In 1864 as the Civil War was coming to an end, Jourdan Anderson and his wife Amanda, fled from the Tennessee plantation where they had been enslaved all their lives. They moved to Ohio. Jourdan found work, and their family grew and flourished.
A year later, their old master, Patrick Henry Anderson, wrote Jourdan a letter asking him to consider coming back to work for him. Jourdan could have ignored the letter. He could have sent a caustic and profane reply, but he didn’t. He sent a wonderful reply to the old master.
Sir,
I got your letter and was glad to find that you had not forgotten Jourdan, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this, for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Colonel Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear about your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me that Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.
I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here. I get twenty-five dollars a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy – the folks call her Mrs. Anderson – and the children – Milly, Jane, and Grundy – go to school and are learning well. The teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday school and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated. … Now if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.
As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 … Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you were disposed to treat us justly and kindly; and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future. I served you faithfully for thirty-two years, and Mandy twenty years. At twenty-five dollars a month for me and two dollars a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to eleven thousand six hundred and eighty dollars. Add to this the interest for the time our wages have been kept back, and deduct what you paid for our clothing, and three doctor’s visits for me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adam’s Express, in care of V. Winters, Esq., Dayton, Ohio. …
In answering this letter, please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up, and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with poor Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve – and die, if it come to that – than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.
Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.
From your old servant, Jourdan Anderson.
Sometimes you don’t even need both sides of the correspondence to get a pretty good idea of what was going on.
The Apostle Paul established the church in Corinth, and he seemed to have no end of trouble with it. When you read the two letters to the Corinthians you get a fair glimpse of just how troublesome they were, and how challenging it was for Paul to try to sort out their problems long-distance. This issue of meat that was sacrificed to idols is one of those problems.
Because when the apostles took the gospel to the gentile world – that is, the non-Jewish world – there was a whole heap of things that needed to be sorted out. Basically, they needed to figure out just how much of Judaism was included in Christianity. Was it necessary to become a Jew first, before one could become a follower of Jesus?
For example, there was an important discussion about whether it was necessary for gentile men and boys to be circumcised when they joined the church. And there were issues about dietary laws for Jews that remained important. These things all had to be sorted out; the leaders had to come to agreement on the rules.
And on the flip side, everywhere they brought the gospel they encountered other religious and cultural practices that were at odds with Christianity. Again, it all had to be sorted out. What was essential? What could be tolerated?
And on the matter of eating meat that was sacrificed to idols, the decision seemed to be that it could be tolerated.
Now, the gentiles ate this meat because they thought it would be helpful to them. In those days, some people believed that demons could enter a person through the food they ate. So if the meat was first sacrificed to a god, they believed this god might protect them. Others, however, knew that those gods – idols – did not really exist. They could do nothing to help or hurt them.
And because they knew this, some thought that whether or not the meat they were eating was offered to some pagan idols was totally irrelevant. They thought that none of this had anything to do with them. They had left that life behind; they were born anew.
Yet, for other new Christians it was a very uncomfortable practice. It was too closely tied to their former life; continuing to participate in it felt like a threat to their new life. It seemed to compromise their Christian faith, and might be the first step on a slippery slope back into paganism.
And you might expect Paul to see this as an opportunity to reinforce the idea that they can’t be hurt by these old idols. That this was no longer a part of their belief system and no longer had any power over them. As Christians, they are free of all that.
But Paul takes a different approach. He urges those whom he thinks of as the stronger believers to empathize with the ones he calls weak. He says that even though these idols have no literal power over any of us, a weak faith can lend them power they otherwise wouldn’t have. He says that if the more mature Christians are eating this idol meat in front of the newer Christians, they may throw these novices into a state of confusion and conflict.
Paul says you are totally free to eat what you want to eat. But if you, in exercising your freedom, lead someone with a faltering faith astray, then it’s you who have harmed that weaker one.
Your freedom in Christ does not give you license to do that.
And what we are seeing here is some of the complexity of mature Christian faith. These ones Paul calls weaker are afraid that eating the meat that was used in idol worship will give power to these old idols. Paul says this is not true.
But Paul also cautions those he calls stronger against making the mistakes they are prone to. Yes, in Christ you have been given freedom, but that does not give you carte blanche to do whatever you feel like doing. There is another thing you need to bear in mind, a thing that is at least as important as your freedom: that is how your actions affect other people.
He is teaching something that is called an ethic of care. Which means that the highest moral decision is the one that demonstrates care for others – particularly those who are vulnerable. So the right decision is not always the same one in any set of circumstances – because how your actions impact others carry some weight.
Paul had a real concern that the exercise of their newfound freedoms might create division in the church. And while it is true that there are times we cannot avoid divisiveness, Paul simply wants to remind the Christians of Corinth that they need to always hold the concern about relationships on a par with their concerns about their freedom. The most important thing to recognize about Christian freedom is that it exists in community. And, in a very real sense, it requires strong faith to bear that in mind.
The fact is, idols come in all shapes. The idols in Corinth might have been carved wooden figures, but idols might be made out of other stuff as well.
When you value your freedom more highly than you value the welfare of others, Paul is arguing, then you may have replaced those old wooden idols with a new one. Likewise, if you value the rules more highly than the welfare of others, you may have fallen into another trap. And if you value your cleverness more highly than the welfare of others, woe to us all.
The Pharisees feared that Jesus was teaching his disciples that they were above the rules. But what he was really trying to teach us is that the highest rule is the rule of love. God is always on the side of love, for God is love.
Knowledge puffs up, Paul says, and love builds up; and what it builds up is more love.
Let us always be guided by God’s rule of love.
