NOTES for Rom 14:13-23

Paul draws attention to what can destroy peace within the church community. What should be done if observant Jews, for whom all the religious prescriptions of Judaism matter, and Gentiles, who care nothing about these prescriptions, sit at one table during the meal of the breaking of bread?

May non-kosher food be put on the table simply because questions of kashrut are no longer relevant for Christians? On the one hand, it may be, and the one who refuses kosher food cannot be accused of apostasy. But on the other hand, there are also the relationships among members of the community. Relationships of mutual love. The apostle understands perfectly well that a person clings to religion not from strength but from weakness.

From spiritual weakness, which, by not allowing a person to experience relationship with God and with Christ in all its fullness, forces him to seek support in what has no direct relation either to the Kingdom or to spiritual life.

Religion is crutches. But can one take crutches away from someone who cannot get along without them simply because others, healthy and strong, get along perfectly well without them? Clearly not. And even showing off one's strength and health before those deprived of them is not especially brotherly. Of course, the point is not that the healthy should pretend to be sick or behave like the sick.

But if it has turned out that the road must be shared with those who cannot get along without crutches, it is the healthy who must adjust their pace on the road to the sick, not the other way around. Of course, a person who feels his strength always wants to give it free rein and express himself in all fullness. But then he will have to forget about the weak, about those who cannot keep up with the strong. And together with them he will have to forget about love, without which no strength is worth anything.

Paul draws attention to what can destroy peace within a church community. What should be done if faithful Jews, for whom all the religious prescriptions of Judaism are important, and pagans, who care nothing for those prescriptions, sit at one table during the meal of the breaking of bread?

May non-kosher food be placed on the table simply because questions of kashrut are no longer relevant for Christians? On the one hand, it may, and no accusation of apostasy can be brought against someone who refuses kosher food. But on the other hand, there are also relations between members of the community. Relations of mutual love. The apostle understands perfectly well that a person clings to religion not from strength, but from weakness.

From spiritual weakness, which, not allowing a person to experience relations with God and with Christ in all their fullness, forces him to seek support in what has no direct relation either to the Kingdom or to spiritual life.

Religion is crutches. But can crutches be taken away from one who cannot do without them merely because others, healthy and strong, manage perfectly well without them? Obviously not. And even flaunting one's strength and health before those who lack them is not very brotherly. Of course, this does not mean that the healthy should pretend to be sick or behave as the sick do.

But if it has happened that the road must be shared with those who cannot do without crutches, it is precisely the healthy who must adjust their pace on the road to the sick, not the other way around. Of course, a person who feels his strength always wants to give it free rein and show himself in all his fullness. But then he will have to forget about the weak, about those who cannot keep up with the strong. And together with them he will have to forget about love, without which no strength is worth anything.

In Yahwism, as in Judaism, the concepts of purity and impurity were key in religious life. At first glance it may appear that these are purely ritual restrictions, partly borrowed from the pagan world. But that is not quite so. The concepts of purity and impurity were connected with those ideas about life and the human being that belonged to pre-exilic Yahwism and then became common in Judaism as well. The Bible describes the human being as a twofold unity, a spiritual-natural creature. God 'breathes' into the human being's 'nostrils' - so it says in the Hebrew text - the breath of life that makes him human. And human life itself is a stream that includes both spiritual and natural components. God's breath of life touches nature in the human being, penetrating it and changing its quality. This stream of life is called by the Hebrew word usually translated into Russian as 'soul.'

Naturally, the intensity and quality of this life stream can vary. In the world and in human life there is something that clogs its channel and slows its flow - this is what biblical language calls impurity or defilement. First of all, of course, a person is defiled by the consequences of committed sin. But in pre-Christian times there were also other things in the world that could defile a person and lead to the shallowing and exhaustion of the stream of his life. Everything connected with death, decay, entropy - all such things diminished the measure of a person's fullness of life and lowered its quality. And in such a state, meeting God became problematic for a person, or even impossible: for in order to meet Him and experience the reality of His presence in the place He Himself had chosen, one already had to possess a certain minimum fullness and intensity of one's own existence. In Sheol, in the realm of the dead, God is not praised because His presence does not reveal itself there: the existence led there by the dead is existence at a minimum, when the stream of life has almost completely dried up. Before the coming of Christ, all this had to be taken into account.

But with Christ the Kingdom entered the world with all its fullness of life, previously unseen and unknown. Now everyone who lives this life no longer needs to fear that some processes in the untransformed world will prevent him from living the whole fullness of the life of the Kingdom. Now only his own sin can hinder a person. And, of course, fear of impurity: for fear often creates its own object. Whoever still fears the impurity of the fallen world will certainly encounter its effect upon himself. But the rest, those who have chosen Christ and the Kingdom, need not worry about this: for the breath of the Kingdom is stronger than any destructive forces of this world.

