside the world, but are also clearly separate from it.

In principle, Paul seems to be voicing his basic agreement with the premises of some of the Corinthians that what you eat, even if it is offered to idols is of no consequence because we do not recognise the existence of idols; “no idol in the world really exists, there is no God but one.” (See verse 4).

The Corinthian Christians may have reasoned like this: if idols are really nothing, then it means nothing to eat meat sacrificed to ‘nothing idols’, and it must mean nothing to eat in the buildings used to worship these nothing idols. Paul himself says, “Food will not bring us closer to God. We are no worse off if we do not eat and no better off if we do eat.

However (and this is an important ‘however’) this ‘knowledge’ or this ability to understand, is not understood by all and those who understand this may flaunt it in the face of those who are scandalised by It and become a stumbling block to those Christians who are weak in the faith. (verse9) .

It is clear, that the weak man to whom Paul refers to is the Christian with an uneasy conscience about anything associated with idol worship. To the man of knowledge and understanding, this ‘weak brother or sister’ may appear to be over-scrupulous. The knowledgeable brother may argue that adequate knowledge should dispel once and for all absurd fears. But Paul knows that there were several new converts from paganism to Christianity who could be scandalised by the behaviour of some and misunderstand their act of eating such meat as an act of sacrilege and apostasy.

In principle, Paul says it is not evil for anyone to purchase this idol meat and eat it in one’s home or another’s, but in practice some persons by doing so will be led to relapse into paganism or confusion of the faith. So, Paul makes the principle clearer. Our actions can never be based only on what we know to be right for ourselves. We also need to consider what is right towards our brothers and sisters in Jesus.

It is easy for a Christian to say, “I answer to God and God alone” and to ignore his brother or sister. It is true we will answer to God and God alone, but we will answer to God for how we have treated our brother or sister. So, if our actions are going to cause scandal to our brothers and sisters we should not eat meat offered to idols.

Love must check knowledge because there is always the danger of intellectual pride. Knowledge without empathy creates a toxic hierarchy within a faith community. As Paul outlines elsewhere in this letter, knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. True spiritual maturity is demonstrated not by how much liberty a person can claim, but by how much liberty they are willing to surrender for the sake of another person’s spiritual health.

Also, there are limits of Christian freedom; freedom is not autonomy. Christian liberty is never absolute; it is bounded by the law of love. A believer’s individual rights stop where a brother or sister’s spiritual well-being is jeopardized.

A faith community will always contain a mixture of mature believers and new converts (“weak brothers or sisters”) carrying baggage from their past lives. Pastoral wisdom involves creating an environment where the vulnerable are protected from spiritual whiplash and confusion. What looks like an “absurd fear” to one person might be a genuine battleground of faith and faithfulness for another.

The Gospel of today is a continuation of the ‘Sermon on the Plain’ which is so called because some of the saying of Jesus also found in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s Gospel, is found here. What is most definitely different from Matthew’s Gospel is the setting; Jesus does not deliver the sermon on a mount but “has come down with them to a level place” 6:17 and hence is called the ‘sermon on the plain.’

One needs to keep in mind that when Luke writes the Gospel his perspective of an ‘all inclusive’ Jesus shines forth constantly and within this perspective are special focus groups like the poor.  Jesus proclaimed that membership in the “poor of God “was not restricted to an exclusive group. For Luke, those who accept and confess that God’s kingdom is brought about by Jesus on behalf of the “poor of God” or the anawim (Hebrew for the poor) are members of the kingdom.

It is for this reason that today’s Gospel begins with the words, “but I say to you who listen”. It is to the would-be disciples who are willing to listen that these words are addressed. It is these disciples who will face persecution as a consequence of their choice to stand with Jesus and His kingdom. The response of the disciple must be radical so that those who see the disciple’s response of love in the face of violence are left amazed. Being slapped in the face or stripped naked flies in the face of the natural human tendency to place self-protection first. It is for this reason that Luke introduces the theme of love of enemies here and the same theme will pervade this Gospel in several stories dealing with the Samaritans who were the enemies of the Jews.

This radical demand to love one’s enemies includes sharing one’s possessions with them for Jesus says, “give to EVERYONE who begs from you” and “do not demand back from the person who takes them.”  With this in mind Luke brings in the ‘golden rule’ as the jewel in the crown to this teaching on love of enemies. The disciples are to “do to others as they would love others to do unto them.”

This mandate required the disciple to act first, love first forgive first without the hope of “expecting anything in return.” For Luke, only when one “does good”, even though one has not been given anything and only when one expects nothing in return does one get, quite unexpectedly not only “thanks” but also reward from God.

As God stands to the needy world with the gracious gift of salvation, so the disciple should stand to the poor of society in generous open handedness.