I Corinthians 9:16-23

If I proclaim the gospel, this gives me no ground for boasting, for an obligation is laid on me, and woe to me if I do not proclaim the gospel! For if I do this of my own will, I have a reward; but if not of my own will, I am entrusted with a commission. What then is my reward? Just this: that in my proclamation I may make the gospel free of charge, so as not to make full use of my rights in the gospel.

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, that I might by all means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.

When I was a senior in high school, I had zeal for one thing: spreading the gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Since the age of 16, I had gone on regular outings with the Mormon missionaries. I had already adopted the life-style a missionary was supposed to have, rising daily at 5:30 a.m., studying the scriptures, praying, and exercising. I was a leader in my priesthood quorum (Mormon males get ordained at the age of 12). And I was very outspoken about my political and religious beliefs, which included, among other things, the belief that America was God's chosen land, the modern-day Israel, that the U.S. should increase its military spending and defense commitments to protect democracy around the world, that feminism was misguided, that homosexuality was a sin, and abortion was murder. I gave copies of the Book of Mormon to all my friends, and at the end of each school year I gave one to my favorite teachers as well.

One of those teachers was a woman by the name of Ms. Kunz. If I was a right-wing Mormon zealot, Ms. Kunz was what some folks might call a flaming liberal. I think she would have been proud to claim that title. She drove a VW, wore long, back-length hair and little make-up, and insisted on being called Ms. She had posters of flower children and Vietnam war protesters in her classroom. She was a social studies teacher who taught us about the experience of American racial minorities, the working class, and women. She pointed out the injustices in our constitution and legal system, and talked about the negative impact that American militarism has had on its neighbors. I remember she spent one class talking about the Equal Rights Amendment and why it was so important to women. I went home and told my parents about it, and the next day I brought her a pamphlet my father had given me explaining why the Equal Rights Amendment would ruin the country if passed.

Looking back, I realize that I must have annoyed and perhaps even frightened Ms. Kunz. At the time, however, I never would have known it. Ms. Kunz always treated me with the utmost respect. Not only that, but she always actively encouraged me and supported me as a student. She praised my work and she nominated me for academic awards and scholarships. When I asked her to write me a recommendation for my application to be admitted to Brigham Young University, she wrote a glowing one. At the time, I was telling everyone that I wanted to become active in politics, and would eventually run for public office. I have wondered if she thought she was helping to create another Strom Thurmond or Jesse Helms or Richard Nixon. What could she have been thinking?

But Ms. Kunz, more than anyone else from my highschool years, had an enormous impact on me, on my spiritual and intellectual growth, years after my relationship with her ended. More than anyone else, I credit her with planting seeds in me of the person I have become today. Today I am much more like her than I am like the person I was then. She started me on the path of asking certain kinds of questions. She taught me to analyze everything in relation to the effect it had on ordinary people. She taught me to recognize the sources of violence and inequality in our society. And she did it respecting my personhood and my beliefs and my choices, no matter how much they were at odds with her own.

I think the kind of lasting, life-transforming connection that Ms. Kunz established with me is a powerful example of what Paul wrote about in today's text. It comes at the end of a discussion of the rewards a minister of the gospel can expect in return for his or her labor. When Paul says "I have made myself a slave to all" and "I have become all things to all people," what exactly does he mean? Is he implying that engaging in ministry means we are not entitled to a life or a personality of our own? Or is he implying that we should try to win people to the gospel through deception? I don't think so. Paul frequently exaggerated in order to make a point. And the point he is making here is in harmony with the heart of his other writings about the meaning of life in Christian community.

Paul's primary contribution to the early church was to forge a theology that made it possible for people of widely divergent cultural backgrounds, races, and theological understandings to thrive in the same body together. The thrust of his theology was toward breaking down walls and barriers that had existed in the past and finding a new unity in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. The end of Pauline theology was to create inclusive community, that excluded "neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female."

The problem with trying to create this kind of community is that people have a tendency to cling to their histories, their folkways, and their cultures in ways that exclude others. We often define ourselves in terms of what makes us unique, what makes us separate, what makes us different from others. We identify ourselves as belonging to certain sub-groups, in-groups, out-groups. What Paul means by saying that he had "become all things to all people," I think, is that in order to build up the reign of God, to build truly inclusive Christian communities, he had found it necessary to go out of his way to identify with people he thought of as "other."

