The sermon text is below the sermon video…

 

Sermon preached at St. Stephen’s Church, Goldsboro NC
Sunday February 7 2021
The Reverend Alan Neale
“Large heartedness”

I Corinthians 9:22-23 “I have become all things to all people, that I might by all means save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel”. Message Translation: “I have voluntarily become a servant to any and all in order to reach a wide range of people: religious, nonreligious, meticulous moralists, loose-living immoralists, the defeated, the demoralized—whoever. I didn’t take on their way of life. I kept my bearings in Christ—but I entered their world and tried to experience things from their point of view. I’ve become just about every sort of servant there is in my attempts to lead those I meet into a God-saved life. I did all this because of the Message. I didn’t just want to talk about it; I wanted to be in on it!”
Those addicted to consistency find here much to discomfort them. In his commentary on Corinthians Professor FF Bruce writes, “A character like Paul’s cannot be measured by the standard of that “foolish consistency” which R.W. Emerson called “the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines”. Here St. Paul embraces, commits himself publicly to the vocation of being “large hearted” and in so doing finds himself captivated and enthralled by a far greater, more eternal, consistency… that of the Gospel – the good news of grace!
These two verses have long beguiled me… these are, it seems, a call to being not merely “two-faced” but “multi-faced” and all for the sake of the Gospel – the good news of grace.
These two verses confront me with a fundamental question… how far will I go, how largely will I love, how widely will I think in order to “win others for the Gospel” – the good news of grace?
Years ago, I knew an Episcopal priest whom I greatly respected and whom I was proud to call my friend, Paul Koumrian, priest of the church, sought by many and diverse means to “win others for the Gospel” – in word and story, in music and art, in play and artifice.

This vocation to large heartedness is no easy call, no simple or facile occupation. It is indeed a work that requires strength to be daily, constantly renewed. And this we do best, in the words of the prophet Isaiah (40:31), by waiting upon the Lord. Faithful, diligent, constant waiting… that then enables us to be one with those who soar with enthusiasm, who run with energy and who walk with diligence.

This vocation to large heartedness shapes even our Lord as one day he commands with authority the unclean spirit and the next day with gentle love he touches and renews Peter’s mother-in-law and sets her free from sickness and free for service.

This vocation to large heartedness affects us not only as we seek to win others and entice them into the fellowship of the church but also, once members, offers to all (old and new) an arena in which they are invited to offer new insights, new perspectives and, yes, new adverse criticisms.

The Reverend Doctor Derek Tidball comments, “Instead of becoming all things to all men we expect all men to become one thing, just like us. Our converts have to fit into our mold… learn our language, adopt our culture and become clones of the believers who have been in the church for a long time.” Tidball concludes, “We should listen sensitively to what people say, agree with as much as possible and never impose, directly or indirectly, blatantly or subtly, religious culture upon them.”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky said: “The degree of civilization in a society is revealed by entering its prisons.” Winston Churchill said that a society’s attitude to its prisoners, its “criminals”, is the measure of “the stored up strength of a nation”.

Perhaps the degree of civilization in a society is revealed by its large heartedness towards immigrants who are judged, assessed not by their provenance but rather by their shared common humanity? A nation’s humanity, proximity to divinity, may be assessed by its willingness to “become all things to all people” for the sake of the Gospel, the good news of grace, unmerited and undeserved favor.

In 1883 the American poet Emma Lazarus wrote these words,
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Friends, we are called to be “large hearted” and thus be ready to adopt by any and all means to be agents, apostles, carriers of reconciliation and welcome.
So God in Christ ever welcomes you and me, so God in Christ empowers us… in family, in work, in church, in nation and in the world.
AMEN