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| Paul at the Areopagus, Raphael 1515 |
Back in the early ‘80’s,
when I was a grad student at the University of Wisconsin, a fun way to spend a
spring afternoon was listening to the debates at the Free Speech Platform
located in a quad on the campus. Most of what passed for “free speech” was
left-wing cant, but there were sometimes lively exchanges of a religious nature
when a bombastic evangelist known as “Sister Pat” took the platform and harangued
the students with a bloodthirsty barrage of vitriol which would’ve made Jimmy
Swaggart soil his shorts. Pat called all the female students whores (which was
rather vile of her, I thought) and accused all the male students of lusting
after them (which was probably true). Some brave souls would attempt to argue
with her, but they would get shouted down by Pat’s ferocious stentorian bellowing.
I never attempted to engage her in conversation as I have a rule about arguing
with zealots and crazy people. To my knowledge, no UW student ever broke down
in tears and accepted Jesus at Pat’s urging, but I suspect the evangelist felt
she’d done the Lord’s work all the same.
I thought about the Free
Speech Platform when I read the First Lesson appointed in the Revised Common
Lectionary for Easter 6, Year A (Acts17:22-31) which takes place in what I
imagine to be a similar venue, the Areopagus in Athens. This locale was once the
site of Athens’ judiciary. It was a place where cases were decided. The name
means “Hill of Ares” because Ares, the god of war in Greek mythology, was
supposedly tried there by the other gods. By the time Paul took the Free Speech
Platform, the official function of the place had long ended, but the Athenians,
it seems, still liked to hang out there and talk religion and politics.
A little back story: Paul
(who, you’ll remember from last week’s First Lesson, was once Saul, a
persecutor of the Christian faith) was on his second missionary journey
throughout the Mediterranean world. He’d been doing pretty well in Greece, but
he ran into a rather mixed crowd In Thessalonica. Some of the Greek Jews and not
a few gentiles really dug his preaching, but for some the message about Jesus’
love, forgiveness, and resurrection was just too hip. They wanted to get out
the tar and feathers. Paul had to scoot out of town in a hurry, and even the
next town over was too close. That’s how he ended up many miles away in the
cultural center of Athens.
For a cosmopolitan guy like
Paul, Athens would be a pretty cool place to hang out. However, the Bible tells
us Paul was “deeply distressed[i]” to discover he could
barely stand with his hands on his hips in that town without elbowing a statue
to some pagan god. As was his custom,
his first place to preach was in the local synagogue, but he also took his
witness to the open air and started debating folks in the marketplace. The
Bible says he argued with stoic philosophers (those who believed it was a human
being’s place to live as simply as possible without the clutter of luxury) and with
epicureans (those who believed life had no real meaning so just enjoy yourself
while you can and party on). Unlike the Thessalonian hicks up north, the urbane
Athenians were always interested in novel ideas, so they invited Paul to the
Areopagus to give what I imagine was a First Century version of a TED talk.
I have to give our
apostle props for the way he handled this invite. Unlike the above-mentioned
Sister Pat, Paul didn’t start dissing the crowd for their paganism. Instead—if you
accept the New Revised Standard Version translation—he actually complimented
them for their religiosity. To be honest, the translation here gets a little
tricky. What he said was they devotedly feared (in this case fear means “respect”)
the demons. He could just as easily be telling them they’re superstitious[ii], but I like to think he’s
taking a more gentle approach.
The polytheistic Greeks
have a boat load of gods. They’ve even set up an extra shrine in case there’s a
god out there they might’ve overlooked. This gives Paul an opening. He can tell
them about the “unknown God.”
The God he wants them to
know doesn’t have a specialty. This God is the maker and ruler of all things. This God doesn’t require a
shrine. Rather, this God wants to live in the hearts of the faithful. This God doesn’t want an animal sacrifice. This
God wants us to recognize the sacred in each other, love one another, and make
our sacrifices to and for one another. This God doesn’t live up on Mount
Olympus far out of touch with us. This God has promised not to leave us
orphaned. This God promises that the Spirit of Truth will be with us and in us,
and that we will have a relationship with God.
This God promises love
and revelation. This is not a god of condemnation like the one I heard Sister
Pat screaming about all those years ago, nor is God a god of wealth, a personal
ATM, as some other preachers proclaim. This is the God who wishes to be known
to us in community, in sharing, in respect for the world this God created.
I think the Spirit of God
spoke to our Church Council at Faith Lutheran last week when we had our monthly
meeting. God wants us to reach out, and so it’s been planned that we’ll have
another Neighborhood Day in early June and invite the local flea market folks
to sell their wares on our lawn. Any money we make from this will be donated to
Family Promise of Philadelphia. We may only clear a few hundred dollars, but if
that helps one family pay some bills it will be worth it.
This unknown God is not
unknown to us. When we pray, when we fellowship together, when we do deeds of
love and mercy, God is present. This is our Father’s world. God shines in all
that’s fair; in the rustling grass we hear God pass, God speaks to us everywhere.
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