Acts 17:22-31
Well, this is the first exegesis I’ve written since December, so I’m more than a little rusty. I hope this doesn’t bring down the overall quality of the blog, but I’ll get back in the habit soon enough (as the bishop said to the actress). So I’m just going to jump right in, and may God have mercy on us all.
“Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how religious you are in every way.’” What an excellent way to start. I wonder if Jack Chick ever came across this passage. Instead of saying, “Athenians, I know you are all going to hell for your idolatry, sodomy, and for hooking my wife on tzatziki sauce,” he found a way not only to praise his listeners but to find common ground with them. This is an excellent model for dialogue (perhaps a better translation of the word translated “argued” back in vs. 17).
I was amazed recently in a religion forum I frequent when someone I had been sparring with, a fundamentalist Christian, said he was surprised that he and I actually agreed on something. Since we were both Christians, I would have assumed that we actually agreed on an awful lot. However, we tend to emphasize differences, not similarities. This seems to be a problem going all the way back to Paul’s time, manifesting today in absurd legislation about stoles at Annual Conference and what color shirts we may or may not wear.
“‘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.”’” Probably anyone reading this blog knows the origin of this altar. Basically, it was just to cover their rear ends in case a god they didn’t know about got miffed at them. It’s kind of like having a BVM on your dashboard and a rabbit’s foot on your key chain. You just want to keep all your bases covered.
Here’s where I really want to focus my sermon, though. The Athenians acknowledged that there were things unknown to them. Their world view wasn’t finite. The temptation here is to point out all those bad conservatives who limit the world (and, frankly, the power of God) with things like young-earth creationism and the quasi-magical prosperity theology or, frankly, anyone who’s ever met a tragedy with the words, “It must have happened for a reason.” All of these things limit the cosmos. Logic and rationality are human concepts, so insisting that things happen for a reason is to force the universe to be something humans can understand. By extension, if we insist that God had a reason for allowing any tragedy to happen, we make an idol of God, limiting her to concepts we can understand (just as we do with language about God). God is transcendent, and we aren’t. Reason, order, and purpose are human concepts, and are also not transcendent.
I think all this is true, and that’s why it’s so tempting to make my sermon about those people who believe those bad things. The challenge is going to be faithfully examining the ways I limit God as well. I can’t conceive of a God who is not love. You tell me that God loves all his children and welcomes us all into his church, I say, “Amen.” You say that this includes all people, no matter how terrible we think they are, people like Hitler and Pol Pot, I say,
“Umm. . . , amen.” You tell me this even means Kenneth Lay and Jerry Falwell, and I’m already on the phone with your PPRC chair and the DS.
It is precisely because the Athenians know that there is more than they know that they are open to hearing the gospel message. Maybe we all need to have the celebration of what we don’t know as part of our regular worship. Maybe we could say the Creed, and follow “We believe in one God, the Father, Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth” with the admission we don’t know how or why God created the earth. We don’t know exactly what it means to call God “Father”. Does it mean he gave us twenty-six of our chromosomes? Did he supply my Y? Maybe this celebration of ignorance will leave us open to new and better revelations of God. Paul himself was at one time so sure he was right he killed over it. What does it mean that he has become someone willing to die for a different belief? What is the role of ignorance, agnosticism, in this kind of transformation?