Paul accommodates himself to people as and where he finds them. To Jews, he speaks as a Jew. To gentiles, Paul relates to them as one freed from the bonds of the Jewish laws. To the weak, Paul appears weak. The power of God in the gospel of Christ always encounters and engages people where they are, where they live, in their social matrix. Inevitably the gospel moves and changes them, but it always comes to them, engages them and nourishes them from the very point where they are.

A hard sell, someone who doesn’t take no for an answer. If you turn down their offer for a great deal, they pressure you to reconsider. They sweeten the deal just a tiny bit more to entice you. Like the caricature of the car salesperson who just won’t let you walk off the lot without the car of your dreams. Or like the phone solicitor who, when you say that you’re not interested in what he’s selling, he quickly says, “but just think what a great deal this is.”

“Trying to be all things to all people.” That phrase is often used as a condemnation and criticism. We can’t be all things to all people. Most of those who use the phrase probably don’t realize that it’s a biblical quotation, and few of us appreciate the context and message that Paul was communicating when he claimed that he was “all things to all people.” Paul was talking about how he shared the good news of God’s love in Christ. Paul identified the first rule of evangelism is to be adaptable. Paul went to people where they lived and spoke to them on their own terms. He didn’t insist that they come to church before he’d share the good news of God’s love. He took the love to them, in their language, in their own setting, in the words and with the images that made sense to them in their lives. The gospel of Christ isn’t a buffet line, according to Paul. People shouldn’t be required to come up and serve themselves and taste and test the goodness of God’s love. Paul went to them, served them where they were, and sought to show respect and honor for their perspectives. Paul assured that the gospel doesn’t have to be protected by issuing it only in pre-approved containers. The gospel would take shape in whatever circumstance it was delivered. The good news of God’s love in Christ would nourish life in whatever circumstance is was offered.

Love is that experience when we recognize that the person in front of us is valuable and insightful and beautiful, without us having to change anything about them. We live in the love of Christ when we appreciate the people around us not for who they might become some day, but for who they are right now. We live in the love of Christ when we treasure the people we encounter as beautiful, not that they would be beautiful if they lost a few pounds or got a new haircut or wore better clothes, but beautiful for who they are right now. We live in the love of Christ when we value each life as a precious child of God, not valuable for what they might someday learn or do, but valuable just as they are right now.

But becoming all things to all people doesn’t mean that we lose our own center. Accommodating ourselves to share the good news of Christ to each person we meet doesn’t require that we give up our own identity. We aren’t to be like a feather, blowing this way or that with each new current that we encounter. We must first and foremost know ourselves, created by God, named as God’s precious child, and redeemed from our own bent to selfishness and sin in order that we might live into the blessed community of peace with justice that God has promised. We can know where to bend and accommodate only once we’ve determined for certain who we know ourselves to be. Once we’ve decided what’s really important, we can flex and bend in all those things that don’t really matter. Once we’re truly anchored in the loving grace of God, then it’s not difficult to realize that the things we use to divide and distinguish us really don’t matter.

I attended a camp where I was asked to briefly explain and illustrate the “camp virtue” of respect. I considered this task carefully, striving to be both brief and sufficient. Finally, at the opening of camp when we presented all the camp virtues, it came to my turn to explain respect. And I said that I thought that respect was when we believe that the person in front of us is valuable, insightful, and beautiful, without us having to change anything about them. Respect is when we

The combination of necessity and free will. Paul had no choice but to answer his call. But he freely gave himself in service to God, in order that he might hear that call. Once heard, though, he feels compelled, bound. With maturity comes that delicate balance of free will and obligation. When we’re children, often we spend a lot of time longing for the freedom of adulthood. Children may long for the day when they don’t have to go to school. They grow into the anticipation of the freedom of being able to go where they want, drive a car if they want, stay up as late as they want. But as we mature, we recognize that with freedom comes obligation. We learn that we’ve got to get a good education in order to be able to take advantage of all of the possibilities for our lives. [] Eventually we’ve got to learn to give up our freedom and our rights in certain circumstances in order that others may be made free along with us.