"Searching for God"
Sermon Presented April 27, 2008
Acts 17:22-31
Most of us like novelty. We want something just a little bit different than what someone else has or what we currently have. Updated fashion, a better car, a remodeled - or new home, up-to-date electronics, or a magnificent vacation destination catches our eye. When we are ready to make a change, we read the advertisements, visit model homes, clothing or electronic stores, and see what fashionable people wear, drive, possess, or inhabit.
However, after we have made our purchase or redecorated our home, we aren't always satisfied. We continue to check the ads and the magazines just to make sure that what we chose is the best. Maybe we needed something different!
Novelty is alluring, and the new always promises to surpass the old! But too quickly, the new becomes old and we see that our insatiable desire wasn't satisfied. Our search for novelty - or newness - can even take on the appearance of a search for truth. It occurs in religious circles today, and appears to have also been the culture in first century Athens.
As background to our text - written by Luke, Paul has just escaped from Thessalonica to Beroea. He was smuggled out in the dead of night as protection from synagogue leaders who were dragging Christians before the Roman authorities and charging them with defying Roman "dogmas" by claiming that there is a king other than Caesar - Jesus. They accused the followers of Jesus of "turning the imperial world upside down." From Beroea, Paul flees to Athens. There, he is alone, without the support of other Christians. (New Proclamation 2005, Barbara Rossing, p. 54) I'm reading Acts 17:22-31.
The climate is very different here in Athens than it was in Thessalonica. In first century Athens, people eagerly listen to the newest philosophies and debate them. It's great sport to attack the beliefs of others and see how they defend themselves. Athenians aren't closed-minded! They want to exercise their minds and sometimes will change them after hearing a debate.
The Areopagus, where this speech is set, is an elevated, open-air site just west of the acropolis. Here, major religious and philosophical groups debate on a daily basis. Stoics and Epicureans debate here. Simply stated, Stoics believe that human wisdom is divine wisdom, and each person's life is determined by fate. By accepting a person's destiny, he or she is free. Epicureans believe that true happiness occurs in this world, because at death the soul dissolves into atoms and dies. Their philosophy is: "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow you may die."
A successful debate in Athens requires careful preparation because Athenians are thinkers and must be convinced of the validity of an argument. Those who present new ideas must substantiate their claims. Paul begins by speaking out in the synagogues, then in the marketplace and finally at the Areopagus.
However, before Paul debates, he does his homework! He investigates Athenian worship by checking out the temples and shrines. He finds many temples and shrines dedicated to a plethora of gods and goddesses. When he stumbles onto a shrine to an Unknown God, he finds the perfect segue into his argument. The Athenians appear to have covered all of the bases: if they've missed a deity, they don't want to incur his or her wrath, so they fashioned a shrine to any god they may have missed. Paul decides to introduce this unknown god by giving him a name!
This is Paul's argument: he affirms that Athenians are religious! He quotes their poets and philosophers. He tells them that all people come from one ancestor or one blood line. We are all created by the same God, and the world - the cosmos that God created is good. However, the imperial world represented by the Roman Empire is not good! God made all of humanity and our common ancestry cuts across all nationalities. We are all God's offspring! We all seek after God and God isn't far from us. And Paul goes a step further: he says we are all seeking the same God. Paul emphasizes that the God who gives life, doesn't dwell in shrines made by human hands, but God dwells wherever God's people are. After Paul sets these parameters, he tells them about Jesus and his resurrection from the dead. He establishes common ground before he introduces Jesus.
In the 31st verse, Paul states that God will have the world judged in righteousness by Jesus. This "world" he is speaking of that is judged, is the political world - the Roman Empire - not the created world. Paul expresses that there is a clash of empires as well as a clash of philosophies.
However, as soon as Paul mentions Jesus and resurrection, he runs into trouble. Now the crowd is divided. Some mock Paul and others come to faith.
Let's look at Paul's statement that God made every nation from one ancestor - from one blood line. Paul is saying that we are all God's offspring and related to one another. Rather than encouraging a kind of Christian exclusivism, Paul emphasizes a message of oneness and kinship that should guide us as we proclaim the radical gospel of resurrection for the world today. The mission of the gospel necessitates discerning which aspects of culture we can build on and affirm and which must be opposed. Recognizing the difference between the world as God's good creation and the world as empire can help in our discernment. (Rossing, p. 55)
Michael Downey, Professor of Systematic Theology and Spirituality at St. John's Seminary in Los Angeles, writes in his book The Heart of Hope, "Praying is desiring God. Even more, praying is living in the face of the question: Who is God? We think we have the answer. But we do not yet know fully who God is." (p. 163)
He goes on to say: "God is at one and the same time at hand and always yet to come…. God is always more than we can ask or imagine. We want to pin God down, to be certain of God's nearness. But it is the gift and task of those who pray … to be attentive to grace loose in the world, opening eyes wide enough to search for traces of God's nearness in our own desire, our wanting, our longing, our beholding what is beautiful to look at, tasting what is good to savor, knowing what is true, and trying to do the right thing in love freely, all the while preparing for the God who comes again and again and yet again in our desiring." (p. 164)
I believe it is human nature to search for God. Searching for God isn't a novelty but natural! We have everything we need for a relationship with God. We just need to commit to it. Just as most adopted children want to find their birth parents and establish a relationship with them, we are drawn to establish a relationship with God. The Athenians must have been searching or they wouldn't have wanted to debate religion and philosophy and they wouldn't have built a shrine to an unknown god.
Discovering a new truth requires time and commitment, and by proclaiming the unknown and invisible God, Paul takes the novelty out of the search for God through Jesus. Now all they need is to begin the search.
Will Willimon tells the story of an undergraduate who complained about her college's religion department, which included four professors who taught courses in everything from Hindu beliefs to Christian history. "They know a great deal about a great many things in religion," she said, "but none of them in the department are practitioners of any particular faith. I find that strange. They know everything about God except God!" (Jenny Williams, Christian Century, April 19, 2005, p. 19)
To search for the divine as only an intellectual matter is a form of misguided groping for God. The danger is two-fold. First, we treat God as a topic to be conquered. If only I take another Bible study, if only I can get my questions answered, then I will know God! The second danger is using God as an endorsement for what we already plan to do. (Ibid) I believe most churches and Christians are guilty of this.
The idol of experience and the idol of intellectualism create distance from God. If we believe that a strong emotion or the right theory helps us worship God, we end up worshiping the emotion or the theory. And worship of anything but God separates us from God. (Ibid)
Furthermore, there is a division between those who choose one type of idol over another. Those who place primary importance on a personal experience of God are skeptical of too much "book learning," while people who relentlessly search the limits of the knowable are skeptical of too much emotion. What do we do when we have both kinds of people in one congregation? (And I believe most Christian congregations are composed of both kinds of people.)
Paul calls us to repent of our sins! None of us has a corner on understanding God or living as Christ's disciple. And since repentance requires us to turn away from the old toward the new, we must behave like family. We need to listen to one another, and discuss our differences. And most important, we need to search for God in one another. God is near - not far!
I believe that when we search for God, we find God. Oh, not immediately - and never completely, but when we're open to God's revelation in our lives, God comes to us. This is the basis of what Paul says in his speech. Let's take it to heart! Seek God and you will find God!