But how do we do this? There's the rub. Seldom have the differences between people emerged on equal terms. White people have privileges that people of color don't; citizens have rights and privileges that immigrants (legal or non-legal) don't; men have power and privileges that women don't; gays and lesbians lack recognition and legal protections that straight people take for granted; Christians in our society enjoy unofficial status and recognition that non-Christians don't. And so on. And the rules that define people's relationships in "the big world" have an effect on the dynamics in "the little world" between these four walls in sometimes unpredictable ways. We would be fools to deny it. An injunction to "be all things to all people" will mean different things to different people, depending on how much privilege we enjoy in society.

One intriguing statement that he makes is "to the weak, I became weak, that I might win the weak." In what sense does he use the word "weak"? If weakness is read as a lack of privilege or social status, is he saying that as a man with privilege he surrendered his privilege, that he gave up his privilege in order to be one with those who have no privilege? As an educated Roman citizen from a wealthy and influential family who, for the sake of the gospel, lost his privileges of citizenship, was incarcerated and ultimately executed as a political prisoner, this reading carries some plausibility. Is Paul encouraging those of us with privilege to unpack that privilege and ultimately give it up, for the sake of the gospel? If so, his words have revolutionary implications for the church. I like this reading, and I want to hold on to its ramifications. It is true to the principle of radical equality to which I believe the Good Word calls us.

But there might be another way of reading the word "weak," as without defenses. To become weak could be read as to become vulnerable, to drop our defenses. To the extent that our identity is our shield, to "become all things to all people," to drop our precious identity, means to become weak. As black or white or Native or Hispanic or Asian, as gay or straight or lesbian or bi, as able-bodied or disabled, as man or woman or trans-gender, as working class or middle class or rich or poor, as Christian or Jew or Muslim or Pagan, we forge positive identities, we form positive images of ourselves, many of us against negative stereotypes or prejudices in the dominant culture. We come to find strength in our identity. We nurture black pride or gay pride or feminist pride. We want to - we need to - think of ourselves in a good positive light, and we do so by creating and holding on to identities.

Yet, in order to connect with someone at the deepest level - at the level of the soul, at the level that is required for true, meaningful Christian community - the defenses need to drop, and the sharp contours of identity need to soften, to dissolve. At the deepest level, I will relate to you not as a gay man, but as a human being. Letting go of identity does not mean obliterating our history or our experience. It simply means letting go of whatever judgment we think our history entitles us to. This kind of vulnerability may feel especially risky for individuals who lack social privilege, but it is necessary for all of us if we are to enter into the kind of community Paul describes here.

Paul consistently presents an image in this passage of becoming vulnerable. "I became a slave." "Not of my own will." "Not to make full use of my rights." "I became weak." Entering into community, into real, meaningful community does that to us. It makes us vulnerable. It makes us weak. It is dangerous. It is risky. If you feel uncomfortable here, if you feel at risk, you are in good company. Hang in there, because the best is yet to come. There is a reward, a deep and abiding reward for those of us who learn to live through the vulnerability, who learn to find our mutual humanity in it.

I am also intrigued by Paul's statement that "to those under the law, I became as one under the law . . . to those outside the law, I became as one outside the law." In this statement, Paul is referring to the great doctrinal debate that rocked the churches of the first century. It was the doctrinal debate that defined his ministry, and formed the context for what we see as his most original theological insights. Here he seems to be saying that even our beliefs our beliefs about what the church should be, about what church teachings should be, are less important than our solidarity as a church, than our unity in Christ.

When I think about the really difficult conflicts I've lived through in churches and in other communities, it seems to me that the most painful and divisive ones are the ones that hinge on identity. Controversies arise, because different individuals in a congregation have different images of who "we" as a congregation are. They want the congregation to choose a course of action that fits most closely with their image of who we are, or who we should be.

When Lyndale was considering the homeless shelter proposal, I wanted to see us as a congregation affirm a radical commitment to economic justice. By radical, I mean I wanted us to put more on the line than just high-sounding phrases. I wanted to see us "give until it hurts." I wanted to see that we were willing to make a sacrifice, to give up some of our ease and privilege in order to help people with less privilege. That was my image of what churches need to do in order to be real churches. And I was afraid that by refusing to make the necessary sacrifices we might be choosing ease and complacency, and we might be failing as a spiritual community.

