H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
15 February 2004
WHEN RIGHTS ARE WRONG
1 Corinthians 10:24
We’ve been hop-scotching through 1 Corinthians, a letter in which the apostle Paul gives his
earnest advice about how to build a healthy church made up of healthy Christians. Peering through
Paul’s eyes, we’ve already seen what a mess the Corinthian congregation was in, but even so it
comes as a shock when we get to chapter six. That’s the chapter in which Paul says to the Corinthian
Christians, “And by the way, you should stop suing one another. You should stop taking each other
to court, because you’re bound to lose. The fact that you have lawsuits within the body of Christ is a
sure sign that you’ve already lost. You’ve lost your perspective. You’ve lost your patience. You’ve
lost your credibility and your dignity in the eyes of the world.”
What are the lawsuits in the Corinthian church about? Paul never says, at least not specifically, but
the apostle’s words make it clear that the Corinthians are standing up for their rights. No one wants
to give way. No one wants to compromise. Each one is convinced of his/her own rightness, and they
intend to take it to the limits.
I can almost hear the Corinthians across the years, “But Paul! It’s not the money; it’s the principle
of the thing. How can I back down when I know I’m right?”
And as usual, Paul’s answer is blunt. He says, “You’d do better to let yourselves be wronged and
even cheated rather than to feud with brothers and sisters in Christ.”
Is Paul saying that we should automatically let others have their way, that we should always lie
down and let others walk over us?
No, he’s not. Paul could be pretty intense about his own rights on occasion, his rights as a Roman
citizen, for instance, and his rights as an apostle. You and I don’t always have to give way; but on the
other hand, we don’t have to get our way, either. Every circumstance must be judged on its own
merits, but in the family of Christ, sometimes when we insist on our rights, we lose; and when we give
in, we win. Not always. But often enough to make it worth considering.
If we read Paul’s words carefully, we’ll find some down-to-earth advice about relating to each
other in the church. For instance, when Paul accuses the Corinthians of going to court over trivial
matters, he seems to be suggesting, Some things aren’t worth fighting over. When we feel our
temperature rising and we’re about to square off for a fight, we might pause long enough to ask
ourselves, “In all honesty, is this worth a fight? Is this a matter of principle and substance, or is this
really about bruised feelings and injured pride? Is this about an issue that makes a difference in the
kingdom of Christ or is this about me getting my way?”
In the book Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez portrays a marriage that
disintegrates over a bar of soap. It was the wife's job to keep the house in order, and one day she
forgot to replace the soap in the bathroom. Her husband exaggerated the oversight. “I've been
bathing for almost a week without any soap,” he complained. The wife vigorously denied forgetting to
replace the soap. Although she had indeed forgotten, her pride was at stake, and she wouldn't back
down. For the next seven months, they slept in separate rooms and ate in silence. Their marriage had
suffered a heart attack. Even when they were old and placid, writes Marquez, they were very careful
about bringing it up, for the barely healed wounds could begin to bleed again as if they'd been inflicted
only yesterday.
That’s only a fiction, of course, but rings true, doesn’t it? Sometimes in families, even in the family
of Christ, insignificant things get blown out of proportion and we end up fighting not about a bar of
soap, but about pride, stubbornness, and willfulness. Remember that some things are not worth the
fight.
Paul’s second piece of advice is, Remember that sometimes being kind is better than being right.
The Corinthians assure Paul, “I’ve got the law on my side. I’m within my rights.” And Paul replies,
“Just because something is lawful, that doesn’t make it helpful.”
One of the thorny issues in the Corinthian church involved meat that had been offered to idols.
Much of the meat sold in the market or served in a dinner party came from the altar of some pagan
god. Normally, eating meat offered to Zeus was the same as worshiping to Zeus. The more
sophisticated Corinthian Christians said, “That’s just silly. There is only one God. Meat offered to an
idol isn’t tainted or spoiled, because that idol isn’t real. As long as we give thanks, why shouldn’t we
eat anything we want?”
