Watch this whole worship service online here.
Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, "To an unknown god.' What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 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, 25 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. 26 From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, 27 so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. 28 For "In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "For we too are his offspring.' 29 Since we are God's offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead." - Acts 17:22-31
The Apostle Paul lived in a polarized time.
 |
| Image: Robert Lukeman, Unsplash |
The Apostle Paul lived in a polarized time.
In fact, for a while, he was even one of the main agents and executers of this polarization.
That is, Paul was the one driving people apart:
Giving sermons and elegant speeches to his brethren,
weaving intricate arguments about those he deemed to be
“in the wrong,”
and about those who, therefore,
he believed:
deserved to be sacrificed
on the altar of Truth.
Just last week, we met Paul for the time in the book of Acts.
He was there, said the story (in chapter 7),
watching the coats of those who were throwing stones at a man,
“breathing threats of murder,”
and, in the end,
actually killing him--
in cold blood!--convinced that God was on their side.
Stephen’s newfound faith in Jesus,
was blasphemous, argued Paul and his friends.
It was idolatrous.
And, some said, it was even unpatriotic.
These people,
living communally,
performing theatrical public acts, of “healing,”
longing for a Kindom that is not the kingdom of Rome,
and calling Jesus their Lord...
obviously these Christians were a cult,
they argued.
They are not normal.
They are out of place. Outta line!
And someone’s gotta teach them a lesson,
put them in their place,
before this whole thing gets out of hand.
And so they went about, Paul and his friends,
terrorizing,
dragging people from their homes,
imprisoning, torturing, and even executing them publicly
(as was the case with Stephen, last week--and, of course, as was the case of Jesus, their Messiah).
+++
It is in this small band of zealous idealists,
certain that they knew God,
certain that God revealed to them the Truth,
and certain that the Truth demands the sacrifice of that which is o/Other
to
Truth...
It is in this small band of zealous idealists
murdering in the name of God...
where we find St. Paul
just last week in the book of Acts.
+++
And so I can’t help, at first glance, being just a little bit skeptical and suspicious (this week) when
Paul,
still newly converted, by most measures,
(and less than 10 chapters later in the actual book of Acts)
rolls into Athens,
admittedly annoyed (at first) by their local religious artifacts,
ready to give some big speech about his own Truth.
+++
Because it’s Paul, and because it is only 10 chapters later,
I can’t help but worry.
Is Paul gonna just go there and replicate that violent and polarizing spirit
that had possessed him
before?
Is he still possessed by it?
Is he gonna just breathe those threats of murder and throw those stones, all over again
(just, this time from the other side of the aisle)?
What if Paul hasn’t changed?
Is he gonna shout “idolatry” at any creed or piety that is different from his own,
even though he knows he’s been wrong before?
Doesn’t he remember that such behavior and thinking is pretty dangerous?
What’s gonna happen?
What’s he gonna do now in the name of Truth?
This is what I worry about when I hear that Paul,
so recently a militant persecutor,
and still a very zealous and passionate spirit,
is heading to Athens to preach among the sacred sites.
+++
Fortunately, Paul (and God, through people like Paul),
is full of surprises.
For when Paul shows up at the Areopagus,
(despite my fears and suspicions)
this time it is absolutely not with a message of murder.
Rather, this time, Paul speaks not
of stoning or of crucifying,
but of resurrection--
of new life for everyone who was gathered there--
Jews and Greeks and travelers from all over the world.
This time, when Paul shows up, it’s not with a message of alienation:
We’re on God’s side and you’re a bunch of heathens!
But rather, “We are all God’s offspring,”
he says--quoting their poets--
“and in God we all live and move and have our being!”
This time, when Paul shows up,
he doesn’t speak of the persecution of the already marginalized,
but of the God of Jesus--
who walks with the outcasts and with those excluded from the temples;
who desires the humbled to be exalted and the last to become the first,
who desires all who hunger for the Spirit
to be fed,
and for no stumbling blocks
ever
to be put in their way.
+++
It’s true:
Paul does express his discomfort with the religious artifacts that he finds around him...
And Yet, at the same time, he’s moved by the skill and care that seems to have been put into their
making.
Especially, he seems to be drawn to the Altar to an Unknown God.
There is much unknown. Much that we’ll never know.
Ever!
Paul understands this to be true.
“We see only as in a mirror, dimly,” Paul writes elsewhere....
And Yet,
Here’s what I do know, Paul testifies:
God is revealed in Love, and that Love is wide and deep and expansive,
that love converted me from persecution to resurrection,
and I believe that we are all called to the mission of resurrecting the living-dead, to breathing life into
the death that lives within us and the death that lives and all around us.
And that love is bigger than any altar,
any wood or stone that we build with,
Because that love created the wood and stone with which we create! That love created us!
And that love, that is bigger than everything,
that love in which we live and move and have our being,
calls us, though Christ,
to God’s desire:
a desire for the whole world to be fed, cared for, resurrected, and made new.
+++
The Apostle Paul lived in a polarized time.
In fact, for a while, he was even one of the main agents and executers of this polarization.
That is, Paul was the one driving people apart:
Giving sermons and speeches to his brethren,
weaving intricate arguments about those he deemed to be
“in the wrong,”
and about those, therefore,
who he believed:
deserved to be sacrificed
on the altar of Truth.
And Yet,
Today we encounter a
Paul who has been changed.
Who has been converted by the living Christ who found him, lost, on his way.
Today we encounter a Paul who stands before the altar of a God who is not fully know,
And Yet who is revealed in Christ
to be a God who is manifest in and among us as Love
and a God who desires the whole world to be fed and healed and alive.
May God convert all of our hearts to Love
every moment
of everyday.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment