Sermon 2/5/06
All Things - 1 Corinthians 9:16-23, Mark 1:29-39
(view lectionary notes for this text)
One of the best movies I’ve seen, one that is on many people’s lists of best movies, is the film Schindler’s List, the Steven Spielberg film about a man named Oskar Schindler, who worked to rescue Jews from being sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust by employing over a thousand workers in his factory. His motives begin with profit for himself, but eventually his mission becomes one of compassion and urgency. In the end, in one of my favorite scenes from the movie, Schindler expresses his deep despair that he could have done more but did not. He says:
I could have got more out. I could have got more. I don't know. If I'd just... I could have got more. Stern, the man to whom he’s speaking, replies: Oskar, there are eleven hundred people who are alive because of you. Look at them. But Schindler goes on: If I'd made more money... I threw away so much money. You have no idea. If I'd just...I didn't do enough! This car. [He] would have bought this car. Why did I keep the car? Ten people right there. Ten people. Ten more people. This pin. Two people. This is gold. Two more people. He would have given me two for it, at least one. One more person. A person, Stern. For this. I could have gotten one more person... and I didn't! And I... I didn't!
As church leaders, as mission-workers, as people of faith, I think perhaps we can relate to Schindler’s words. No matter what we try to do, it seems it is never enough, and that we always carry the burden of knowing that we should be doing more. This burden is a tremendous weight to bear, a sometimes immobilizing weight. We know we should be doing more that we aren’t doing, and so we do nothing at all. And then we come across passages of scripture like this reading from Paul, and my first response is to feel even more of a burden placed on my shoulders. “An obligation is laid on me,” Paul says, “and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! . . . I have become all things to all people, so that I might by all means save some.” All things to all people! How can we live up to such a standard? All things to all people? I can’t do it. Trying to be all things to all people seems like the surest way to burn out that I can think of. Paul may have had the dedication and the drive, but just thinking about trying to be all things to all people makes me feel overwhelmed.
And yet, the sentence is there. Woe to us if we don’t preach the gospel. All things to all people. So what do we do with it? It is finally in reading some of the words in the middle of the passage that I start to get the picture. Paul writes, “To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (though I am not free from God’s love but am under Christ’s law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I because weak, so that I might win the weak. It is then that Paul concludes with his “all things to all people claim.”
I think that when we hear the phrase “all things to all people” we get the idea that we’re meant to be everything to a person – their teacher, their pastor, their servant, their leader, their parent, their friend, their confessor, and even their savior. If we try to be all these things to people, we are no doubt going to fail. In fact, when we try to do things this way, we end up feeling so inadequate that we end up doing nothing at all. But when Paul talks about being all things to all people, he talks about doing this by becoming one with the people he is trying to reach. Instead of trying to take on a million different roles, Paul’s strategy is to meet people where they are at, to experience life through another’s eyes, and so to share the gospel in the most authentic way possible, by embodying it in community with others. How better to show others the depth of your concern for their souls than by being with them, living with them, working alongside of them? Paul’s plan doesn’t call for us to meet all of people’s needs, but for us to meet the most basic of needs – the need to be loved as whole people, unique and important people. And so to the Jew, Paul is a Jew. To the Gentile, he is a Gentile, and to the weak, he is weak.
Paul’s plan of action, though, isn’t an original idea. He’s simply modeling his ministry after that of Jesus Christ. God, to reach us with love, took the most direct approach. God became one of us. To reach us, God became us, lives with us, dwells within us. In the gospel lesson from Mark, we hear that the people are relentless in their pursuit of Jesus. Even the disciples are described as “hunting” for Jesus. They are so eager for him, so in need of whatever it is he is offering. And Jesus, hearing Simon’s words – “everyone is searching for you,” Jesus responds by saying, “Let’s go then – go out to the towns and be with the people, so I can give them the good news, for that is what I came out to do.” To reach us, God became us.
In our work, in our vocation, in our ministry, in our mission, we need to clarify our role. We don’t need to be the savior. God’s already got that angle covered for us. And with that burden surely off our shoulders, we’re free to be part of people’s lives and experiences in meaningful, transformational ways, as we share the gospel by sharing ourselves and sharing in the lives of others. To do this, we need to examine the way that we normally reach out to others. When we do work as individuals as part of the church, are we only willing to do service for others – service where we are in charge and in control, service where there is a clear demarcation between those giving and those receiving? Our intentions are good, but sometimes our way of serving others only reinforces the difference between those who have and those who need. Paul’s aim in his ministry was to eliminate that difference. He made himself become like those with whom he wanted to share the gospel. To a Jew, he was a Jew, and to a Gentile, he was a Gentile. Following Paul’s model, we do our best work for the gospel, for the realizing of God’s justice, when we work side by side with those who have needs that we seek to meet. We best embody Jesus Christ, when, like him, we celebrate the full value of all of those we serve.
Being with someone – really with them – is a true gift to give. In my time spent as a chaplain at Crouse Hospital during seminary, I learned that people weren’t looking for me to solve their problems with magic words. There were no words that could make their pain and struggle go away. But they were looking for someone who could be there with them – there in their grief – to share the pain with them – there in their fear and anxiety – to share the burden with them. Just being there – really there – is actually harder than trying to ‘fix things’. But it is so much more authentic, so much more a true sharing of the gospel message of God’s loving grace, of God’s kingdom come, now, to earth.
Today we celebrate together Holy Communion, a meal that symbolizes our authentic sharing and living and serving together. Jesus was so committed to being one with us that he made us his body through the sharing of the bread and the cup. As we commune together, I share the prayer of consecration, saying, “Make [these elements] be fore us the body and blood of Christ, that we may be for the world the body of Christ – make us one with Christ, one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world.” We are called to be one with Christ, and one with each other, and one with all the world, that we might share authentically the good news of God. Come; let us be the body of Christ, in this world of need.
Amen.