Acts 17.16-32
Sixth Sunday of Easter, Year A
Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC
The Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson

I want to share some background with you about our story for today from the Book of Acts, chapter 17. The Acts of the Apostles tells of the movement and expansion of the good news of Jesus the Christ as well as the actions of the earliest followers of Jesus and their gatherings or churches after they receive the great anointing of the Holy Spirit during Jewish festival of Pentecost. Acts tells the story of the preaching and evangelism of the apostle, Peter, who knew Jesus so well and of the apostle, Paul, who never knew the man, Jesus. Paul received God’s good news of Jesus in a miraculous vision of the risen Christ as he was literally pursuing the persecution of Jesus’ Jewish followers after Pentecost. 

Our story today centers on Paul. Paul was born in Tarsus, now in modern day Turkey. He was a Jew from his mother’s heritage and a Roman citizen from his father’s. As such he was educated not only in the Torah but also in Greek/Roman rhetoric. All of these elements go into the complex character of Paul whom we can learn so much from in theological dialogue, sometimes in theological conflict, as we read his letters to the earliest churches. In Acts the stories of Paul are told through the lens of the gospel writer of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles and was very likely writing some 20 or more years after the death of Paul.  Not necessarily concerned with writing fact-checked details of Paul’s life, this writer wants to picture Paul’s audacity and passion in sharing his new faith in the revelation of God in the risen Christ. 

At the beginning of chapter 17 in Acts, we find Paul traveling throughout Asia Minor from city to city with his companions, the older, Silas and the younger man, Timothy. They are fervently spreading the redeeming and powerful news of Jesus to Jews and any Gentiles who might listen as well throughout the region.  We have to admire their tenacity as time and again they are thrown out of the synagogues by fellow Jews offended by their claims of Jesus as the Messiah. Their lives are threatened. They are beaten and jailed by the Romans for being subversive in preaching that the God of Jesus the Risen Christ is Lord rather than Caesar. Having been thrown out of the town of Thessalonica by the Jews, they are followed to the town of Beroea by these same irate men who are want to expel them from the whole region. Believers in Beroea find and shelter the three. They hide Silas and Timothy and secretly escort Paul to Athens in order to save their lives. 

Our story begins in the middle of chapter 17. Paul is waiting for his missionary companions to join him in Athens. It ends with his sermon to the intellectual elite of Athens at a place of council and debate known as the Aereopagus or “Ares’ Hill” for the Greek god of war. During the Roman Empire it became known as Mars Hill for the Roman god.  This was a hill outside the city center with a stone amphitheater. For centuries, even before the democracy of Greece was formed, the educated went to this hill to debate philosophy and make legal decisions. These men were often advisors of the king. Though Athens was part of the Roman empire in Paul’s time, Mars Hill and its council still functioned as a seat of authority in the city.

You will hear that Paul’s intent as he preaches to the intellectual elites is to open their minds to a new image of God, the ONE God revealed in Jesus the Christ. The information in his sermon may seem quite familiar to you. It is the salvation story of the Bible. To challenge what may be our overly familiar images of God, I have changed some of the pronouns that Paul uses for God from “he” to “she”.  Hearing an unfamiliar pronoun takes our images out of their familiar God boxes that are culturally constructed to even speak of the God mystery. Now we know that the Holy cannot be contained in an intellectual box so perhaps, hearing new pronouns, the ears of our minds and hearts will open to bring us a new encounter with the Holy ONE. Perhaps we will hear the words of Paul with some shock and awe as the Athenians did so long ago and begin to seek God anew. Acts 17. 16-32

16While Paul waited for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to find that the city was flooded with idols. 17He began to interact with the Jews and Gentile God-worshippers in the synagogue. He also addressed whoever happened to be in the marketplace each day. 18Certain Epicurean and Stoic philosophers engaged him in discussion too. Some said, "What an amateur! What's he trying to say?" Others remarked, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign gods." (They said this because he was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19They took him into custody and brought him to the council on Mars Hill [The intellectuals on Mars Hill said to Paul,] "What is this new teaching? Can we learn what you are talking about? 20You've told us some strange things and we want to know what they mean." (21They said this because all Athenians as well as the foreigners who live in Athens used to spend their time doing nothing but talking about or listening to the newest thing.) 

22Paul stood up in the middle of the council on Mars Hill and said, "People of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way. 23As I was walking through town and carefully observing your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: 'To an unknown God.' What you worship as unknown, I now proclaim to you. 24God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn't live in temples made with human hands. 25Nor is God served by human hands, as though [She] needed something, since [She] is the one who gives life, breath, and everything else. 26From one person God created every human nation to live on the whole earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands. 27God made the nations so they would seek [God], perhaps perhaps even reach out to [God/Him] and find [God/Her.] In fact, God isn't far away from any of us. 28In God we live, move, and exist, [have our being.] As some of your own poets said, 'We are [God’s] offspring.' 29"Therefore, as God's offspring, we have no need to imagine that the divine being is like a gold, silver, or stone image made by human skill and thought. 30God overlooks ignorance of these things in times past, but now directs everyone everywhere to change their hearts and lives. 31This is because God has set a day when [God/She] intends to judge the world justly by a man [God/He] has appointed. God has given proof of this to everyone by raising [this man] from the dead." 

32When they heard about the resurrection from the dead, some began to ridicule Paul. However, others said, "We'll hear from you about this again."33At that, Paul left the council. 34Some people joined him and came to believe, including Dionysius, a member of the council on Mars Hill, a woman named Damaris, and several others. [Bible, Common English. CEB Common English Bible with Apocrypha - eBook [ePub] (Kindle Location 42947). Common English Bible. Kindle Edition.] For the word of God in scripture, for the word of God among us, for the word of God within us…. Thanks be to God.

“An unknown god”…. Mirabai Starr, world religions scholar, author, and translator of St. John of the Cross’ Dark Night of the Soul and Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle, writes of “an unknown god” in a 2014 Huffington Post Article:
“I have always been drawn to a God who eluded me. A God who transcends gender — transcends everything, actually. A God who rebels against all forms, annihilates conceptual constructs, blows my mind. In other words, a God I can’t believe in. Because beliefs are dangerous — dangerous to God, anyway. The minute we define Ultimate Reality we destroy it. God chokes and dies inside the boxes we make.” 

Starr goes on in this article to write of the God she seeks to be in relationship with rather than intellectually construct. I think this was Paul’s intent as he introduces the unknown god to the Athenians as the God he knew as creator and redeemer of the world, the very Ground of Being. In Paul’s Jewish heritage, the God who names God’s self as “I AM” or “I Will Be Who I Will Be.” Paul begins with images of God from natural theology, as creator the cosmos and all of its beauty, then moves to an ever-present, seemingly beneficent God who is the parent of humankind. These would have been familiar images to the Athenians as he indicates. Finally, he brings in the shock and awe, announcing the God who has the unbelievable power to conquer death, to resurrect a man from the dead. No wonder some to the Athenians laughed at, ridiculed Paul, in one translation called him “babbler.” And yet others said, “We want to hear about this again!” And some believed and followed this God of Jesus the Christ on the way of faith. 

This God that Paul preached to the Athenians rebuking their notions that God can be kept and worshiped in human-made idols – who is this God for us today? Is this a God that will turn us from the idols of our times? What are the idols that flood the cities of our lives? They are probably as numerous as the idols of the Athenians, though we may not make them out of gold or silver or stone. We may make them out of achievement in work, or in wealth, or in athletic endeavor, or in intellectual pursuits, or in following the best health practices. We can even make an idol of following religious practices in order to earn God’s notice. Are our works of social justice ever in danger of becoming idols? Our political views and actions? Our need to be right? Whatever we set before seeking, reaching out to God can become an idol. Trying not to have idols could become an idol. 

