“But, dad, everyone else has one”.

 

I cannot recall how many times… 

when I was a kid––

and especially when I was a teenager––

that I bleated out something like that.

I mean…

if there’s one thing that, as a teenager, you want to do…

it’s to fit in.

And, more often than not, that means wearing what ‘everyone else’ is wearing…

looking like ‘everyone else’ looks…

listening to the same music that ‘everyone else’ listens to…

and, I expect, nowadays…

having the same technological gadgets that ‘everyone else’ has.

My dad’s response––

apart from, usually, saying ‘No!’––

was to give me a lecture on peer pressure…

to encourage me to “stand on my own two feet”…

and not to worry about what ‘everyone else’ had…

or did…

or looked like.

Often, of course, it was also backed up with the observation, “but we can’t afford it”––

but that’s beside the point.

No doubt many of you have had experiences like that––

either as a child or as a parent.

 

We live in what social psychologists describe as an “individualist” culture.

That means that we believe that people are, in a sense, an end in themselves;

that our chief goal in life is self-realisation and self-actualisation;

and that we ought to cultivate our personalities… beliefs… 

values… 

aspirations…

and attitudes for ourselves;

and we shouldn’t give in to societal pressures that push us towards conformity. 

In our culture, we are brought up to be independent;

to do what is right regardless of what others might think or say.

We’re urged to avoid ‘peer pressure’––

which is understood negatively––

by learning to take responsibility for our own actions and behaviour.

 

The ancient world, however, was exactly the opposite.

They lived in what social psychologists describe as a “collectivist” culture.

That means that they believed that each person was not an end in themselves.

Rather, they were embedded within…

and fully dependent upon…

a group.

Their chief goal in life was not self-realisation or self-actualisation…

but group-realisation…

and group-actualisation.

And it was expected that they would actively cultivate the beliefs… 

values… 

aspirations…

and attitudes of their group.

As such, peer pressure, for them, was understood in a positive sense.

They expected to have their behaviour regulated by the group to which they belonged.

They expected to live with strong social inhibitions.

Conformity was crucial.

For them, that was the way that the world worked…

and the way that it should.

 

And we see something of that––

something of that collectivist nature of ancient culture—

reflected in this morning’s reading from Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians.

For us, in a modern, Western culture…

it’s a slightly odd scenario.

Some of the well-to-do members of the Corinthian Church were arguing that it was their ‘right’…

during city celebrations…

to take part in banquets that were held inside Roman temples.

They justified this because––

being educated and enlightened––

they knew that all of the Roman gods… 

like Jupiter and Venus and Neptune…

didn’t really exist.

But they wanted to continue to attend these banquets—

to exercise their ‘rights’–– 

because it was important to them in order to fit in with “their group”…

that is, with their peers…

with the other members of the Corinthian elite.

But there was a problem.

This practice––

which they regarded as their ‘right’––

caused confusion and consternation for others in the Church…

who were not well-to-do…

who weren’t educated and enlightened…

and who still believed in the reality of the traditional Roman gods.

Although Paul shared the theological position of the well-to-do…

he argued… 

rather… 

that they should forgo their ‘right’…

because of the problems that it was causing.

On one level, Paul’s argument is that their behaviour should be shaped…

not by the group of their peers…

but by the needs of the Church.

On one level, Paul’s concern is about reorienting the direction of their group-focus.

And, taken at that level…

it would be easy for us…

today…

simply to dismiss what Paul says here as just a product of––

and an argument within––

a collectivist culture.

 

And yet, there’s more to it than that.

 

Is there not a sense that, sometimes, our culture’s individualism goes too far? 

Do we not see that played out, regularly, in political life…

which is, so often, driven by efforts at self-aggrandisement…

and appeals to self-interest?

Do we not also see that played out, regularly, in the church…

where faith in Jesus Christ is, so often, reduced to a matter of personal or individual “salvation”…

devoid of any broader social implications;

or, where faith is held to be a purely private, individual matter…

both in terms of what one believes…

but, also, in terms of how one lives it out?

 

And yet, notwithstanding our culturally-conditioned individualism…

we know that we cannot exist as a community, a society or a nation…

without some form of social contract.

Does the same not also apply to the Church?

 

Even more than that…

is there not something inherently communal to the nature and ethos of Christianity itself?

After all, at the core of our faith is the idea of “sacrifice”––

not sacrifice in the sense of an offering made to appease an angry deity…

but “sacrifice” in the sense of self-giving for the sake of others.

And, in this respect, Paul still makes a valid point:

our behaviour ought to be determined…

not by our personal or individual rights…

nor even by our competent theological reflection––

taken, logically, in isolation––

but by the social and moral effects of our actions on others.

As I suggested a couple of weeks ago… 

Paul argues, in First Corinthians, for a form of ethical utilitarianism.

To that end, what Paul seems to be saying here is…

that… 

above anything else…

love is what matters.

Or, as the theologian, Bruce Epperly puts it…

“Our freedom is not individualistic. There is no place for rugged individualism in Christian community”.

Rather… 

“The grace of interdependence invites us to responsible relationships that nurture the whole body of Christ”.

Indeed, Martin Luther King jr often made a similar point:

“All life is interrelated, and we are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be”.

In other words… 

at the heart of the Christian faith is the slightly strange––

indeed counter-cultural notion for us––

that all of humanity is inter-connected…

that all of us are inter-dependent.

I can never be who I ought to be… 

until you are who you ought to be.

Anything that devalues another human being––

any human being––

anything that impedes their growth or impairs their freedom…

impedes or impairs me.

For we are all children of God.

And we only become who we were intended to be as children of God…

when we learn to focus on our responsibilities ahead of our rights…

and on love ahead of ‘right theology’.

We only become who we were intended to be as children of God…

when love––

in all of its complicated, self-sacrificing demands–– 

infuses who we are… 

and how we live.