God’s kingdom is justice, peace, and joy. Not food.

Romans 14.14-18

There’s an American saying, “Don’t major in the minors,” which is actually not about baseball: It’s about how we mustn’t make a big deal out of irrelevant things. Minor issues shouldn’t take up the majority of our time and brainpower.

But all too often, they do. Happens in politics all the time. There’s an art form to it: Get everybody riled up about something which doesn’t actually matter, but really triggers people’s prejudices, and they won’t notice the more important problems which you’re not dealing with—or worse, causing.

In Romans 14 the particular issue is vegetarians versus omnivores. Ro 14.2 The issue wasn’t meat per se, but animals that had been ritually sacrificed to pagan gods, and their meat sold at discount, which helped fund the pagan temples. Certain Christians figured this meant the meat was now cursed, and they didn’t want their money going to support pagan worship, so they’d rather be vegetarian. Other Christians figured pagan gods aren’t real gods, 1Co 8.4 and if you bless God when you eat that meat, it’s all good.

People are still easily outraged by other people’s diets. I’ve known vegans who were offended by the existence of meat-eaters, and hunters who were offended by the existence of vegans. Not their bad behavior (and both groups can be mighty ill-behaved), their existence. They don’t want them to exist. They want everyone to be exactly like them, and if they refuse to conform, they must die. Well, not die; be force-fed nothing but meat, or nothing but vegetables. Make ’em violate their consciences in exactly the way Paul of Tarsus told the Romans not to. Ro 14.22-23

In today’s passage, Paul admits he’s in the omnivore camp. He has no problem with eating such meat. A steak is a steak; it’s all steak, so it’s all good. But—if you’re eating it to antagonize the vegetarians of your church, and show off your freedom of conscience and “freedom in Christ,” you’re being evil.

Likewise the vegetarians who get rid of all the meat in the dinner, and force the omnivores among them to eat like they do. Forcing others to be like you, instead of encouraging others to be like Jesus, is not Christian, no matter how Christian you might claim to be.

Romans 14.14-18 KWL

14I knew,

and was convinced by the Master Jesus,

that nothing is inherently unclean

unless someone reckons something to be unclean—

then it’s only unclean to that person.

15For if your¹ fellow Christian

is bothered by food,

you’re¹ no longer walking in love.

Don’t destroy that person over your¹ food!

Christ Jesus dies for them.¹

16So people mustn’t slander

your² good deeds,

17for God’s kingdom isn’t food and drink,

but justice and peace,

and joy in the Holy Spirit;

18for one who serves Christ Jesus in these things

is pleasing to God

and appreciated by people.

In either case, focusing on food, and what our fellow Christians should and shouldn’t be eating—especially during fast times, like Daniel fasts or Lent—is once again majoring in the minors. Our religious practices are not what’s important in Christianity. Our moral practices are.

God’s kingdom is exemplified by justice, peace, and joy. Which are best exhibited when we love one another. And love neighbors, enemies, pagans, heretics, and even antichrists. When we function as Jesus to them on his behalf. When we promote the kingdom through that behavior—not our condemnation, which is something Jesus himself refuses to practice. Jn 3.17

Judgmental Christians and the gospel.

Nobody appreciates a judgmental Christian. Not pagans, not fellow Christians. Not even other judgmental Christians: You might judge too leniently or too strictly for their taste.

Being judgmental immediately identifies you as a Christian jerk, and hobbles your ability to do good deeds for other people. Back when I was a young hypocrite, I’d behave like a jerk an awful lot of the time; some days most of the time. (I’d figure it was okay, ’cause I was in the right.) I was really slow to realize that because of this bad behavior, whenever I tried to do a good deed, people would eye me with suspicion: “What’s your angle? What do you gain from this? Are you setting me up for failure?” Why would a jerk be a good person, unless it’s part of some elaborate scheme to do greater evil?

This is why Paul warns against people slandering our good deeds. Ro 14.16 It’s not a warning to those people, as I’ve heard preachers put it; pagans aren’t gonna read the New Testament! It’s a warning to Christians, who are giving pagans a reason to slander our good deeds, and claim we’re doing them for personal gain instead of Jesus. Our lifestyles demonstrate we’re usually doing ’em for personal gain instead of Jesus. And on the rare occasions we actually do ’em for Jesus, pagans are understandably gonna doubt, and that’s on us.

When I finally cut out the hypocrisy and tried to authentically follow Jesus, this hinderance became more obvious. I finally started to see it in some of my misbehaving fellow Christians.

Fr’instance I’d invite my pagan friends to Billy Graham’s conferences. They’d come because they knew Billy Graham as a good and non-judgmental person. He used to be judgmental, back in the 1950s and ’60s and ’70s. But he’d been burned by those experiences, and learned the hard way we Christians have to be better than that. Anyway Billy was scaling back his activities, due to age, and handed ’em off to his son Franklin long before he died in 2018. I’ve found I can’t invite pagans to Franklin Graham’s conferences, because Franklin’s publicly said so many judgmental and partisan things about pagans. They think he’s a jerk and don’t trust anything he has to say about God’s grace. It’s a shame. Fortunately there are other evangelists who haven’t compromised the gospel in favor of Christian nationalism.

Pagans have found judgmental Christians to be a great excuse to avoid Christianity altogether. And, unfortunately, so have Christians. There’s a growing number of Christians who have quit going to church, quit worshiping with fellow Christians on a regular basis, quit even calling themselves Christian, because they’re so very tired of their fellow Christians’ judgment. Every word out of Pastor’s mouth has gotta denounce or ridicule something. Every sermon has to condemn sin, whether actual sins spelled out in the bible, or things which trespass against popular Christian culture but Jesus never weighed in on ’em. Every gossipy church lady has to grumble against something she considers unacceptable; usually behind the offender’s back, but sometimes passive-aggressively to their face, and sometimes bluntly to their face, depending on how bold she is. I’m not even gonna get into the angry stuff they post on social media.

The result has been lower church attendance in the United States, and fewer Americans identifying themselves as Christian because they recognize if they’re not in a church, they’ve gone wrong. Are they still Christian?—does Jesus still recognize them as one of his? Maybe. But if you’re not plugged in to a church, it’s much easier to forget what you’ve seen Jesus do among our fellow Christians, and much easier to ultimately decide, “Y’know what? I’m not Christian.”

And that is what Paul means when he warns the Romans, “Don’t destroy that other person over your food!” Ro 14.15 Don’t antagonize ’em so much they refuse your fellowship… and later decide they don’t want Jesus’s fellowship either. ’Cause if this is how his people behave, what must he be like? I mean, most people are quite aware Jesus isn’t a dick, but there are certain antichrists who’d love for you to think he is, lest Jesus’s well-known goodness makes you doubt your unbelief.

So we need to be on our guard against any jerk-like misbehavior which comes from us promoting our favorite issues over God’s priorities. And I remind you those priorities are “justice and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.” Ro 14.17 They’re about being fair-minded and right-minded towards everyone. They’re about resolving disagreements, ending fights and feuds, apologizing and repenting and making restitution for what we’ve destroyed, and being peacemakers “for they shall be called the children of God.” Mt 5.9 And they’re about joy—about being happy we are freed from sin and death, happy we’re unburdened by guilt and condemnation and can love all the people others condemn, happy regardless of our difficulties and suffering because our hopes are correctly placed in Jesus.

That stuff pleases God, and other people appreciate it as well. Ro 14.18 Most pagans are fully aware Jesus is good, and Christians oughta behave like our Lord who we claim to follow. And they’re mighty suprised and impressed when we actually do. Which is sad, ’cause it oughta be more common, and isn’t. But that’s why Paul warns about people slandering our good deeds.

When we don’t see those priorities among Christians and their churches, when they major in the minors and ignore the actual majors, we know they’ve gone wrong, and we need to stay away from them and keep following Jesus regardless.