Ancient altar to an unknown god. Image Source |
Acts
17:22-31
22Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said,
“Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23For
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. 24The 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, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed
anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.
26From 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, 27so 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. 28For ‘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.’
29Since 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. 30While God has overlooked the times
of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31because
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.”
Sermon: An Unknown God
Seminary
is a bizarre place – just ask Joanna.
People practice baptism for kicks.
Reading from the “wrong” version of the Bible can make someone argue
with you for an hour-and-a-half. And
everything, everything, is questioned.
The notion of professors imparting wisdom into the empty heads of
patient, reverent students is something of the past. Everything is up for debate, which is
exhilarating, and exhausting (ask Joanna).
Case in
point: I once sat in a class on World Mission required for our entire year of
seminarians to take. It wasn’t taught
by our Mission professor for some reason, but someone else. And about as soon as it began, we began
questioning him. He spoke to us about
mission and culture. “Go into any
village in Africa these days…” he began.
…and switch
on a radio, and presto! There is culture.”
He was
trying, I think, to say something about globalization or the interconnectedness
of the world. What he ended up doing was
implying that there was no culture in that African village until a Western technological
device (i.e. a radio) appeared. You can
imagine how that riled up a bunch of (admittedly self-righteous)
seminarians! I’m not critiquing my
seminary education here – we all know that we learn more from things we
disagree with, that challenge us, than things we take easily at face value.
That
professor’s approach to mission is one that has been taken by Christians for
millennia…that in going to share the good news of Christ, you must also go and
share the good news of a better way of life (yours). Sometimes, that sharing looked like acts of
compassion, through education and health care.
Often, it looked (and looks) like colonialism and domination.
But this
is not how God intended mission to happen.
We see this in our reading from Acts this morning where Paul provides us
with a powerful model for sharing our faith across cultural and religious
divides.
When
Paul took his little stroll through the city of Athens, looking carefully at
all of their gods (at Starbucks and Walmart and Apple), he didn’t destroy those gods. He didn’t tell them that God loved his people
more than them, or that they were ignorant heathens. Instead he began with a statement of respect
for their ways:
“Athenians, I see how extremely
religious you are in every way.”
And then he looked for connections
between his faith tradition and theirs:
“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.”
And thus the connection is made,
not through taking what they know and naming it as ignorant or misguided, but
in shedding light on the unknown.
I find it fascinating that these
Athenians had a statue to an “unknown god.”
In the Greek, “unknown God” is literally agnosto dei. Agnostic God.
God without knowing.
I can’t help but think of that
a-religious title used by so many these days, especially people of my
generation: agnostic. Folks who are
agnostic say that yes, there is a God, but that this God doesn’t care much or
interfere with the affairs of this world.
This agnostic God is not so much unknown as a deity, but is willfully
unknowing when it comes to humanity.
This God chooses ignorance over knowing and acting on behalf of
creation: the agnostic God.
This is very different from who we
Jesus followers say God is. We say that,
in Jesus of Nazareth, God is made known, and came to earth, lived, served, died
and rose again that humanity might be fully known, experienced, loved,
reconciled.
It is tempting, in the face of
agnostism (which will be something faced quite often in Germany by Joanna, I’m
betting) to immediately say, “No! This
is not what God is like! God is with us,
cares for us, died for us, rose for us!”
But it’s important when we are
tempted to approach mission in this way to return once more to this reading
from Acts. You see, Paul didn’t share
his faith starting with a "No!". He
started by saying, “Yes.”
Yes – I see that you are seeking
after God.
Yes – I see that you are faithful
in your own way, even if it’s different than mine.
Yes – I see that the God who made
all of us, gives life and breath to all.
Yes – we share a common ancestor.
Yes – we are one humanity.
Yes – we all seek the unknown.
And in doing this, Paul’s approach
seeks to meet the most basic human need there is within each of us:
gnosis. To be known. We all want to know God, but we also
desperately want to be known ourselves.
So sharing our faith with others
must always be about both types of gnosis, of knowing. Respecting the faith and cultural backgrounds
of others enough to really know them.
And courageously sharing with them our own way of knowing God, not from
a place of pride or superiority, but from a place of showing how it is we
“search for God, and perhaps grope for God and find God, though indeed God is
not far from each of us.”
This is mission: groping for God
together. Because we never arrive at a
place of knowing the God we see in Jesus Christ completely (even with a
seminary education). We cannot know God
without knowing the diverse, varied people God has made. And people cannot know God without feeling
known, understood, respected, themselves.
Perhaps that is the greatest
challenge agnosticism shows us: not the idea that God doesn’t know us, but the
idea that our fellow human beings don’t care either. Our greatest witness then, your greatest
witness Joanna, is to do all in our power (and then even more in the power of
the Holy Spirit) to make people feel known, just as they are, as Paul did.
I’m reminded of a poem
called Red Brocade by Naomi Shihab Nye, about how we can truly know one
another.
The Arabs used to say,
When a stranger appears at your
door,
feed him for three days
before asking who he is,
where he’s come from,
where he’s headed.
That way, he’ll have strength enough
to answer.
Or, by then you’ll be such good
friends
you don’t care.
Let’s go back to that.
Rice?
Pine Nuts?
Here, take the red brocade
pillow.
My child will serve water to your
horse.
No, I was not busy when you
came!
I was not preparing to be busy.
That’s the armor everyone put
on
to pretend they had a purpose
in the world.
I refuse to be claimed.
Your plate is waiting.
We will snip fresh mint
into your tea.
If there
is a purpose in this world, it is most certainly to take the time to know our
fellow human beings, and seek to know God together. Though we may always within us have a shrine
to the “unknown” God, especially when life throws perplexing challenges or
tragedies at us, the good news is this: we are never unknown to God. God is never agnostic where humanity is
concerned.
God is
intimately involved in the details of this world and our lives, at work in ways
that are real and concrete helping God’s children know each other and their
Creator.
We are
not too busy to know our fellow human beings.
We are not too busy to carefully and respectfully learn their ways. We are not too busy to share our faith with
courage and compassion. We are not too
busy to worship the God who knows us – all of us -- completely. This is why we
are here. This is why you are called
from here, Joanna.
Thanks
be to the God who knows us better than we know ourselves, to the Risen Lord who
put flesh and blood on our deepest questions and to the Spirit who binds us
together with all peoples of every nation and place, as one human family. Alleluia!
Amen.