Perhaps it was my strict Mormon upbringing that led me to believe that true spirituality requires pain and sacrifice; that the path to God is always a path of the cross, a path by which we enter into deeper and fuller commitments until we are ready to give up our own lives, until we are ready to die for what we believe in. I understand now that other members of the church who saw things differently from me had equally faithful ways of understanding the problem and responding to it - that I was wrong to equate a rejection of the proposal with faithlessness.

But ultimately, whether my approach to spirituality is right or wrong is not important. I learned something important from that controversy that has deepened my faith and enriched my spirituality - whatever that spirituality is. Whatever my hopes, whatever my fears, whatever identity I hope to achieve, I am stronger, I am better, I am more faithful for staying in relationship with you, for insisting on learning what I can learn from you.

At the end of I Corinthians 9, Paul compares being a minister of the gospel to running in a race. But if it is a race, it is one of the most curious races in the world, because it is a race won by choosing not to run ahead of others.

I pray that we might always have the wisdom to know when and how to let our defenses down, when and how to listen to each other, when and how to be present for each other. I pray that we will always remember that it is always us, we the people of Lyndale/UBC, who make this congregation a nurturing, faith-building, life-enhancing place and community, that we will more fully embrace the joys and the costs of that discipleship.

In God's name.

Amen.

Notes:

This text is part of Paul's reflection on the obligations and the rewards of ministry. In chapter 9 of I Corinthians, Paul apparently responds to criticism or questions directed at him about the appropriateness of receiving certain material benefits in return for his missionary service. He responds that while it would be appropriate for him to receive material support for his labor - minimally, food and clothes and shelter - he has chosen not to accept any. He implies that part of the reason he refuses material support is to stem the type of criticism he is responding to his letter. He does not want to be seen as a burden, and he does not want people's misperceptions of his receipt of material goods to become an obstacle to their receiving the gospel. He also suggests that for him, preaching the gospel is its own reward, that it sustains him in ways that far outweigh any material benefits he could ever ask.

Paul seems to be speaking specifically to the issue of the compensation of ordained ministers. In fact, throughout the history of the church, this text has been critical in debates about whether ministers should be compensated or not, and if so, how much they should be compensated and in what manner. During the late Reformation, a major criticism of the various state churches was that they supported their ministers through involuntary taxes. In fact, our own church has its roots in a reformation tradition that was extremely critical of the notion of paid ministry, and that lifted up the notion that the only true ministry done in the name of Jesus the carpenter's son was unpaid, voluntary ministry of the laity. It was acknowledged - and today's text was used to support this - that if the work of the ministry required an individual to give up his or her living, as a laborer for the gospel he or she was entitled to some basic support. But such support should always come from voluntary contributions, never through involuntary taxes or tithes. And such ministry or labor should never detract from the basic obligation all baptized Christians had to labor to build God's reign on earth. Thus, our Puritan/Anabaptist forbears would not have read this text as a narrow discussion of the rights and obligations of a specialized, ordained ministry, but rather as admonitions and instructions to all Christians regarding their mutual obligations, rights, and freedoms and what attitude we should have in fulfilling our own individual, God-given ministry.

Since Paul was indeed laboring in a context where no state church existed, and where no formalized structure was in place to compensate those who were called to preach the gospel, our spiritual grandfathers and grandmothers would probably have been justified in interpreting this text in that context. Since most of them were themselves poor and dependent on their own manual labor for a living, and since they belonged to dissenting church traditions that not only lacked state support but were actively persecuted by the state and the religious establishment, they probably also had an appreciation of the social, economic, and political context of Paul's reflections on ministry that is difficult for us to fully appreciate. But what we need to understand is that no special line was drawn between a ministerial class and the ordinary rank and file of believers. We are all called to "run the race," etc.

I stand before you today as a minister with no ordination, no credentials, no certification any different than that which we all have already as baptized Christians who have given our lives and committed our hearts to God. And when I speak about being a minister and having a calling, I am not speaking about vocation, which is usually what gets spoken about when we start talking about the calling of the laity. I'm not talking about our "calling in life," or the calling God has given us to help contribute or make a difference in the world. We all have that kind of calling too, and it is extremely important that we discern what that is, and live it and follow it as best we can, with what resources God has given us. But that is not the same thing as the ministry of the laity. When I speak of ministry of the laity, I am talking about what we are called to do here, within these four walls, within this community. I am talking about what God has called us to do to strengthen each other as members of Lyndale Congregational United Church of Christ/University Baptist Church. I am talking about what we are called to do to build up and strengthen the body of Christ as we experience it here, now, with each other.