September 13, 2026; Homecoming Sunday; Romans 14:1-3; 5; 10-12
“Some believe in eating anything, while the weak only eat vegetables.” – Romans 14:2
Is this not the most hilarious stand-alone verse in all of scripture? Like if you hadn’t been reading Romans up to this point but just stumbled upon it here, it would seem like this verse just comes out of nowhere and is so unnecessarily harsh towards vegetarians.
Well, this pastor loves you, my non-carnivorous friends. I don’t despise you. In fact, I think I envy you.
“Some believe in eating anything, while the weak only eat vegetables.”
What’s going on here, Paul? What’s in your head, my man? Well, a couple things actually.
According to a book I read, apparently the bulk of meat available for consumption in Paul’s day was also meat that had likely been sacrificed to other gods. To pagan idols. So, to the more pious folk, eating this suspect meat opened the door to committing a grave moral mistake.
So, to safeguard themselves and their souls, some would only eat vegetables. Make sense?
But Paul is saying here that this decision was made from a place of weakness in one’s faith. As in, strong faith/true faith would not live or die by such a list of do’s and don’ts; do’s and don’ts that are largely inconsequential to the virtues of righteousness.
For it’s how you act towards others, it’s how you treat others, it’s how you judge others (or don’t) that Paul says will determine your conviction, your strength, your ethical goodness and correctness.
“Why do you pass judgment on your brother or sister?” Paul writes in verse 10, “Why do you despise them? We will all one day stand before the judgment seat of God.”
For as Jesus himself preached in Matthew 15, “it’s not what goes in that defiles [it’s not what you eat], but it’s what comes out [it’s how you talk and act].” That’s what defiles, my friends, and what will ultimately hold us accountable before God.
Amen?
I think it can also be argued that what Paul has in mind here is that faith should not be a show. A side-show. Put on before others to prove our goodness, our apparent piety.
As in, if you’re going to abstain from meat, do so. Or, if you’re going home to grill that marbled ribeye, do so. But there’s no need to display these decisions before others for the purpose of promoting yourself as being supposedly better, or for the sake of quarrelling with your neighbor who might disagree.
“Welcome those who are weak in faith but not for the purpose of quarreling over opinions.” – Romans 14:1
Likewise, in the Gospels, Jesus (you might recall), gets upset with hypocrites who are overly demonstrable in their religiosity; people who wail or mourn or pray loudly in public to draw attention to themselves. Remember that passage (Matthew 6)? He tells us to do these things in secret, because God hears and sees us in secret.
Yes, my friends, God sees beyond and underneath our phony displays. And that’s either good news or very bad news for some of us.
Like, if we are visibly abstaining from things like eating meat, thinking others will thereby think us to be good, but in private we are at the same time cursing our neighbor, denying the stranger, not feeding the hungry, not clothing the naked, drafting plans to defraud, corrupt, and deny others from the pursuit of liberty, happiness, and peace… then God will judge us accordingly.
So, yeah, Paul has it right here. As does Jesus. Of course!
And today, both are telling us to block the noise that doesn’t lead to life or happiness, goodness or peace; and to sift through it all, searching instead for what actually matters; the things we should actually defend and promote; the things, you know, that can actually make us stronger, not weaker.
For we have been far too weakened, haven’t we? As a people and a nation, we have been weakened through the endless rhetoric of division. Through the endless slandering of each other’s names.
We have been weakened through quarrelling over opinions that don’t hold any weight or significance, and we have been distracted by manufactured problems and manufactured outrage, while our souls (and our wallets), have been robbed blind in the process.
…
“Some judge one day to be better than another, while others judge all days to be alike. Let all be fully convinced in their own minds,” Paul writes in verse 5.
So, what difference does it make if we worship on Sunday, and others on a Saturday? That we pray in pews while others pull out their kneelers? Likewise, what difference does it make if a person has blue hair, or this person has tattoos, or that person loves this person, and this person loves them back?
What matters, Paul is saying/Jesus is preaching, is how we treat each other. How we attempt to understand each other. And more, that we agree to never immediately judge each other without at least engaging in a conversation first. Sheesh!
My friends, the only things we should be investigating of each other, if anything at all, is how we are using Jesus’ name and living by his ways. His commandments. His two. And it’s only when that second one is broken, where love of neighbor is substituted for hatred of each other, that quarrelling should be allowed to begin.
As stated in the sermon last week about working through conflict, these verses are not a call for a weak, apathetic version of Christian pacificism. Where any and everything goes. No, that’s vegetables, my friends… Not all opinions are equal and valid, especially if one is considerably more destructive and more shameful.
For while who eats meat vs. who doesn’t might not ultimately matter, the Church yet has a responsibly to correct us in the things that do. Such as, the Church is authorized to speak up when hypocrites promote a destabilized balance. When they threaten unity. When they trample on peace and disenfranchise another person or group’s liberty.
For “none are free if others are oppressed.”- Fannie Lou Hamer. And neither are we, even as Christians; especially when we oppress others using Jesus’ name as a weapon.
A name, mind you, which was said in the Gospels to bring healing, goodness, and salvation. A name that leads us not towards the wilderness of division, but the gardens of an eternal kingdom.
A kingdom where opposites lay. Where young and old get along. Where all of God’s creation feel respected, supported, and empowered as equals made in the likeness of the One.
Amen?
Amen.
