I Corinthians 9:16-23
In preparing this sermon, I googled
“All things to all people” and found that unless someone was directly quoting I
Corinthians, it invariably came up as the saying, “You cannot be all things to
all people.” The apostle Paul, of
course, was saying that he had done exactly that. I think that what has happened is that the
phrase has stuck in people’s heads and has been taken in an unintended way that
is totally unrelated and out of context.
When people say, “You cannot be all
things to all people,” they are generally warning against the idea that you can
ever meet all the expectations that everyone may put onto you. A few years back, a friend of mine wrote a
song called, “I Want a Martha Stewart Life”.
I don’t remember all the lyrics, but part of it went:
“At Christmastime my home
will be
Decked out with evergreens.
I’ll design and build a
tasty
Gingerbread nativity
scene.
I’ll trim the tree, nog
the eggs,
Bake cookies by the
score.
Forget the baby Jesus –
I’m the one they’ll
adore.
The lights will dim, the
music swell,
My guests will drink my
health
While I premier in ‘The
Nutcracker’,
Dancing every role
myself.” [1]
That
nails it. “I’m the one they’ll
adore.” The desire to be appreciated and
applauded, the search for fame or glory, the need for attention and approval –
those lie at the heart of trying, as the phrase is generally used, to be all
things to all people.
Henri Nouwen was a Dutch priest who
taught theology at Yale and wrote a long list of books about spiritual growth
and the inner life. He did that against
the backdrop of being in great demand because he was so effective as a writer
and teacher. A big part of his effectiveness
arose from his brutal honesty about himself, and his willingness to describe
the sort of temptations that come along, including the one to be (in the
misunderstood sense) all things to all people.
He wrote:
“Aren't you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come
along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don't you
often hope: 'May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country or relationship
fulfill my deepest desire.' But as long as you are waiting for that mysterious
moment you will go on running helter-skelter, always anxious and restless,
always lustful and angry, never fully satisfied. You know that this is the
compulsiveness that keeps us going and busy, but at the same time makes us
wonder whether we are getting anywhere in the long run. This is the way to
spiritual exhaustion and burn-out. This is the way to spiritual death.”[2]
Nouwen, at the peak of his academic career and literary success, and went to live near Toronto as part of a residential community where physically and mentally disabled people and those with fuller ability lived together. It was a huge challenge that sent him briefly into a depression because he discovered that in that place his credentials and vocabulary and reputation meant nothing.
It was also where he discovered the
truth of the things he had been saying – and here is where the proper
understanding of “all things to all people” comes into play. He found that
“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of
pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion
challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are
lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the
weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless.
Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.” [3]
That is what the apostle Paul had done, and what he was inviting other
disciples of Jesus to do. He wasn’t
advising anybody to become some sort of social chameleon who blends into every
setting. He was talking about making the
effort to understand who people really and truly are, so that the grace of God
that we have known in our own lives can flow through us into theirs, and do that
in an honest way that is the work of the Holy Spirit and not one more human
effort to score some kind of points.
“For though I am free with respect to all, I have made myself a
slave to all, so that I might win more of them. 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 law but am under Christ’s
law) so that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, so that I
might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, so that I might by
any means save some. I do it all
for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.” [I Corinthians 9:19-23]
Before you
or I dare to comment on someone else’s life like some talking head on Fox News
or CNN, we had better understand who that person is, what their experience has
been, and at least make an effort to consider what it is like to be them. The heart of real evangelism is there. That is where we discover and reveal that we
ourselves are not so different. Again,
here’s Nouwen:
“Hospitality is not to change people, but to offer them space where
change can take place. It is not to bring men and women over to our side, but
to offer freedom not disturbed by dividing lines. It is not to lead our
neighbor into a corner where there are no alternatives left, but to open a wide
spectrum of options for choice and commitment. It is not an educated
intimidation with good books, good stories, and good works, but the liberation
of fearful hearts so that words can find roots and bear ample fruit….The
paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful
emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover
themselves as created free….not a subtle invitation to adopt the life style of
the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.”[4]
Paul
learned that when he found himself, a devout Jew, living among Greek-speaking,
pork-eating, Sabbath-working gentiles whom God was calling as certainly as he
had been called. Henri Nouwen learned
that when he was an intellectual living and working among people who lacked the
capacity to bathe themselves properly, let alone read long commentaries on the
life of prayer, yet who often had a richer prayer life than his own.
We ourselves live among people who
may have no vocabulary of faith, no storehouse of Bible verses, no familiar
hymns in the back of their heads, and yet they may very well have a full sense
of right and wrong, hearts that can sense when love and caring are genuine, and
souls that are open to the actions of the Holy Spirit. The great secret to reaching all of them, and
to connecting at that point of faith, to becoming all things to all people in
the right way, is to be yourself because we all are, despite our many real and
serious differences, at the point of deepest human life, pretty much the same,
and all open to the grace of God in Christ.
[1] From Alec Baldwin Doesn’t Love Me Anymore,
words by Michael Thomas Ford and music by Jay Kawarsky (2000).
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