Paul agrees in principle. He says, “You’re right. There’s nothing wrong with that meat. We know
that what we eat will not defile us. But what if your eating habits become a stumbling block to a less
enlightened Christian? What if a new Christian loses her faith because she sees you eating meat
offered to Aphrodite? Should you stand on your rights if it does harm to a brother or sister? Is your
right to eat a steak more important than the welfare of a fellow Christian for whom Jesus died on the
cross? All things are lawful, but not all things are helpful.”
The Swiss Reformer Ulrich Zwingli found himself constantly at odds with Martin Luther the
German Reformer. The two men simply couldn’t agree on the doctrines that would guide the
Protestant Reformation. This conflict bothered Zwingli and one day he had an experience that
encouraged him to be more conciliatory.
Zwingli says he was looking out the window of an inn and in the distance he could see two wild
goats moving along a narrow mountain trail. One goat was picking his way down the trail and the
other was slowly climbing up. As the two goats met on the skinny trail, there was no room for one to
squeeze around the other. They stood there head to head for a moment, and Zwingli expected to see
a battle for the right-of-way. Instead, one goat folded his legs, lowered his head and lay down on the
trail. The other goat climbed over him, and then both went on their way.
Both goats had a right to the trail, but one humbled himself for the common good. That’s a pretty
good example of Paul’s advice from a different letter: Be subject to one another (Ephesians 5:21). I’d
like to think that the next time they met, the other goat took a turn kneeling. In any event, Paul’s
advice is worth pondering. Sometimes being helpful is better than being right.
What else does Paul tell the Corinthians? He says, Sometimes the needs of other people matter
more than my needs. Do not seek your own advantage, but that of the other, (1 Corinthians 10:24).
Again, this isn’t a universal rule, but if I am honest with myself and make room for the mind of Christ,
I will often find that the other person should come before me.
I read about a guy who was getting annoying phone calls. The local public library had a service
called “Dial-A-Story.” A child could pick up the phone, dial the number, and listen to a short fairy
tale. This fellow I read about had a phone number that was only digit different from the dial-a-story
number. Little fingers often make mistakes, and this guy would get calls from kids who wanted to
hear a story. He tried explaining to the kids that they’d misdialed, but he kept getting these calls every
day—or so it seemed.
It was becoming really irritating, but then one day he began to wonder about the kids on the other
end of the telephone line. Most of them probably lived in good, loving homes and they just enjoyed a
story now and then. But for some of those kids, maybe a story was a few minutes of escape from a
bleak life. Maybe for some of them, the taped voice of the library storyteller was all the warmest
human contact they could expect that day.
And so this guy decided that maybe the needs of those kids mattered more than his privacy and
convenience. It wasn’t like he got that many wrong numbers. So he didn’t call the library to complain,
and he didn’t bawl out the next kid who called and insist to speak to her parents, and he didn’t
demand that the phone company change his number free of charge. Instead, he bought a stack of
brief children’s books and set them beside the telephone. Whenever a child called, he just took five
minutes and read them a story. Sometimes the needs of others matter more than our own.
Implicit throughout this letter to the Corinthians is Paul’s conviction that, Sometimes winning costs
too much. In the land of an-eye-for-an-eye, everybody has their rights and everybody is blind.
Maybe you remember the story from seven or eight years ago when two ships collided in the
Black Sea off the coast of Russia. Hundreds of passengers died in the icy water. It was a tragic story,
all the more so because the accident could easily have been avoided. The problem wasn’t heavy fog
or bad weather or malfunctioning radar. All those people were killed by stubbornness. Each captain
was well aware of the other ship's presence. Either captain could have steered a clear course, but
according to the news reports, neither captain wanted to give way to the other. Each was too proud
to yield first. By the time they came to their senses, it was too late. Each captain stood up for his
rights and by staying the course I suppose both won, but what a costly victory.
Christ does not call us to be doormats. Real love will sometimes flex its muscles and declare,
“Here I stand.” Even in the church, a family fight is sometimes the best way to clear the air and move
on.
And yet, in a world in which being right is everything and winning is the only thing, within the body
of Christ we will do well to remember that sometimes demanding our rights is wrong. Sometimes
second place is the right place. Sometimes giving in is the only true victory.
Soli Deo Gloria!