Did you look at the front lawn as you came in? If not, I hope you will as you go out. This art installation: “A Walk of Faith.” Stunning. Moving. 44 faith stories, placarded on posts in as many different ways as there are people…yet Jesus in the midst of all of them. For all the differences, they also tell the same story.

Art is enjoying a renaissance in the church in America, long overdue, and it’s great. Art does something unique. It has to do with our being made in the image of God, who as Genesis says from the very first: In the beginning, God CREATED. And we, made in God’s image, are then in some senses wired to create as well.

I read a wonderful article recently about Olivier Messiaen, a French composer who in 1940, at age 31, was captured and sent to a Nazi concentration camp. While there, he found a sympathetic prison guard who gave him paper to compose on…and he found other musicians: a cellist, a violinist and a clarinetist. And a piano. And he wrote a masterpiece called “Quartet for the End of Time.” They were able to perform it, out in cold weather, with beat-up, out of tune instruments, for 4000 prisoners and guards. It is still played today.

The article’s question was: Why would a person in a time of death, and a place of dying…bother to produce art? Perhaps because it is such a part of being human, of expressing things that can barely be expressed or not articulated in other ways. Because we were made in the image of a Creator God. We’re wired for things like justice, and art and beauty…made in the image of God.

Well, the Apostle Paul tackles something else today in Romans 14, another way in which it sometimes seems that we are wired as well. But this one’s not nearly as pretty as artistic expression. Instead, it’s the fact that constantly, in the family of Jesus, we gravitate towards DIS-UNITY. Disagreement. Factionalism.

Do you know that in the United States alone, within the Christian faith…there are over 5,000 denominations? Certainly, some were set up by important differences in belief. But mostly the differences are based on less important things like style and personalities and they have arisen out of conflict.

Surely this wasn’t what God had in mind for his people. What are we to do about it now? Well, it’s messy. And Paul doesn’t give us a neat and clean formula, but he does point us in a direction.

Reading: Romans 14:1-9, 13-15

If we haven’t heard the hints of conflict and division in the book of Romans in these 14 weeks…then we’ve been totally asleep. The biggest problem Paul addresses in his letter is that the church in Rome includes both Jewish Christians and Gentile Christians. They have both come to Christ, but from radically different backgrounds. Some Jews finding in Christ freedom from ironclad or legalistic disciplines. But others still needing to practice Jewish regulations. Some Gentiles escaping from backgrounds of sensual, pagan idolatry and needing the boundaries of disciplines…but others celebrating life with freedom in Christ.

It reminds me of a fascinating movement going on in the American church today. I’ll use gross stereotypes, so if you find yourself in this- don’t be offended. Many evangelical churches, ours included, are ending up with numbers of people who have come out of negative experiences as lifelong Catholic Christians. Many were raised in the Church. They complain about rigidity, about overly formal worship or ancient rituals which were drilled into them and have lost their meaning. And what they experience in evangelical churches feels very freeing- more informal or authentic, less rules, less top-down decrees.

AT the exact same time, there are numbers of people heading OUT of evangelical churches, including ours, and into Catholic or Orthodox churches. These people often grew up in evangelical communities, and they’ve sung one too many praise songs, or feel like the church looks too much like the culture, or that we undervalue the mysteries of God.

So we have this movement in both directions. Do you see how things differ- both wanting to follow Jesus, but backgrounds and experiences really coloring things?

The church was (and is) sort of a mess. And Paul is trying to help sort it all out. And the biggest thing he says is: First of all, make sure you’re worrying about the things that matter. You’ve no doubt heard the saying: “In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity” Paul didn’t write it (Augustine? Richard Baxter?), but he could have.

In this passage, there are at least three things Paul thinks are NOT essential to faith in Christ: issues over eating, special days/festivals, and later later.

Some of the Christians in Rome were stuck on Jewish regulations over the slaughter and preparation of meat, or the avoidance of pork or special days of fasting. Others were concerned that they might unknowingly eat meat that had been part of pagan worship rituals and so they should just avoid meat altogether- a vote for you vegetarians! Still others felt that they no longer had to worry about these things, because they’d been freed in Christ. Paul’s advice? “Don’t quarrel. If you eat meat, don’t despise those who don’t. And if you don’t, don’t pass judgment on those who do.” It’s not a foundational issue.

Paul says the same thing about celebrating special days, or festivals. It could be Jewish believers still marking feast days and all of the obligations that went with them. Or it might be those Gentiles from pagan backgrounds, pulled to honor astrological festivals or pagan superstitions. Paul’s advice? “If you celebrate days, honor the Lord and give thanks. If you don’t, honor the Lord and give thanks.” This is not a foundational issue.

