Sunday, February 4, Fifth Sunday After the Epiphany
“By All Possible Means”
Psalm 34:1-11; Isaiah 40:21-31; 1 Corinthians 9:16-27; Mark 1:29-39
Divine Service III with Holy Communion
Hymns: #842 “Son of God, Eternal Savior”; #753 “All for Christ I Have Forsaken”;
#830 “Spread the Reign of God the Lord”
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace, mercy, and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus.
There’s an expression used quite often in the world of sports called “leaving it all on the field.” That means that whatever your chosen sport is, whether it’s football, baseball, basketball, wrestling, auto racing, bowling, or ping-pong, you have to give it your all. Then win or lose, at the end of the game or the match or the race, you’ll know you’ve done the best you could do. When the clock runs out, I may end up broken, bloodied, and bruised, covered with dirt, exhausted and dripping with sweat, and gasping for air, but at least I’ll know I gave it all I had.
“Leaving it all on the field” comes from the world of sports and games, but it also applies to other things in life, like your job, or your marriage, or being a parent; or your walk with Christ, or serving God, or your struggle with sin. The book of Hebrews says, “In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.” Are you leaving it all on the field in whatever you do? Are you giving it all you have?
And as we gather on this blessed Sunday, “leaving it all on the field” also applies very much to our work together as God’s Church. Are we as a Church doing everything we can for our Lord? Are we as God’s people doing all we can for Jesus? People are still lost. Our neighbors are still hurting. The sick are still sick, the suffering are still suffering, the broken-hearted are still broken-hearted. Have we exhausted every means at our disposal to reach the people around us for Christ, or is there more that we can do? St. Paul says, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” May we all be able to say the same when our Lord calls us to account.
St. Paul was very much a “leave it all on the field” kind of pastor, preacher, and teacher. He says in 2nd Timothy, near the end of his life, that he’d “poured out his life like a drink offering” for the sake of Christ, that he’d given his all. He says in our reading from 1st Corinthians: “When I preach the Gospel, when I tell the Good News about Jesus, when I do the good work of evangelism, I can’t boast or brag about it.” “I’m compelled to preach”, he says; it’s a necessity for me. I couldn’t do anything else with my life. Woe to me, I’d be miserable, if I ever stopped telling the world about Jesus. Prophet Jeremiah said the Word of God was “a fire shut up in his bones,” and he couldn’t keep it in even if he tried.
If I preach voluntarily, Paul says, there will be a reward for that -- the reward of satisfaction in a job well done, the reward of knowing what I’m doing is saving people and pleasing to God. But even on those days when I’d pull the covers over my head and just not, I still have to go about doing the work God has given me to do. Paul says in another place that we Christians are “stewards of the mysteries of Christ.” That is, we’ve been given all the gifts of God’s grace; and along with them comes the joy, and the blessing, and the responsibility (do I dare to use that word?) of sharing those gifts with the world around us.
Evangelism isn’t optional for us, Church. It’s good if we’re sharing the Good News willingly and voluntarily; a much more joyful thing it will be that way. But it’s also an obligation, our Christian duty, something our Lord wants and expects us to do. It’s not something we can neglect simply because we’re disinclined to do it. (What is our budget for outreach and evangelism, by the way?)
“What then is my reward?” Paul asks. What will I get for my efforts? What can I expect to gain from all my hard work for God? Just this, Paul says: That in preaching the Gospel, I can offer it to everyone free of charge, and not make use of any of rights I may have in preaching it. Church, we have to be so careful about this. Whatever we do together as a Church, we can never allow it to be seen as being of benefit only to ourselves. Whatever we do together, whether it’s a dinner or a rummage sale or a fundraising project, should always be done for the purpose of somehow getting the Gospel into people’s ears. Because, in the end, that’s the only reward worth having. People have “somehow” gotten the idea that all God’s Church is after is their money. We’re going to have to work hard to show them that just isn’t so.
Paul says, “Although I’m a free man, and I don’t belong to anyone, I make myself a servant and a slave of everyone, to win as many people as I possibly can.” There’s lots of things I could do with my life, and my time, and my money; but this isn’t about my income, or my personal agenda, or my own likes or dislikes, or my personal convenience, or my plans. It’s bigger than you and me. If you can name something more important than reaching other people for Christ, I’d like to know what it is.
Are you familiar with the joy formula? J-O-Y: Jesus first, Others second, Yourself third (or fourth or fifth or sixth, whatever it takes). We might just as well call it the “Jesus Formula.” For the joy set before Him, He went to the cross to save you and me. Jesus gave Himself for Others, including me and you. How can we do less than leave everything we are and have on the field for Him?
Paul, who was an orthodox, practicing Jew – a Pharisee, in fact – was happy to live and behave like a Jew whenever he was with them. For the sake of saving his fellow Jews, he’d gladly keep the laws and customs of his people; the Sabbath worship, the Old Testament rules about food, the festivals, feasts, and sacrifices - so long as those things didn’t come before Christ or require denying Him. He knew that offending his fellow Jews could mean losing any chance to talk to them, witness to them, or win them over. That’s what “speaking the truth in love” is all about. If the Gospel of Christ should offend them, that’s another matter; that part isn’t negotiable. But, as Paul says elsewhere, “As much as it’s possible for you, live in peace with everyone.” It won’t always be possible, but we do the best we can.
Paul goes on to say, though, that for the sake of those not having the Law -- the Gentiles -- he’s also willing to live like a Gentile; to eat their food, stay in their houses, do things no “righteous” Jew would ever do; all for the sake of bringing them to Christ as well. Paul says in the book of Galatians, “Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the Law of Christ.” And the Law of Christ, folks, is to “love one another as Christ has loved you.” That is, to do what Jesus did and follow His example. He’d accept an invitation to dinner at a Pharisee’s house; but He’d also sit down to eat with a tax collector, like Matthew or Zacchaeus. He wasn’t too proud to sit down with even the worst of sinners, in order to gain them for Christ. He’d do miracles for Jews or Gentiles, and forgive the sins of liars, cheaters, and prostitutes. He wasn’t afraid to touch a leper, or to heal someone on a Sabbath Day.
“To the weak I became weak, to win the weak,” Paul says; “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some.” By all possible means. To whatever extent necessary. Everything left on the field at the end of the day. Evangelism requires a willingness to bend, a willingness to go beyond what might be comfortable for us. It means going where the hurt is, never mind the mess in the house, or the smell of the sick, or the reek of alcohol oozing from every pore. It means meeting people where they are, even if where they are is in a hole.
Maybe our evangelism program, when we get things going, will bring us people who are strong and faithful and doing well, who’ll be willing to jump in and contribute and help right away. Probably not, though. Most of the people we’ll find willing to listen to us, will be willing just because they’re hurting and desperate and in need of help, like “all the sick and demon-possessed” who came to Jesus in our Gospel. And we’ll have to be willing, like Jesus was, to bend down to help them, and do whatever it takes to help heal their hurts and make them strong again. We can’t expect to do evangelism for free. We can expect it to tax us emotionally, and to cost us our time, and even to break our hearts now and then; and it may even cost us a little money. It will be worth every penny, though, if it means bringing someone to Christ.
Paul says here that everything he does, he does “for the sake of the Gospel, that I might share in its blessings.” We’re not after ‘followers’, after all. Our purpose here isn’t to put people in the seats, or money in the plate. That might be a happy side effect of evangelism, but that can never, ever be the purpose of it. What we’re out to do is make friends, and to bring those new friends of ours into full participation in all God’s gifts – into our fellowship, our worship, and the Sacraments. Paul says we rejoice with those who rejoice, and suffer with those who suffer – because that’s what friends do. I want to be a part of something amazing; part of a family that happily welcomes strangers into the family, and doesn’t ever treat them like they’re strangers. My wife’s dear grandmother used to say, “Where there’s room in the heart, there’s room in the home.”
And to accomplish that, to make it happen, we have to do as Paul says, and “run to win the prize” – which is very much a “leave it all on the field” proposition. It goes back to the necessity of evangelism, and the compelling need to preach and teach and spread the Gospel. What’s the prize? It’s heaven, of course. We need to guard our own faith and stay faithful ourselves, and never lose sight of where we’re going, as we reach for that “heavenward prize.” Our greatest prize, though, our greatest reward, will be to hear God saying, “Well done, good and faithful servant,” and to finally see all the souls we brought along with us, the people who are there in heaven because we did all we could, “by all possible means,” to put the Good News into their ears.
Games were big in St. Paul’s day, much as they are now; wrestling matches, foot races, Olympic games, athletic contests of all sorts. And the winner would often get a crown of laurel, a crown of leaves, a perishable crown, the kind of crown that fades and perishes and doesn’t last. That perishable crown is a metaphor for all the earthly rewards we could chase after; money, wealth, success, a fine church building, a healthy budget, a surplus at the end of the fiscal year. Will this lovely little church even be here a hundred years from now, long after all of us are gone? Who knows? Maybe, but honestly, probably not. What will last forever is the love we share, the good news we tell, and the souls we help to find their way to heaven.
Therefore, says Paul, “I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.” Do we have a purpose, Church? Do we have an aim, a goal, someplace we want to get to, something we’d like to accomplish together? Do we have a plan to get there? Or are we just “boxing at shadows,” talking the thing to death but never getting around to get it done? Do we talk a good game, or are we willing to get in the fight, hands and feet, tooth and nail, heart and soul?
Have we done everything we can? Have we truly reached the end of our resources and our energy, or have we not even gotten started tapping into what we can accomplish in this place, by the grace of God and with His help? Maybe we’ll succeed, and maybe we won’t; but we’ll never know unless we try. I, for one, am not willing to stand before God one day, and have to confess that I didn’t do everything I could do.
Everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth, we ask You today to give strength to the weary and increase the power of the weak. Help us, O Lord, to hope in You always and to renew our strength. Help us, Lord, to run and not grow weary, and to walk and not be faint, until we’ve done all we can do to bring our neighbors to Christ. In Jesus’ name; Amen.