Julie Bosman, Sunday Routine: Linda I. Gibbs, In the Pew, Peace and Reflection, New York Times, March 14,

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Bertram Martin
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1 SPIRITUAL, BUT NOT RELIGIOUS May 29, 2011, The Seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time Acts 17: Erin M. Keys, The Brick Presbyterian Church in the City of New York God of mercy, amid the changing words of our generation, speak your eternal Word that does not change. Pour out upon us the spirit of wisdom and understanding that, being taught by you in Holy Scripture, our hearts and minds may be opened and lives may be transformed. Now may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen. For the past two years the New York Times has run a weekly column titled, Sunday Routine. This column highlights prominent New Yorkers who reveal to the Times readers their weekend rituals. Most people interviewed for this column have a Sunday routine that consists of sleeping in, brunch, exercise, family time and catching up on TV. A few people go to flea markets or rummage through used bookstores, while others go to movies. Then there are those who simply never leave their apartment, choosing instead to order in and stay on the couch. To be fair, a few people mention going to church, but not that many. With the exception of Reverend Al Sharpton, only one other interviewee, Linda Gibbs, a New York City deputy mayor, chose to expand on why going to church on Sunday is important to her weekend routine. Linda says that church gives her a chance to reflect on the work that she is doing, and how and why she is doing it. 1 In two years worth of columns, only one New Yorker spoke at length about why she goes to church on Sundays. If you were reading these New York Times columns in an attempt to study American 1 Julie Bosman, Sunday Routine: Linda I. Gibbs, In the Pew, Peace and Reflection, New York Times, March 14,

2 spirituality, you might conclude that, on the whole, Americans aren t all that spiritual. But then, you would be wrong. Because when asked about their spirituality, the majority of Americans, particularly young Americans, will tell you that they are, in fact spiritual, they just aren t all that religious. One survey, studying the faith of fourteen hundred young adults aged 18 to 24, found that 72% described themselves in exactly that language. 2 Spiritual, but not religious. In this morning s text of Paul s sermon in Athens, Paul defines spirituality as a groping for the God in which we live and move and have our being. Spirituality, then, is the search for this God who is our foundation. It is the quest to know that which is beyond ourselves, the desire to understand the One who created us and, in so doing, understand our deeper reason for being. And Americans are very interested in this spiritual search. Last week I was walking down the religion aisle in the 86 th Street Barnes & Noble and I passed rack after rack of books offering solutions to the spiritual quandary. These books all had titles like: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, Emotionally Wounded, Spiritually Strong, and Naked Spirituality: A Life with God in Four Simple Words. Further research into American spirituality shows that the business of groping for God is a million dollar industry with people willing to pay for books, classes and retreats all aimed at finding this One in whom we live and move and have our being. Americans are spiritual. They just aren t religious. God is out there, just not in the church apparently, because 86% of young adults say they can have a good relationship with God without belonging to a faith community. 3 2 G. Jeffrey MacDonald, More Americans' Spiritual Growth Nurtured Within, USA Today, January 14, Ibid

3 And the church, in turn, has its own statistics, with the Presbyterian Church USA alone losing right around 2 million members since the 1960s. That is roughly a 50% decrease from our total denominational membership. No one needs to tell the church that Americans are less and less religious, we can see it for ourselves, but then we have to wonder, why is there a nation full of people who are looking for God and yet our churches are empty? To answer this question, I began to ask around, and putting technology to good use, I posted this question on my Facebook page: Why don t people go to church? Here is what some of my friends said: Churches are the ultimate ingroup and breaking in is intimidating. Past hurt makes it hard to go back. Church feels irrelevant to our daily lives and struggles. And, of course, people are simply busy. Why, many want to know, when their schedules are so jam-packed, should they give up a Sunday morning to go to church if they aren t going to get something out of it? There was one person however, who posed an alternative to my initial question. She asked, Do those of us who attend church, display something that people would be drawn to? It s a good question. A little less than 2,000 years ago, the apostle Paul walked through the streets of Athens and scripture tells us he became deeply distressed upon seeing that the city was full of idols. Like Americans today, the people of Athens were obsessed with finding God to the point where they would spend all of their time in nothing but the telling or hearing of something new. In the hopes, of course, that this new thing, this new book, or this new class, or this new charismatic guru would provide a solution to their spiritual search. In his distress Paul begins preaching the gospel and eventually he garners enough attention and is taken to the Areopagus, which is also known as Mars Hill. Mars - 3 -

4 Hill was a debate hall, a place where philosophers argued and civil trials were heard, and it was there that Paul delivered his famous sermon that is our text for this morning. Now, what makes the sermon in Acts 17 one of Paul s most well known was not his eloquence, or his scholarship, or his ability to debate theology with Ivy League intellectuals. Keep in mind that, compared to the Greek philosophers, Paul was little more than a country preacher. The reason the sermon from Acts 17 is remembered so well is because of Paul s ability to connect the particular with the universal. The particular God found in Jesus Christ, with that universal longing for the divine. Paul is acutely aware that the Athenians have a deep want for a relationship with God a longing so deep in fact that they dedicated an altar to an unknown divinity, and so Paul says to them, I have seen your yearning for this God you do not know, let me tell you about the God that has found me. Then, Paul begins to re-tell the story of the Christian faith, only he does so without ever discussing doctrine or liturgy. Beginning appropriately with the beginning, Paul references creation only to note that the God who made heaven and earth does not live in human-made sanctuaries. News I m sure that was welcome by those in Athens who perhaps also considered themselves spiritual, but not religious. Paul goes on to talk about how God created humans and because God made us, Paul says we were designed to seek this God. Our search for God is inherent in our very being. Again, Paul justifies the spiritual searching. But then Paul takes a very counter-cultural turn when he says that the times of human spiritual ignorance are over. Because of Jesus Christ we now know who God is; our searching need not continue. Now, what I want to know is whether or not Paul s insistence that we know God because of Christ is a spiritual or a religious statement? - 4 -

5 It s a faith claim, which makes it religious. But then it s also spiritual because it seeks to put to rest our wandering hearts. So, then the Christian story becomes an inherently religious and spiritual story, and Paul, in his great wisdom, knows that by preaching this Christian story, he is preaching the ultimate story of humanity s search for God and God s willingness to be found in the person of Christ. And throughout all of this Paul does not change anything about the Christian story. He does not water it down to make it easier to accept and he does not forgo any essential doctrine. All Paul did, which is something everyone in this room can do, was tell the story, he told our story, the story of God s offspring who search for this God in whom we live and move and have our being, this God who is never, ever far from us. Paul told the story in a way that people who were searching could understand. He told this story in a way that said, I see what you long for, and I have found it. You too can know this God, the unknown one who is made known in Jesus Christ. Paul ends his sermon in Athens with a reference to the final Day of Judgment and so I felt it appropriate to mention the rapture that was supposed to happen last Saturday. A man named Harold Camping, a self-proclaimed biblical scholar, announced that May 21 st, 2011 was the day that Jesus was to come back. Camping managed to convince a relatively small group of people that he was right, and then these people, in anticipation of the rapture, sold their houses, quit their jobs, and gave up their savings accounts. They took to the streets to spread Camping s message and then they waited for chosen day. Now, evidenced by the fact that we are all still here this morning, we know that no rapture occurred. We know that Camping was wrong in his prediction and we know his followers were wrong to give up on their lives here and now

6 In fact Camping was also wrong back in 1994 when he predicted a rapture, and he will be wrong again on October 21 st of this year, the date I hear he has now said is the new rapture. This past week the media was filled with reports of Camping s misguided predictions, and his failed prophecy was splashed across newspaper headlines and TV screens all over the country. People everywhere were blogging, tweeting, and talking about just how wrong Camping was. So while we all know that Camping was wrong, Phil Cooke, a columnist for the Huffington Post, pointed out one thing Harold Camping did absolutely right. He got his story out there. Cooke writes, Over the last few months, a remarkably tiny group of people have done a brilliant job sharing their message with the world. Inaccurate, wrong, or wacky they have told their story far better than major Christian denominations, mega-churches, and supposed media ministries have done. 4 It s just too bad it was the wrong story. But it does make me wonder, as I hope it does you too, why our story, the story of Paul in Acts 17, the story of a God who knows our spiritual hunger and who in Jesus Christ finds us and makes himself known, why wasn t this story being splashed across headlines? Is it because society simply isn t interested, or because we haven t been sharing it? All praise be to God. Amen. 4 Phil Cooke, What Harold Camping Got Right, Huffington Post, May 23,

Speaking in Tongues By the Reverend Pen Peery

Speaking in Tongues By the Reverend Pen Peery Acts 17:16-28 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with