Is invincible the dream in humanity of an ideal society, where everything will be good, just and bounteous. Only for some reason this doesn’t work out. Maybe, the fact is that each of us considers the society of bad, and that only we are good. The Christ, talking about the Kingdom of God, always underlines the spiritual character of this Kingdom, its fulfillment inside man, and not in the "society". And Apostle Paul writes about the same thing here: our affiliation to Christ is not defined by the outside and carnal categories, but by the action of the Holy Spirit in us.

Preparation for Lent concludes with a reading of Christ's words, handed down to us by the evangelist Matthew, about what fasting and prayer are. In the Sermon on the Mount the Lord tells His disciples that fasting and prayer have meaning only in secret from people. Only when they become events in your deeply personal relationship with God and are visible to no one except God - only then do fasting and prayer have meaning. The Lord warns us about the subtle temptation to "appear to people to be fasting." In this time of fasting, our enemy really does tempt us with the desire to appear so that those around us will think (even if not out loud): "Ah, how devout, practically a saint..." This "Ah!" destroys the whole meaning of fasting. "Rend your hearts and not your garments," as we heard from the prophet Joel (Joel 2:13).

And today the Lord also speaks to us about prayer: do not heap up words like the Gentiles. Neither the length of a prayer nor the number of words said in it means anything. Only the movement of the soul toward God gives prayer its value. And today's reading ends with the Lord's Prayer. The apostles had the custom of saying this prayer three times a day: morning, noon, and evening. Without doubt, the apostles prayed beyond that, but these three times became for Christians a kind of spiritual frame on which the whole day - and all of life - rests.

It sounds a little boring, it doesn’t inspire, isn’t it? It would have been better: "we shall look for what serves our self-affirmation and to the mutual pleasure ". The word "peace" reminds us of old slogans of fight for peace, and the word "edify" - the most disgusting professors at school.

Why is it so? How come that these magnificent words were so pervert in our perception? Indeed, "peace" is not just an absence of war and even nor the absence of hostilities. In the biblical language, "shalom" is a state of the Creation in the seventh day, when God, having achieved everything, rests, when everything is "very good". Such are " the new heaven and the new earth", of which are said to prophets and in the book of Revelation, the new world, which can be compared with the initial meaning of the Greek word "cosmos", word from which derives "cosmetic", because the Cosmos is the Universe filled with beauties. “Peace" - genuine integrity, harmony, order and beauty. And it is exactly what the apostle Paul invites us to look for, such a peace in us and in our relationships one with another, which is created only by God.

And the word "edify" describes not a notation, but the "cultuvation", the increase of good, what is well. There is also a wonderful thing here related to God. God is Good Himself, and He is infinite, that is why the common conservation laws as "if something was added somewhere, then so much decreased somewhere else" do not work in all that is bound to the notion of good. When we share something nice with another (love, consolation, knowledge etc.), it arrives to the another then, and it doesn’t not only decrease in us, but in an unexpected way increases rather, takes place a mutual edification, a mutual growth in good, a joint movement towards the true Good, towards God.

Somehow this sounds dull and uninspiring, does it not? It would be much better to say, "Let us seek what serves our self-assertion and mutual pleasure." The word "peace" reminds us of old slogans about the struggle for peace, and "edification" of the most unpleasant teachers at school.

Why is this so? How did it happen that these wonderful words became so distorted in our perception? After all, "peace" is not simply the absence of war, or even the absence of hostility. In the biblical language, "shalom" is the state of Creation on the seventh day, when God, having completed everything, rests, when everything is "very good." Such also are the "new heaven and earth" spoken of in the prophets and in the book of Revelation, that new world which can be compared with the original meaning of the Greek word "cosmos," the word from which "cosmetics" comes, because the Cosmos is the Universe filled with beauty. "Peace" is true wholeness, harmony, order, and beauty. This is exactly what the apostle Paul calls us to seek: such peace within us and in our relationships with one another, a peace created only by God.

And the word "edification" describes not a lecture, but nurturing, the increasing of good, of what is good. Here is another astonishing thing connected with God. God Himself is the Good, and He is infinite; therefore in everything connected with the idea of good, the ordinary laws of conservation do not operate, the kind that say, "if something has increased somewhere, then the same amount has decreased somewhere else." When we share something good with another person, love, consolation, knowledge, and so on, the other person gains it, and with us it not only does not decrease, but also increases in some unexpected way. Mutual edification takes place, mutual growth in good, a shared movement toward the true Good, toward God.

In his epistles Paul dedicates many places to the reasoning on the role and the place of religion in the life of the church. It is not surprising: because, in the early Christian church in one community were very often the religious Hebrews ("circumcised", "the Jews") and the irreligious representatives of the other peoples who inhabited the Roman Empire ("uncircumcised", "the heathen"). Paganism in this period did not yet mean belonging to a particular religion, were called then heathen those whom we would have called today laic people. It is not surprising that there conflict arose between these two groups inside the Church: they were too dissimilar. For the Hebrew the observance of all the norms and rules of the Judaism was something granted, they didn’t imagine themselves in one community with people, for whom religion is indifferent. And, most of the heathen which had recently converse to Christ were really like that: they needed Christ, and not Judaism.

The Hebrews insisted very often on the necessity of the observation by all of the rules of their own religion, asserting very often that it is impossible to be saved without observing them: because for them, they [the rules] were associated with the Torah as such, without which there is no entering into the Kingdom. What could do? Because recent heathen were also sincere and wholehearted in their rejection of Judaism, which was really foreign to them, as the Jews in its observation, without what they could not imagine a life not only in the current century, but also in the future. How could one combine these two approaches? Paul himself was sure that religion as such is not necessary for salvation: neither circumcision, nor the “works of the Law” by themselves don’t save.

But what if without all this, for man the Torah is not the Torah, and the Kingdom not the Kingdom? It was really absurd to speak to such a person of the uselessness of the religion, it was necessary to give him the possibility of taking his religion with him into the Kingdom. Besides, who could without it, it was not necessary to impose it to him. The decision was left to man himself. But it was to be conscious and unambiguous: neither playing in the religion, nor the arbitrary refusal of it was good for a full spiritual life.

So, the apostle proposes a simple criterion: if the conscience of man is calm, then everything is well for him in the spiritual life. And it doesn’t matter already here, if he is religious, or not. Neither sincere religiosity, nor sincere refusal of the religion will harm the spiritual life. Harms only this uncertainty, which oblige the man to rush, depriving him of his spiritual peace. And Paul calls everyone to choose the lifestyle, which is closer to him, imposing nothing to the others. Choose sincerely and unequivocally.

In his epistles Paul devotes considerable space to reflections on the role and place of religion in church life. In the early Christian church, one community often contained religious Jews, the "circumcised" or "Jews," and nonreligious representatives of other peoples who inhabited the Roman Empire, the "uncircumcised" or "Gentiles." In that era paganism no longer meant belonging to this or that religion; those called pagans then were people we would today call secular. It is no wonder that conflict was ripening between these two groups within the Church: they were too unlike each other. For a Jew, following all the norms and rules of Judaism was a matter of course; they could not imagine themselves in one community with people for whom religion was a matter of indifference. Meanwhile, most recent pagans who had turned to Christ were exactly like that: they needed Christ, not Judaism. Jews, however, often insisted that the rules of their own religion be observed by everyone, often asserting that without observing them salvation was impossible, because for them these rules were associated with the Torah as such, without which one cannot enter the Kingdom. What was to be done? Recent pagans were just as sincere and wholehearted in their rejection of Judaism, which really was foreign to them, as Jews were in following it, without which they could not imagine life either in the present age or in the age to come. How could these two approaches be combined? Paul himself was convinced that religion as such is not necessary for salvation: neither circumcision nor "works of the Law" save in themselves. But what if without all this, for a person, the Torah is no longer the Torah and the Kingdom is no longer the Kingdom? It was truly pointless to tell such a person that religion was unnecessary; he needed to be given the opportunity to take his religion with him into the Kingdom. But it should not be imposed on someone who could do without it. The decision remained with the person himself. But it had to be conscious and unequivocal: neither playing at religion nor arbitrarily rejecting it was suitable for a full spiritual life. And the apostle offers a simple criterion: if a person's conscience is at peace, then everything is in order with his spiritual life. At that point it no longer matters whether he is religious or not. Neither sincere religiosity nor a sincere refusal of religion harms spiritual life. What harms it is only that uncertainty which makes a person rush about, depriving him of spiritual peace. And Paul calls each person to choose the way of life that is closer to him, imposing nothing on others. To choose sincerely and unequivocally.

“Blessed is the one who does not condemn himself for what he approves.” To condemn oneself is to fail to carry out what we undertake before God. Not to condemn ourselves in our choice means not looking back or indulging in fantasies, not wondering, “What would have happened if...?” It is the habit of walking directly before God in the secret of the heart. It is the ability to live patiently and not envy those who live differently. Sometimes we look at people who do not keep the fast and think that their lives are easier, more cheerful, and simpler. We retreat from our choice of Christ. Through doubt and fantasy, we let deceit and distrust of God into our lives.