Do you catch my drift here? God is the undefinable container in which all of the universe, all that we know, has its being. Each of us lives and moves and has our being in God, whether we acknowledge this or not. “Bidden or unbidden God is present with us.” This wisdom saying is usually attributed to Carl Jung, yet he found it in the ancient Latin writings of a Desiderius Erasmus who attributed it to an even older Spartan (Greek) proverb.  Paul proclaims this unknown, yet ever-present God as not just a beneficent creator, but a fierce lover of humankind, so fierce that God defeated death itself in the risen Christ. Paul proclaims that this God, “I AM,” who raised the man, Jesus, from the dead, was Lord of all, not Caesar or the empire. This unknown God is not an inanimate idol made by human hands or human will, but a living presence.  

Who is the God that we proclaim? Who is the ONE that we seek before any of the idols in our lives? Is it the God of relationship, ever-present, fiercely loving, and always seeking us, revealed in Jesus the Christ? Our biblical and theological heritage speaks of this God as “he”. Yet we know that God is neither male nor female, God is ALL, God is ONE. God answers to Father, to Mother, to Beloved, to Holy Mystery, to Gracious Bearer of Light, to Challenger of Our Lives, to Comforter of Our Souls’. 
During our time, as we live and move and have our being in this God in the midst of pandemic, in the midst of intense political strife, in the midst of extreme economic uncertainty and divisive polarized rhetoric of our day, may we put aside the idols that tempt us when we are fearful, that distract us in our grief. May we turn our hearts, our ears, our minds, our full attention to the ONE who is ever-present, who grieves with us, who rejoices in our presence and in our joys. The ONE who has conquered the power of death and brings us gifts of grace, mercy, hope and forgiveness as we seek to be in relationship with one another and with God. May we take the time during these tumultuous times to still ourselves that we may know again and again the “unknown” living God in whom we live and move and have our being.

Amen.

©The Reverend Jane Anne Ferguson, 2020 and beyond. May be reprinted with permission only. 

Acts of the Apostles 2.42-47
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado

Here is a big question: How are human beings supposed to live together? We have been trying to figure that out since the beginning of civilization. Even in Genesis, the story of the Tower of Babel gives a mythic answer to the reason we are separated by various languages. But we need to go deeper than just linguistic differences. How are we supposed to live together? That is one of the questions that this story from the Acts of the Apostles tries to answer.

On a macro level, humanity has attempted different systems and responses over the last few hundred years that we in the 21st century assume is the way it always has been. And that’s not so.

At the end of the 19th century, after evidence for biological evolution had been presented, some began to say that we live in a dog-eat-dog world where the fittest survive, that is and ought to be true for humanity as well, and it birthed SOCIAL Darwinism. The poor in industrial England, the Irish, and child laborers who worked in dangerous conditions were thought to be where they ought to be: at the bottom of the food chain. A 19th c. English clergyman, Thomas Malthus, even proposed that “excess” human beings would die off so that others could survive. And haven’t we seen a bit of that Malthusian catastrophe proposed by some political leaders (who ironically also claim to be “pro-life”) that it would be okay for some of the elderly and infirm to be taken by Covid-19 and to make a place for the fittest to survive? How do you think God sees our society?

Economics is a relatively new field, and the Scotsman Adam Smith is known as the father of economics for his seminal book, The Wealth of Nations, which was published in 1776. And we he developed the ideas of capitalism and self-interest, and of course they grow into unfettered capitalism in the 19th and 20th centuries. You and I probably take it for granted that we are “consumers.” Stop and think about that…“consumer.” It’s one role in a mechanistic equation…and isn’t life more than that? Aren’t you also a “lover” or a “teacher” or an “advocate” or a “Christian” or a “parent” or a “sibling” or a “citizen”? Let’s pause for just a moment and reconsider the initial question: How are we supposed to live together? Are we supposed to consume materials and goods? Are we just cogs in the system of interconnected wheels in a stupendously large economic machine? How do you think God sees us?

