Sermons for the Month

Being All Things To All People
DATE: February 9th, 2003
SERVICE: Fifth Sunday After Epiphany
TEXT: 1 Corinthians 9:16-23

“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN

One cold evening during the holiday season, a little boy about six or seven was standing in front of a store window. The little child had no shoes and his clothes were mere rags. A young woman passing by saw the little boy and could read the longing in his pale blue eyes. She took the child by the hand and led him into the store. There she bought him some new shoes and a complete suit of warm clothing.

They came back outside into the street and the woman said to the child, "Now you can go home and have a very happy holiday."
The little boy looked up at her and asked, "Are you God?"
She smiled down at him and replied, "No son, I'm just one of his children."
The little boy then said, "I knew you had to be some relation."
That rather fanciful story was first told by Dan Clark and is recorded in one of the "Chicken Soup" books. I don't know if it's true, but it gives us a glimpse of what it means to become "all things to all people," as the Apostle Paul states in today reading from I Corinthians.

You know, whenever I read that text in the past I took it as meaning that because we are saved by God's grace, not by what we do or fail to do, we are free to involve ourselves in situations that some might consider to be inappropriate for Christians so that because of our acceptance and example people might become open to the Gospel message.

That's why, when I worked on a newspaper before I went to seminary, I attended the parties of the reporting staff. They could get pretty interesting. But I'd go, and while I didn't participate in the "activities" I wanted my peers to know that just because I was "religious" - as they would have said - didn't mean I was judging them. Perhaps, then, a door would open to share my faith. And, as it turned out, that happened.

However, many things can go wrong with this theory - it can become a justification for negative behavior or thinly disguised self-righteousness or a way to seek acceptance. And, while "becoming all things for all people" may involve what I've been describing, there is much more to it than that.

The portion that we read today from Paul's letter to the Corinthians is confusing. Just before it Paul is defending his right to be supported by those to whom he is preaching. But then he turns around and says that he will not accept their support. Why? Well, it's because of his passion for the Gospel. By presenting the Gospel "free of charge" he is free from all people, he says. No one except Christ has a claim on him.

So it is that Paul is free to become a slave to all. No one can say, "I'm paying your way, and I don't want you to associate with this person or champion that cause…." Whatever he does, he does for the sake of the Gospel so that its blessings might be shared.

This is important - his goal is not freedom, that is doing whatever he wants because he has the right to do it, but proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. So he might refrain from some activities not because it's not "allowed" but because his involvement in them will not further the ministry of Jesus.

Becoming all things to all people, then, is much more than showing up where people might not expect Christians to be and setting a good example. It means that our love for others, and our desire for them to hear the Good News, is placed ahead of what we want. It means that we do not enjoy private spiritual lives in the world but we actually pursue a path of mission to the world.

Or to put it more simply, to be all things to all people means that we could be mistaken for God, as was the case in the story with which I began this sermon. Our love and acceptance for people is so strong that it imitates God's love and acceptance. We are not to become like all people, but for the sake of the Gospel we are to become lovers of all people, and we are to love sacrificially.

Does that message sound familiar? It should; it's been coming up over and over and over again this Epiphany season. I do not think that's just chance; the Holy Spirit is trying to tell us something as we struggle in this confusing world.

The message seems to be that insulating ourselves from the world, or pursuing a comfortable space as individuals or the church, is not what we are called to do. Be open, open, open, become all things to all people, so that the blessings of the Gospel might be shared. Stop being afraid. Stop limiting the flow of God's grace into yourselves and then into the world.

When I was studying for this sermon, and wondering why I had decided to preach on I Corinthians, I had a disturbing dream. (I'm sure the psychologists would have fun with this one.) In it I was among people who, for no reason that was apparent, did not like me. (Luckily there was no one I recognized.) They were doing everything - short of physical abuse - to hurt me. I was being sneered at, discounted, manipulated and criticized. Suffice it to say that I woke up sweating.

It was 5 a.m., and as I sat up to catch my breath the thing that came to my mind was Paul's words, "I have become all things to all people". And that's when I began to understand the depth of this passage. We live in a world filled with hate, and in the midst of it we are called not to walk on a higher road but to slog through the mire in order to proclaim … to live … to be the astounding love of God. We are to be all things for all people, and what God calls us to do, God gives us the ability to do. Remember last week's sermon? We have the authority of the universe backing us up.

Writer Steve Brown tells a story about the ugliest car he had ever seen. It was ugly on top of ugly, he said, with a large gash on its side. One of the doors was held together with baling wire and several other body parts were completely rusted out. The muffler was dragging and spraying sparks, multiple layers of paint were visible in the midst of the rust. And on the car there was a sign that read, "This is not an abandoned car."

Well, our fallen world can be ugly on top of ugly, and yet this is not an abandoned world. Jesus has come. As is clear in today's Gospel lesson, everywhere that he goes he frees people from oppression - as one commentator put it, "disease, demons and death are running for their lives." And, we are empowered to continue his ministry, to become all things to all people, to love sacrificially, so that when those who feel abandoned see us, they see Him. Because, you see, to become all things to all people is another way of saying that we become Jesus to them.

AMEN

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