The Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany: What's my motivation?

Isaiah 40:21-31; Psalm 147:1-11, 20c; 1 Corinthians 9:16-23; Mark 1:29-39

A few years ago there was a Sprite commercial in the States that started off with these three tough young guys playing a pick-up basketball game. They talked for a few seconds about how tough they were, how much better they were at basketball, etc., and then someone from offscreen yelled "CUT!" and the illusion was broken. No longer were these three tough young guys playing basketball, but now they were arrogant, sniveling-artist, prima-donna type actors. "Don't speak that way to ME, little man," one says to the director, in a high-class British accent that belies his tough-guy jock exterior. "I studied SHAKESPEARE at CAMBRIDGE!" Then another one wants to know a question of acting method. In an insecure voice, he says, "Wait...wait...what's my motivation?"

I immediately thought if this last line as I read the Epistle Lesson for today. This is Paul's "all things to everyone" speech, or theological chameleonism. I can certainly imagine what lies behind this speech, what, in the words of the actor from the Sprite commercial, is Paul's "motivation." According to his opponents (whose words we have to supply here, but it seems reasonable to do so), Paul is being what my Filipino friends call plastik. That word means just what it sounds like in English--plastic, unreal, synthetic, molding himself to whatever model he needs to fit whatever crowd he's with. In short, such a person is ungenuine, not living up to the courage of his convictions. In a way, although the situations in Rome and Corinth were quite different, one might use Paul's great exhortation in Rom 12 against him in 1 Cor 9, and perhaps something exactly like this lay behind 1 Cor 9. But, for Paul, even his seeming inconsistency contributes to a bedrock of security--his belief in and communication of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, of which he was made an eyewitness, indeed the last of them all (1 Cor 15:8).

The Gospel Lesson for today, Mark 1:29-38, although not indicating something of Jesus' desire to appear one way to one crowd, and another way to another, nevertheless discusses a similar thing. Simon and the disciples find Jesus hiding off somewhere, and they say that everyone is looking for him. In this case, those who seek do not find (see Matt 7:8; Lk 11:10), but instead Jesus wants to spread his message even to those other towns. One might say that those who do not seek him are finding him. Perhaps better, one might say that God in Jesus is the one who seeks. I do not remember the source, but I heard someone give--or someone told me that he/she heard it, or whatever--a very trenchant comment regarding "seeker-sensitive" worship such as that you will find at the large megachurches and many smaller evangelical churches trying to mimic their model and become large megachurches themselves. (Aside: even the pastors of these great megachurches, in their prodigious amounts of books they seem to be able to write even while pastoring multiple thousands of people, say that you can't do it like we did; and yet we try.) This person said, "There is no problem with 'seeker-sensitive' worship, just so long as we understand that GOD is the seeker!"

This comment, while it was directed as a criticism against some contemporary worship practices (a late 20th/early 21st century version of Finney's "new measures?"), at the same time it was a prescient theological comment. And it seems to be in line both with how Paul defends himself in 1 Cor 9 and how Jesus determines to not reward those who are seeking him in the immediate situation and instead go off seeking others. For that matter, this is consistent also with the parable of the sheep; the shepherd leaves the 99 and goes off in search of the lost one. And there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner coming to repentance than ninety-nine who do not need repentance. Thanks be to God.

The Old Testament contributions this week, both Isa 40 and Ps 147, contribute to the theme in an overarching sort of way. By testifying to the greatness and majesty and, in particular, sovereignty of God, these texts signify that God can move things about as God wills, without any reference or deference to that in which humans put their trust. Paul and Jesus seem to be plugged into that greater mission, such that the seeming permanence of certain human institutions, whether those be political or theological institutions, are but as nothing for God the Seeker. So this is why Jesus can avoid those who are searching for him and instead go off in search of others who haven't yet heard his name. And this is why Paul can appear to leave his convictions at the door when he models himself to those who are inside, but really he is plugging himself into a motivation greater than the "convictions" that he held so dear (see also Phil 3).

It is a great and glorious revelation, a gift from God, to discover that we do not have to mold to a particular form. Would that we really did allow for diversity in worship, so that by all means we might win some. How revolutionary would THAT be for Christian ministry, worship, evangelism, and discipleship? Amen.