Paul mentions the same thing in regard to drinking wine, the standard and accepted liquid of the middle east in his day. Whether people thought teetotaling was the better practice, or just not overindulgence…this is not a foundational issue.

On all these things, we are in this together. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord.” On these nonessential matters, don’t pass judgment on Christian brothers and sisters.

Now please, please, please do not think that scripture, or Paul, (or Jesus for that matter) says “don’t judge the issues, don’t discern, don’t distinguish right from wrong.” This is not in the slightest saying that at every turn we simply throw up our hands and say “well, I guess we just agree to disagree on this one.”

No, there are many things that are either right or wrong, and we are called to live accordingly, to teach foundational truths, to mature, to hold one another accountable to faithful living. The most difficult issues for us are those we’re not sure are essential or not. But Paul has spent his whole letter detailing things that DO matter: theologically (cross, grace, resurrection). And he spent the early part of the letter detailing behaviors that DO matter, that are clear- (avoid idolatry, sexual immorality, covetousness, murder, lust). We are called to discern right and wrong, good and evil, redemptive things over destructive ones.

Chapter 14 is not a statement that the first 13 chapters suddenly don’t matter. Paul is not saying: “well, some of you differ on whether to sleep with someone who is not your husband or wife, that’s okay” OR “I know you have different opinions about stealing so just don’t judge what’s right and wrong, be accepting of it all.” It mattes.

But through the centuries, Christians have often bogged down over whether to baptize infants or not (wars have been fought), which day to worship on, whether drinking is allowed, or dancing, or playing cards, whether it is right to have different music styles in worship, whether you have to dress up or not I church, whether you can bring coffee into the sanctuary, and on and on. Not essential things!

I had to laugh reading Christianity Today magazine yesterday. Mark Driscoll, the very conservative and very charismatic pastor at Mars Hill here in Seattle is having a huge impact on the Southern Baptist Convention. He apparently is influencing many younger Baptist pastors, and some people are stirred up that he swears in sermons, drinks beer and talks about sex. At the Convention meeting there were no fewer than five official motions made against him. And he isn’t even Baptist! What is important?

Frederick Buechner wrote about being with the African American poet Maya Angelou at a very formal gathering of church leadership when she told a story from the days of slavery. She said that “on certain plantations, it was forbidden for slaves to laugh as they worked, presumably because the masters were afraid that if it ever turned into laughter at THEM, the whole system might start to crumble. But if they couldn’t contain themselves, she said, what they would do was go over to some barrel that was standing around and under the pretext of looking for something reach down into it as afar as they could and let great peals ring out where nobody could hear them.”

And Angelou said as she had watched the procession of church dignitaries parading in that morning with elaborate ecclesiastical vestments… she’d had an irresistible urge to find a barrel! A laughter barrel.

I wonder sometimes if God looks at some of the things we bog down on and looks around for a barrel. Or wishes that we could belly laugh once in awhile instead of getting so uptight over things that don’t matter.

Here are three questions from Paul we might ask ourselves as issues come up in being Jesus’ people together:

1. Is this a kingdom of God issue? (verse 17 “For the kingdom of God is not food and drink abut righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit”). Is this about grace, pointing people to the cross, portraying God clearly, living apart from sin- all issues Paul has been concerned about- OR is this about ceremony or culture, food or drink?
2. Will my acting in this way honor the Lord? or another way of putting it in verse 6, Can I thank God for this action? I know from firsthand experience it’s hard to give thanks for something you know you shouldn’t be doing.
3. How will I impact others? Paul’s strongest word here is that those who are stronger, more mature in their faith. Paul thought that in non-essentials, people should be able to enjoy freedom in Christ. But the stronger also ought to be able to set aside their rights for the sake of others (verses 14 & 15).

Being free in Christ doesn’t mean living how I want, when I want. It means I am free to restrain myself for the sake of others. It means there are things that may be perfectly acceptable for Christians…but might I be free enough to choose NOT do them if it would encourage others? The fact I have a right does not mean I shirk responsibility for influencing a brother or sister in the faith. We like our rights too much, sometimes, to live well with one another.

Stanley Hauerwas teaches at Duke Divinity School, a very creative and provocative author and speaker. Many years ago he published a book of prayers called Prayers Plainly Spoken, and I’d like to close by reading one of them:

Worthy Agents of Your Peace

Saving God, free us from hardness of heart, take from us all pride and pretension, strip us clean of all that makes us incapable of being witnesses of your gentle love. Make us worthy agents of your peace, so that even as we contend with one another the world may say, “But see how they love one another.” Amen.