May 25, 2014 – Acts 17:22-31
Acts 17:22-31
The Unknown God Made Known
Sixth Sunday after Easter – May 25, 2014
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
A few years ago I got forwarded an e-mail that, among other things,
claimed to have a quotation from the Qur’an in it.
The e-mail basically said that Iraq needed to be cleansed of Muslims.
The supposed quotation from the Qur’an said that
a “fearsome Eagle” would do this cleansing and bring peace.
The idea is that the United States is this Eagle.
Supposedly this is what it says in the Qur’an, chapter 9, verse 11. Get it? 9/11?
Having an interest in such things, I got out several copies of the Qur’an in English,
and, just for good measure, one in Arabic, and checked out what chapter 9 verse 11 says.
Here’s what the Qur’an actually says in chapter 9, verse 11; it speaks of Christians and Jews:
Yet if they repent, and perform the prayer, and give the alms,
then they are your brothers in religion.
Pretty interesting, right? Where the e-mail spoke of violence, the Qur’an speaks of peace.
Repentance, prayer, alms-giving: that all sounds pretty familiar to me.
Perhaps we have a lot more in common with Muslim brothers and sisters than we realize.
The writer of the e-mail needed to do some homework before speaking of another’s religion.
In the reading from Acts today, it is clear that Paul has done his homework.
He himself has repented – that is, has had a change of heart – since we saw him last week,
when he was party to the stoning of Stephen.
Since that time he has been encountered by the loving, gracious, forgiving, risen Christ,
and it has changed him.
He has taken the message of the risen Christ and his wide, wide mercy and grace on the road,
all over the ancient world, and telling anybody about it who will listen and
founding inclusive communities of prayer and generous alms-giving.
This morning finds him in Athens, Greece, the cultural capital of the ancient world,
before a completely pagan audience.
And we wonder: what will he say? How will he approach these people?
Will he give them fire and brimstone? Will he judge them? What will he do?
Well, what he does is: he does his homework.
He finds out as much about them and their religion as he can.
And as he goes before the powerful elite of Athens at the Areopagus or Mars Hill,
what he says astonishes us.
What he says is a model for, perhaps, all interfaith encounters, maybe for all human encounters.
First he begins by naming what he appreciates about their life.
He begins by appreciating their extreme devotion, their commitment and faithfulness.
Like how you appreciate your Muslim friends who pray five times a day, beginning at dawn.
That is admirable, right?
Then, too, we notice that he has taken the trouble
to learn about their culture and religious literature.
He doesn’t make up things to put in the mouths of their writers and poets like the e-mail I got.
He quotes – correctly – from their works – and what he quotes he quotes approvingly.
In God we live and move and have our being. Right, says Paul!
God is not far from us, in fact, is very close, and if he’d lived 600 years later he
could have quoted the Qur’an on this point which says that God is closer to us than
even our jugular veins. That is how close God is.
And then, too, he quotes one of their poets with approval: For we are God’s children.
Which means God will care for us. Right again, says Paul! God is concerned about us!
So you can see what Paul is doing here: he is genuinely finding points of human contact with
the Athenians and celebrating it and appreciating it.
Indeed, discovering this common bond doesn’t seem to surprise Paul since this is the God who
has created the whole world and everything and every person in it.
Should we be surprised that the God of all creation has made God’s self known in all creation?
Paul first does his homework finds points of contact with these genuine brothers and sisters,
these children of the same God whom he respects enough to
find out all he can about them.
But then Paul takes it to the next level.
He notes, interestingly, that the Athenians have an altar in their city to the “unknown God.”
This is an altar where the Athenians made sacrifices in case there was some God that
they hadn’t yet heard about that they needed to appease. Very crafty!
Oh yes, says Paul, there is a God you have not yet heard about:
let me share something with you about this God, the God I know about in Christ.
The God I know in Christ doesn’t need offerings, doesn’t desire sacrifices.
The God I know about in Christ turns everything upside down out of great love for
this world that this God made and loves. This God makes a sacrifice to us!
This God doesn’t require anything: rather, this God gives everything because this God is love.
The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth,
does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands,
as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.
And what this God has given most of all is a person who is the measure of all goodness,
all righteousness, whom the big deals said No to but whom this God of all life
said Yes to by raising him from the dead and refusing to take No for an answer.
This God – this God, who refuses to take No for an answer, who will just not let
anyone or anything go, who will seek out everyone and everything with love
no matter what the cost: this God has now even searched out these Athenians
on Mars Hill – the hill of the god of war! – to bring them great peace,
just as he, Paul, a man of violence, was brought to peace by this God of peace.
Paul is, in fact, not just telling them something, but is incarnating someone in seeking out
these Athenians.
Paul is continuing the story of Jesus in Jesus’ resurrection body, the body of the church.
Paul is faithfully incarnating the one who didn’t judge him in his violence and ignorance,
but who sought him out with grace and love and invited him into a new way of being.
When Paul takes his speech to the next level he simply shares what he knows about
God in Christ that is unknown to these people.
I think in this sermon Paul exemplifies a good method of all inter-religious encounter
and maybe even of all human encounter:
genuine listening and appreciation for things held in common,
and the honest sharing of things that are different.
This is how we grow as human beings, as long as the sharing is genuinely two ways,
and it is a way of being faithful in encountering those who are different from us.
Paul is outward-looking, always expecting that there is no one and no thing that is
outside of God’s care and concern.
The Areopagus is not the first place he’s been to in Athens.
He’s been to the market place or agora, and he’s been to the synagogue.
In each place he has expected the God made known in Christ to be concerned about it,
the God who made the world and everything in it.
This is good news: There is nothing and no one outside of God’s concern.
In the reading from First Peter this morning we get a graphic illustration of this.
In some mysterious way, Jesus, in death, went and made proclamation even to the dead.
Even the dead are precious, even in hell this God of all grace will just not take no for an answer.
On our hills of war the God of peace will search us out.
In the market places and business offices the God of manna-sharing will search us out.
In the hospital rooms and nursing homes the God of healing will search us out.
In the prisons of addiction and mental illness the God of new beginnings will search us out.
There is nowhere this God of grace is not prepared to go for us, for you.
Indeed, this God is very near; in this God we live and move and have our being.
And so, as those who continue the story of Jesus in his resurrection body,
there is nowhere we should not be prepared to go in the same spirit as Paul.
There is nowhere we should not be prepared to go, as he did,
and find common humanity with those we encounter and bring them
the uniqueness of Christ.
This God who doesn’t require us to serve him but only to serve our neighbour in need will
in a few minutes serve us once again, and turn the quest for God upside down once again.
It is this God who searches us out, who pursues us with goodness and mercy,
who will not give up until he finds us.
And when we leave this place, let us serve, then, as we have been served.
Let us search out as we have been searched out.
Let us embody this seeking God and listen with respect to those who are different from us.
Let us pursue every person and every thing with goodness and mercy – and let us share Christ.
And let us say together, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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