Another vision is that we are meant to live simply as “free agents,” doing whatever we like in a “do your own thing” kind of way to nurture our self-satisfaction? Are we just out for ourselves (and maybe our nuclear families on a good day), or are we really a part of something bigger?

Throughout most of human history, the nature of living together in clans, communities, tribes, and nations has been survival…enough of the basic things like food, clothing, and shelter so that we could survive. And as civilizations and nations developed, the question of how we are meant to live together dogged us every step of the way. In Genesis when Cain kills his brother Abel, God asks where Abel is, and Cain famously replies, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” And that is the big question: to what extent are we responsible for the well-being of the people who form our social grouping: towns, states, nations, regions. I think about that picture of the earth from space taken by the Apollo astronauts from the moon, and it is abundantly clear that our fate is inextricably bound together as residents of the same “big blue marble.” How do you think God sees us?

The Acts of the Apostles gives us insight into the way the first Christians answer the question of what life together ought to look like, and it may be a fairly idealized vision. “All who believed were together and had all things in common; they would sell their possessions and goods and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need. Day by day, as they spent much time together in the temple, they broke bread at home (in good social distance) and ate their food with glad and generous hearts (after washing their hands for a full 20 seconds), praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.” This is a description of DISTRIBUTIVE justice, where people recognize that there really is enough to go around if we share what we have. It is a statement about profound abundance.

Have you ever noticed how many economic systems are based on fear and scarcity, rather than on generosity and abundance? We have so many refrains of abundance in the biblical record that we stop noticing them as such: manna from heaven, my cup overflows, the loaves and fishes…it’s all about God’s abundance.

Here is a question for you: when have you operated out of a sense of fear and scarcity, and when have you made decisions based on generosity and abundance?

The Acts of the Apostles describes a radically different vision that most of us Christians — even progressive Protestants — have of how things work today.

As the Second World War began and many German Christians accommodated, if not encouraged, the rise of the Nazi regime, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book called Life Together about what Christian community could and should mean. “In a Christian community,” he writes, “everything depends upon whether each individual is an indispensable link in a chain. Only when even the smallest link is securely interlocked is the chain unbreakable… Every Christian community must realize not only do the weak need the strong, but also that the strong cannot exist without the weak. The elimination of the weak is the death of the fellowship.”

I wonder how that plays out at Plymouth. Each of us is weak in some ways and strong in others. We are utterly reliant on God and on one another, and the sooner we acknowledge that, the sooner we will be able to live together in harmony.

What if we expanded that idea to the wider community? Six months ago, I rather doubt that some people would have counted grocery checkers and truck drivers and the UPS delivery guy as “essential workers.” And in some medical institutions, nurses are seen to exist in a stratum under physicians, but if you’ve ever been in the hospital, you know how critical they are in terms of your care, but they are unsung heroes. But then again, I haven’t seen military jets doing fly-overs to recognize hedge-fund managers and advertising executives lately.

How are human beings supposed to live together? I think we’ve been doing a pretty poor job in this country, but I have certainly seen glimmers of hope in the way neighbors support one another, younger members of Plymouth doing grocery shopping for elders, people wanting to reach out and contact other members with a call or a card or a text message. Please, let’s not let go of any of that pulling together when the pandemic is over. Let us continue to grow into what Dr. King called the Beloved Community and what Jesus called the Kingdom of God. These visions are far richer than anything Milton Friedman or Ayn Rand could have dreamed up, and they are infinitely better for the human soul.

Christian community at Plymouth is going to look different in the future  in ways that we cannot fully imagine. We are likely to continue livestream worship, even after we can worship in person. For a long while, we may need have social distance in worship, adjust the way we greet each other and celebrate communion and have coffee hour. I have no idea when that will be, but I know that our sense of connection and love for one another has not been diminished by our physical distance.

Life together at Plymouth is going to be different, in ways that none of us can yet anticipate, but I do know it’s going to be rich. I have faith in God to show us how to be community, and I have faith in you to come together in faith.

We’ll do this together. May it be so. Amen.

© 2020 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses