My good friend, Harvey Lewis, is an elite ultramarathoner living here in Cincinnati. He has set world records and loves competing against the best in the world. He gives a lot of credit for his success to his plant-based diet. He’s vegan. How do you know he’s a vegan? Oh, he’ll tell you. “David,” he tells me, in every other conversation we have, “You’ve got to go plant-based for your diet.” He has a long list of reasons why: better cholesterol, less inflammation, easier weight loss, longer life.
He’s convinced I’ll run better, and that a plant-based diet will extend my running longevity.
It sounds convincing, doesn’t it? His way—a vegan diet—is the way to run far and for a long time.
If you listen to him long enough, you would question how anybody could possibly run 100 miles by eating anything other than bean sprouts and blueberries.
I happen to eat poultry and dairy products. Somehow I’m still able to run a dozen ultras in a year.
We’re all different. Some people run with music in their ears. Some train in groups, others train solo. Some swear by minimalist shoes; others want thick cushioning. I finally bought a pair of expensive running shoes for a recent race, only to discover that my poor performance wasn’t because of the shoes.
I think it was the socks.
There are many ways to get to the finish line. And when you are in the finishers chute at the end of a race, when you are wearing a finisher’s medal just like the runner next to you, it doesn’t matter if you wear Brooks or Nike, if you did hill work, or ate a burger during your training.
You don’t quarrel over opinions at this point – you’re too exhausted. The differences are minor.
I see how our lives together as Christians can be the same way. We can spend energy arguing about how we run the spiritual race, while God is far more concerned that we run it faithfully. What happens when we care more about being right about minor issues than being faithful to God?
We have seen whole denominations be split over a seemingly minor issue. When have we forgotten what is major in God’s eyes?
Don’t major in the minors.
Paul works hard in this passage to point this out. He’s saying we shouldn’t focus on disputable issues. He recognizes that there are gray areas in our religious practices, and that’s okay. It’s okay, as long as each person is focused on honoring the Lord Jesus Christ, our major focus.
I remember once watching a woman do an interpretive dance at a church service. Not my cup of tea. I felt uncomfortable watching it. But that was my problem. She was honoring God. I would call that a gray area.
My NIV translation of today’s passage starts with the misleading subtitle, “The Weak and the Strong.” That already sounds judgy, doesn’t it? It certainly threw me for a curve, but it doesn’t mean what it sounds like. Commentaries point out that weak vs. strong isn’t a measure of someone’s faithfulness, but rather the width. I like that: the “width.”
Someone with “weak” faith has a narrow and focused faith, not weaker as we would generally define the word. They observe holy days and the Sabbath more carefully, and eat – or not eat – specific foods. They might abstain from drinking alcohol.
Someone who has a “strong” faith sees more freedom, a wider scope and breadth in their faith. They would eat a wider variety of foods; perhaps observe all days the same way, without a focus on the Sabbath.
The temptation for the strong is to despise the weak: “Why can’t you see that this doesn’t matter?” The temptation for the weak is to judge the strong: “How can you possibly think that’s okay?”
Paul tells the weak and the strong of faith the same thing my mother used to tell her twins: “Stop it, both of you!”
He doesn’t tell the strong to defeat the weak. He doesn’t tell the weak to convert the strong.
It’s right there in verse 3, and it’s enormously important. “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.”
There is a story about Ruth Graham, wife of the famous evangelist, that illustrates how differences can threaten our unity. Mrs. Graham, dressed and made up as would seem fitting for any American woman in the 1970s, attended a luncheon with wives of conservative pastors in Germany. These German Christians had more conservative ideas regarding how women should look. They did not believe that married Christian women should wear makeup or clothing that made them look too much “like the world.” As a result, a German pastor’s wife, sitting across from Ruth Graham, became very upset. She thought it was shameful that the wife of this famous evangelist looked so worldly. Why, Ruth Graham was even wearing mascara! The German pastor’s wife became so angry that she started crying right into her beer.//
Meanwhile, Ruth Graham couldn’t understand why the woman was crying, although it bothered her that a self-respecting pastor’s wife was drinking beer at a meeting to prepare for an evangelistic crusade where Christians come together as the unified body of Christ.
Wear a necktie or torn jeans to a church service? To each his – or her – own, I say. Pleasant Plain Presbyterian Church in our presbytery is encouraging – actually encouraging! – their congregants to wear orange and black today to worship to celebrate opening day for the Bengals. Is it appropriate? Paul says don’t judge each other. He might not feel that way about a Steelers jersey.
I mentioned different versions and translations of today’s scripture reading. Gray area.
Paul was dealing with his own contested questions—food, holy days, Jewish law—and he refused to let those questions become more important than the unity of Christ’s people.
He doesn’t adjudicate the disagreements. Instead, he points out that their practices are done to honor the Lord. He tells both of them to stop judging each other. He wants unity.
We have seen how disagreements over contested questions can become so important to us that they threaten the unity of the church. Look at the United Methodist Church in the last decade, for example.
We can’t major in the minors.
We’ve established some areas that could or should be minor: food, special days, alcohol, clothing, worship styles, Bible translations, cultural practices.
We’ve established what Paul is telling us are major things: honoring Christ and maintaining the unity of his people. And Paul tells us why.
Christians bear with and accept one another when their actions are focused on honoring Christ. Even if Romans 14:1-6 seems to be discussing trivial practices, Romans 14:8-9 definitely doesn’t. “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.”
Christ died and rose again so that he might be Lord over all of us: over Jew and Gentile, vegan and omnivore, the living and the dead.
Paul then asks, “Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister?” “Why do you treat them with contempt?” He’s saying, you belong to Christ./ So does the person you’re judging.//
Paul ultimately asks, “Who gets to decide what’s important?” It’s not us. God is the judge of all of us. And one judge is enough. When we judge others over these matters, we’re taking a place that belongs to God.
Paul closes this passage with the bonus verse 13, the corollary to verse 10: “Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another.” Make sure you don’t put a stumbling block in another believer’s way. Don’t judge them, and don’t harm them.
We’ve met the vegan. We’ve met the teetotaler. We’ve met the woman who thought mascara was worldly.
Different convictions. Different ways to run the race.
And perhaps that’s exactly why Paul asks us:
Why would you be looking at someone else’s race?
You have your race. They have theirs. We don’t judge their race, we don’t block their race.
We may have different training.
Different diet.
Different shoes.
Different socks.
So this week, when you catch yourself judging someone else’s race, stop and ask: “Is this major to God, or is it merely major to me?”
Then, if it’s a minor, gray area:
Don’t judge them. Don’t block them. Let them run their race.
We’re called to faithfully run the race God has marked out for us.
Don’t major in the minors, because there is something far more important: we belong to the Lord.
And because we belong to him, let us run faithfully, live graciously, and leave the judging to God.
To the Lord our God, Alpha and Omega, beginning and end, be all glory and honor forever.
