In his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul tells us that he must be all things to all people in order to win more people to the Good News of God in Jesus Christ. Corinth at the time was a cosmopolitan city engaging in trade worldwide. By analogy you could think of modern day Qatar or Sydney or Kuala Lumpur. Paul is telling the Corinthians by way of his example that they must meet the different cultures they encounter in their context: the Jews, the Greeks, the slaves, the free, those under the law, those not under the law, and so on. Paul puts the message of the Gospel in terms that each sub-culture can understand and he expects the Corinthian church to do the same.

One of the ironies of the Anglican-Episcopal tradition is that we started out with flexible, adaptable worship and theology five hundred years ago, and through the years what we say we believe and how we worship has turned into stone. Today, any given Episcopal church tends to present only one understanding of worship and one dominant theology. If Paul were here today, he would point out that by maintaining such rigidity; we are missing 80% of the people around us.

Now many of us are here because we like the style of worship and theology, and we are probably comfortable with this particular community? Why would we want to diversify? 1. Because the Great Commission we heard last week commands us to baptize and teach, and diversification is one of the best strategies to reach more people. 2. Because a diverse community strengthens the individual. You will be made stronger, richer, and more spiritually whole by greater diversity. We could go on at length on either of these, but more pressing things need to be said.

We could look at different cultures of people such as Latinos, Blacks, Asians, Indians, and so forth, but there is another way to look at culture today that cuts across traditional notions of race, sex, and age. Today you can find people of all different races, ages, and sexes located in any of four categories. These categories will sound vaguely religious but they are much broader than that. Each one forms a world-view. Each one is value-neutral in that it is neither right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse than others. Finally, real human beings tend to move among these categories and even combine them. Here we go:

Fundamentalists – There are fundamentalists in every major world religion. It is an approach to sacred scripture maintaining absolute positions of right – wrong, good – evil, etc. The whole idea of fundamentalism originated in response to modernism and the scientific method about two hundred years ago. While most members of this congregation tend to veer away from fundamentalism, what would happen if, like Paul, we thought carefully about what we had to be and do in order to proclaim the Gospel to people in this category?

Traditionalists – This group tends to define their reference point for tradition on a personal or institutional experience. You find people in all religions whose best personal time might have been in their thirties with small children and a family. Consequently their reference point for the traditional church or mosque or synagogue would be whatever form of prayer and worship was practiced during that time. Episcopalians today might consider one of four prayer books from 1895 to 2005 as their “tradition.” Methodists tend to have more of an institutional tradition in their connection to John Wesley’s personal conversion and his approach to organizing for ministry. Whatever it is, everyone is comfortable in their particular tradition and we are often reluctant to try anything else. The challenge to any religious community is how do we avoid making an idol out of our own tradition? Could we add different traditions and appeal to a greater number of people?

Modernists – This group anchors their belief in the scientific method of Isaac Newton. Thomas Jefferson was a good modernist. So was the atheist Christopher Hitchens. Most modernists reject religious beliefs as myth or fairy tale. For them, the only valid reality is that which can be explained rationally and empirically. Things like the Nicene Creed, virgin birth, resurrection, and other miracles fall outside the realm of acceptable history for modernists. We have here in Muskogee a fair number of folks who fall into this camp and who simply do not attend any church.

Ironically, the modernist perspective is based on a scientific approach that ended in the 20th century. The question remains for us to ponder. How can we proclaim the gospel to those who reject faith itself as irrational?

Post-Modernists – Like it or not, any western person under thirty today has attended school and grown up in a post-modernist world-view. For the post-modernist, truth is plural and is found differently by different people in different contexts. Intuition is valued as much or more than rational thought. Uncertainty, ambiguity, and irony are embraced rather than shunned. Personal lives as well as the trajectory of entire countries may seem more like aimless wandering in many directions than a purposeful march in the direction of “progress.”

The generational gap today between parents of twenty-somethings and younger is more difficult than ever because it includes all the usual stuff of age difference along with this post-modern world view that most adults find baffling. The challenge for us in church is not to bury our heads in the sand of tradition, but for us to actively reach out. This is the dominant view of the world around us today. It is our calling to adapt and change.

Any church that wants to survive more than twenty years must understand all of these cultural currents and be able to evangelize without judgment. Like Paul, in order to grow we must be all things to all people, otherwise we will just evaporate.

In my house we have a number of antiques that came from the farm where Joan grew up. We still have the butter churn that she used as a child to churn butter. We have the butter mold and the wind up Victrola record player. You can only find these things in an antique store today. The products and services that have replaced these things are not necessarily better. They are just part of the world we have today. Yes, I must admit that sitting there, hand-churning whole milk into butter produces a kind of pleasure and satisfaction you just cannot buy in a grocery store. At the same time, you aren’t going to find a lot of people today who would churn their own butter when they could easily buy some at the store.

I love our forms of worship and our theology, and I love a lot of things about the Episcopal Church, but to the world around us we are like that butter churn. Some people might not even understand what it is or what it does. Others would smile and think it was quaint. Still others would think it was so old-fashioned it only deserves to be put in the trash.

This church has so much to offer the community and the world around us. We have a high calling to present the good news of a loving God to all of these people. In order to reach those around us, we need to get past the image of the butter churn and meet them on their own ground, just like Paul.