Sixth Sunday of Easter-- May 20 th, 2017: To an unknown god.

Transcription

1 Sixth Sunday of Easter-- May 20 th, 2017: To an unknown god. While experiencing a lay over in Athens waiting for his traveling companions, Silas and Timothy, to arrive so they can all continue on to Jerusalem together Paul walks the streets --takes in the sites and becomes upset by the plethora of temples and idols that fill the city. And, as often was the case, this moves him even more in his desire to preach the gospel. He finds a local synagogue, but the leaders there argue with him and refuse to listen, so he moves to the marketplace. Out in the marketplace he grabs the attention of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers -- who find what he was saying strange but want to know more because as Luke says it: All the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new. Now, Epicureans affirmed a thoroughly materialistic worldview and saw the acquisition of pleasure as the highest principle -- mental pleasure more so than physical pleasure -- the ultimate being the freedom from anxiety and mental pain arising from a needless fear of death, and of the gods. Stoics, on the other hand, affirmed a pantheistic worldview they liked gods -- lots of gods -- and believed that the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason that governs all nature and is indifferent to the rise and fall of fortunes or to pleasure and pain.

2 And, while these two schools had very different understandings of the world, both were wrestling with the search for meaning and a way to explain reality in light of the diminishing influence of the classical Olympian deities, and the mythologies that explained the cultic practices that were attached to the worship of these deities. Athens may have been filled with temples and idols, but the worshipers had lost interest -- preferring the marketplace. Which is why Paul is able to gather both groups around his altar dedicated To the Unknown God so easily. For some like the Stoics that altar represented the potential for new knowledge new revelation and the avoidance of offending divine Reason with their ignorance of this unknown God. But, to others, like the Epicureans, it represented the abandonment of gods a dilapidated altar to which no one comes or cares for any longer dedicated to a god whose name died with the people who erected it. The roads of ancient Greece were lined with many such altars as these, forgotten by time. What Paul does for both groups is reset this altar with offerings -- not to a new God -- but for the God he knows that in Christ is making all things new. What he presents is far from the monotheistic vision of Aristotle the folks in the marketplace were familiar with -- the prime mover who set the whole of creation in motion, but sits uncaringly detached from it, unaffected and unmoved by what happens in their lives.

3 Paul instead, presents a caring God who creates all there is who gives to all mortals life and breath and all things - placing within humanity the desire to search for [for him] and [most importantly the ability to] find him who is not distant and detached -- but [more than] close For in whom we live, and move, and have our being -- the God, not just of Reason, but of Love and relationship the God of the living, who has in his One appointed man, removed the spectre of death raising him from the dead. To reveal this unknown God -- Paul uses words and imagery familiar to them taken from their own poets Aratus and Epimenides Cicero -- even Germanicus Julius Caesar. As The Rev. Dr. Leonard Sweet says, One cannot bear witness to the gospel if one cannot find a way to help audiences make sense of it according to what they hope for -- and according to what they know. I attended a meeting this past week joining with fellow clergy from our Convocation at Christ's Beloved Community ~ Comunidad Amada de Cristo the new joint Episcopal-Lutheran Latino ministry being cultivated in Winston-Salem under the leadership of The Rev. Dr. Chantal Morales McKinney. As Chantal outlined for us what it takes to start a ministry like this she said, we go to the surrounding neighborhoods, knocking on doors introducing ourselves and talking with people -- with two simple questions in mind -- what are your needs, and what are your gifts? In other words, what do they hope for, and what do they know.

4 She then went on to say, This is different than looking for problems and then swooping in with a program as the solution. You won t build community that way. But, by listening to people with love matching needs with gifts empowering people to care for one another that s when the Spirit takes over and the blessed community grows. Paul, listened to the Athenians in the marketplace -- what they hoped for -- and then, taking what they already knew - presented the unknown God made known in Jesus. Were they all convinced? No. Some heard what he said about resurrection and walked away laughing. Others weren t sure what to think they needed time and left saying, We will hear you again about this but, then there were those who didn t scoff or didn t need more time who joined him and became believers there and then the Spirit took over, and Christ s blessed community was planted and growing in Athens. There are altars to unknown gods all around us established in the hearts and lives of the folks we encounter every day where their hope and longing for something more is lifted up daily or has been left behind and forgotten. A good friend recently reminded me, Jesus visited synagogues and the Temple, but he didn t stay he went out to where the need for the love of God was the greatest to be with people in their homes and where they worked and where they played as the Word of God spoken as a blessing over them God s Love incarnate present to bind them together in blessed community.

5 Our job as disciples of Jesus is not to tear down altars erected to unknown gods as we find them, but to seek them out and reconsecrate them for God with love, as our Lord did not worrying about how we re going to draw the world to this altar, but focusing on loving people where they are in the world listening to them -- and letting that altering encounter be the blessed assurance of God s love, forgiveness and grace both for them and us.