An Unknown God

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.