Don’t Interfere!

Don: In Matthew 18 we have what we are calling the “pillars” of community. Last week we discussed the pillar of Innocence, dependency, freedom from fear, the death of ego. The second pillar comes in verse 5:

And whoever receives one such child in My name receives Me;

Then in verse 6 he says:

…but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in Me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck, and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.

What is a stumbling block? How is it, and to what extent, are we responsible for the spiritual welfare of others? Here it is placed in the negative sense: If I cause someone to stumble, I should be drowned. This is pretty radical language that Jesus is using here.

The idea that somehow I am responsible for the spiritual well being of others is a principle, a pillar of community, that Jesus is talking about. In a community, we have a responsibility for each other to some extent in terms of our spiritual development and our spiritual walk and how we are tolerant and able to accommodate the spiritual needs of others.

The phrase “stumbling block” is used more than a dozen times in scripture about the relationship between someone who is spiritually mature and someone who is not. In Romans 14 the principle is elaborated more.

Now accept the one who is weak in faith, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on his opinions. One person has faith that he may eat all things, but he who is weak eats vegetables only. The one who eats is not to regard with contempt the one who does not eat, and the one who does not eat is not to judge the one who eats, for God has accepted him. Who are you to judge the servant of another? To his own master he stands or falls; and he will stand, for the Lord is able to make him stand.

One person regards one day above another, another regards every day alike. Each person must be fully convinced in his own mind. He who observes the day, observes it for the Lord, and he who eats, does so for the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who eats not, for the Lord he does not eat, and gives thanks to God. For not one of us lives for himself, and not one dies for himself; for if we live, we live for the Lord, or if we die, we die for the Lord; therefore whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.

But you, why do you judge your brother? Or you again, why do you regard your brother with contempt? 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 give an account of himself to God.

Therefore let us not judge one another anymore, but rather determine this—not to put an obstacle or a stumbling block in a brother’s way. I know and am convinced in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself; but to him who thinks anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean. For if because of food your brother is hurt, you are no longer walking according to love. Do not destroy with your food him for whom Christ died. Therefore do not let what is for you a good thing be spoken of as evil; for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For he who in this way serves Christ is acceptable to God and approved by men. So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles. The faith which you have, have as your own conviction before God. Happy is he who does not condemn himself in what he approves. But he who doubts is condemned if he eats, because his eating is not from faith; and whatever is not from faith is sin.

What is the stumbling block that Jesus is referring to? How is it that I am or can become a stumbling block, how can I prevent that? And the classic question of all time in terms of taking responsibility: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” as the fratricidal Cain asked God.

Romans 14 parallels in many ways 1 Corinthians 8:

Now concerning things sacrificed to idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.

Therefore concerning the eating of things sacrificed to idols, we know that there is no such thing as an idol in the world, and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords, yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.

However not all men have this knowledge; but some, being accustomed to the idol until now, eat food as if it were sacrificed to an idol; and their conscience being weak is defiled. But food will not commend us to God; we are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do eat. But take care that this liberty of yours does not somehow become a stumbling block to the weak. For if someone sees you, who have knowledge, dining in an idol’s temple, will not his conscience, if he is weak, be strengthened to eat things sacrificed to idols? For through your knowledge he who is weak is ruined, the brother for whose sake Christ died. And so, by sinning against the brethren and wounding their conscience when it is weak, you sin against Christ. Therefore, if food causes my brother to stumble, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause my brother to stumble.

Paul’s writing often boils down to a set of behavioral instructions: What you should eat and drink, what days are sacred, etc. These often seem to be points of contention. Jesus is saying don’t be a stumbling block to each other.

In the kingdom of heaven, In a spiritual community, we are not alone. I am responsible for you, and you are responsible for me. We are responsible for one another. I am responsible for somehow not offending your conscience. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 8 :19-23:

For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a slave to all, so that I may win more. To the Jews I became as a Jew, so that I might win Jews; to those who are under the Law, as under the Law though not being myself under the Law, so that I might win those who are under the Law; to those who are without law, as without law, though not being without the law of God but under the law of Christ, so that I might win those who are without law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak; I have become all things to all men, so that I may by all means save some. I do all things for the sake of the gospel, so that I may become a fellow partaker of it.

We stand before god in a contractual relationship. We must show that we have upheld our part of the contract and done what god wants, knowing that he has seen our work, our behavior, how we ate, what we drank, how we observed the sacred days, etc. In the context this is really quite a different understanding as to what it means to stand each of us in account of himself before god. The context of this is clearly not as an individual but in my relationship with others. What is the context in which I stand before god? The context is my having been a stumbling block to somebody else, an enabler or disabler of spiritual growth in others. This again goes back to the idea of conscience. If you don’t believe it’s clean or right, then I have a duty to respect that belief. Romans 14:19-21:

So then we pursue the things which make for peace and the building up of one another. Do not tear down the work of God for the sake of food. All things indeed are clean, but they are evil for the man who eats and gives offense. It is good not to eat meat or to drink wine, or to do anything by which your brother stumbles.

Here the concept is that all of us have different ideas about what is right wrong in terms of superficial behaviors. But we have responsibility for others in this regard. Leviticus 19:14, about a series of Jewish laws, adds a little more insight:

You shall not curse a deaf man, nor place a stumbling block before the blind,…

The idea that you should not place a stumbling block before the blind is to be understood metaphorically. Clearly it would be inhumane and cruel to put obstacles in front of blind people. What is it that is blinding you and me and how may we not offend or disable one another by putting some sort of stumbling block before one another? There’s an immaturity, a lack of advancement, that seems to be at stake in terms of the stumbling block issue. If you are in communion with someone, in any religious group, who holds beliefs which you think are silly, then it seems you are responsible to ensure you don’t offend this person. This appears to bring everyone to the lowest common denominator. In 1 Corinthians 8 Paul talks a lot about freedom and liberty in Jesus. In the very same context as this, I am free, I can do whatever I want, eat whatever I want, go wherever I want, there is no such thing as pollution, but if my brother thinks that there is, I will respect his belief and not be a stumbling block to him.

So you and I are linked in our relationship with god. Ours is not just an individual, one-on-one, relationship with god. In the judgment scene in Matthew 25, the judgment has nothing to with personal piety, purity, and righteousness; rather, it has everything to do with one’s relationship with others. And in that context, Jesus makes the statement that if you have done this to the least of these my brothers you have done it unto me… Etc.

What is my responsibility in this concept of community? How can spiritual community ever grow if we constantly keep falling towards to the lowest common denominator?

Harry: Paul was taught by the great rabbis at a time when Judaism had become a religion of measurement: Have you achieved the goals set for you? Paul recognized that human nature leads us to measure ourselves in many different ways to which we cling tightly. Paul was practically drunk with freedom but recognized that most people are not, because they do not know that they can grow with god; that they live and die for god; that no matter what, they are with god. Most people who believe in god measure their closeness to god in increments. If you destroy their belief, they become insecure and might indeed stumble because you are kicking the legs out from under them. It is cruel to destroy people’s beliefs—their crutch.

You may live in a community but you cannot really participate in it [in the way we mundanely mean “participate.”] At least, I could not. You can only love people, help people, and let them be. God doesn’t call you to change the way people think, what they believe. He’s just asking us not to hurt others.

Veronika: Am I my brother’s keeper? I do have a responsibility to care about my brothers and sisters. Spiritually we are one; when we die, we become one. The ego is the separation of our true selves from this oneness. Where is the beginning and end of my role as a mother as being responsible for my children? I am responsible to teach and guide them, but I am not responsible ultimately for what they choose to believe. I cannot ultimately influence them, only myself. If I chance to influence others in a positive way through my own behavior, that’s fine.

Harry: We think we know god, but we don’t. Paul says you are going to live and die in god, so just let go of your ego. Leave it alone, and it will come to its own conclusions.

David: Perhaps we don’t know anything because the bible offers so many conflicting views. Don’t get in the way, don’t interfere, vs. Be a good Samaritan, etc. To me, the message “Don’t Interfere!” is the better one. I don’t think it reduces things to their lowest common denominator, any more than “offering the other cheek” reduces everything to its lowest-common-denominator: violence.

So with spirituality: If you enter a community and simply accept its beliefs as valid, alongside your own, you will be passively setting an example. That may or may not lead others to change their beliefs or behavior, but at least you are not actively interfering, you are not reducing things to some lowest common denominator.

Rimon: It seems to me to mean that if you see your brother eating meat, you should not judge him; rather, you should accept his behavior. But does it mean we should join in [—participate in the mundane sense—] or does it mean that we should simply keep an open mind?

Alice: We can be a stumbling block just by the way we act. If you act like a godly person, the spirit will be in you and everything you do will be out of love and from god, and will be perceived as such. Instead of worrying about whether to intervene in the lives of others, we should look after ourselves. If we live out of the spirit and not out of the ego, we will have good relationships with everyone. People will not be “stumbled” by eating or not eating meat.

Robin: It has to do with judging people as being inferior to us. In scripture we can find definitions of what is good to do, such as the Samaritan. There is nothing wrong in interfering in this way—to help someone. But there are also evil instances of interference such as purposely hurting someone, physically, emotionally, or spiritually.  And then there are gray areas of interference, in which most of us probably indulge. We are told that things in the gray area, such as how you should eat, how you should worship, are supernatural mandates of god passed on to us through the holy spirit.

You might find yourself falling into a conversation about such things, but that is not the same as forcing the issue—of imposing it on others. I am the only Adventist in my family, so the issue of food has come up often. My family often would not make a particular dish for fear of offending me. I would tell them not to worry.

My brother-in-law found the bible passages that say it’s not the things that go into the mouth that defile a man but the things that come out of the mouth. But he also found the same passage in Romans and Corinthians where it says that if you don’t do something that your brother does concerning meat or diet, you should not judge him; that it may be a sin for him to do this, but it is not a sin for you to do it.

This is the gray area in which god guides us individually. It’s not our job to recruit, or to coerce, people to the views we develop there. Contention is not honored by god. Even in this class, we sometimes let our personalities divide us by our desire to conquer the views of the other. We let ourselves be distracted from humility and the lesson that god is trying to teach us.

Don: Historically we have done a pretty good job at hanging and drawing people and burning them at the stake for not conforming to our views, for eating and saying things different from us, for refusing to recant, and so on. So to find tolerance among Christians would seem surprising!

Harry: We can’t see god but we want to measure our closeness. Muslims measure their closeness to god by the number of times they pray, and so on. It’s not so much about judging than it is about the freedom of knowing that you are god’s, no matter what. I eat meat, but I would not bring meat to an Adventist church picnic.

Don: Generally, the idea of rituals is taken to be to serve as pillars to strengthen the community. But Jesus flatly rejects that idea. What really strengthens community is tolerance, not ritual. Not drinking, or not dancing, or not accepting blood transfusions are all ritual acts designed to build community, but it seems that these are the very things that become stumbling blocks to true community. Maybe they are components of pseudo-community, one of whose distinguishing features is a tendency toward like-mindedness and like behaviors.

Harry: The more you adhere to these kinds of thinking—to the idea of not being a stumbling block—the further you distance yourself from community. The blessing is that you don’t need community because you are closer to god. It brings a natural freedom to do such things as, for example, to visit and enjoy the true beauty of an ornate Catholic church. With the kind of freedom I am talking about, you need not judge it; instead, you can just enjoy it!

The less you say, the more other people will be exposed directly to god. They are god’s responsibility, not ours.

Robin: God is so incomprehensibly big that no institution can lay legitimate claim to the complete Truth. We are blessed if we can have just one special thing that maybe we understand. And maybe every denomination has something special, something a little different, to show. But the total concept of god cannot possibly be held by any one particular creed.

David: Daoist philosophy says it is pointless and counter-productive actively to seek the Way (god). You simply go with—you take—the Way you see immediately before you. Ideally, you totally abandon your ego, and then you are one with god. It’s difficult to reach that stage while you are still alive, but if we were capable of it, would it matter if someone gave you bacon and eggs? If you have no ego, and bacon and eggs are placed in your way [your Way], what is left to stop you from eating them?

Rimon: Some people won’t eat bacon just because they don’t like it!

Joe: I am Catholic. Many of our traditions make no sense to young people. But the traditions have no real depth, and therefore shouldn’t matter.

Robin: That’s Paul’s point.

Veronika: I show respect to local people and cultures wherever I go. I try to eat things I might not usually eat. I suppress my ego.

David: We all in this group are tolerant and give up at least a portion of our egos to listen to each others’ views.

Eb: Follow the Golden Rule—Do unto others that which you would have them do unto you. This takes you out of the center, and it puts the other person in the center. This is what Jesus wants us to do. It should become our second nature.

Alice: Might churches be stumbling blocks by teaching things that we become adamant about? How do we know that what we are adamant about is the truth? Suppose it is not the truth, and we thereby cause children to stumble? How can we know? Perhaps we are stumbling blocks but with the best of intentions.

Joe: That’s understandable, since all religions are man-made, and we are imperfect—there are bound to be imperfections.

Don: Yes, that’s Jesus’s point, amplified by Paul in Romans 14 and 1 Corinthians 8; namely, that true community is tolerant and open to a variety of ritual and behavior. Such tolerance is not found in pseudo community, which seeks instead to press everyone into a mold. Our church community tries to press members into a mold of uniform belief, behavior, understanding, possession of truth, etc. But Jesus begs to differ: People have their own individual spiritual path to take, and we must be respectful of that and not feel an obligation to persuade them away from their path.

Jazlin: Two hospital people on the radio were talking about trying to hire people who don’t smoke, etc.  One of them said that then we should hire Adventists! I’ve had similar respect shown in Russia and Turkey. The world respects our mold. There is nothing wrong with our mold. I can see the need for tolerance in a spiritual sense, but in the mundane sense, intervention in health, education, and so on, is important for growth and change. So while being tolerant, we should uphold what we believe in.

Don: In medicine, we never intervene without the permission of the patient, without explaining the intervention in detail to the patient and answering the patient’s questions about it, and then we leave the decision up to the patient. There are certainly many things that churches do that are positive. The question is how to treat those who don’t agree with us—whether to pillory them or offer them something they can choose to accept of their own free will.

 

* * *