Sermon for All Saints-by-the-Sea, Easter 6, April 27, 2008
by The Rev. Rob Fisher
Texts: Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit – Amen.

We have no description of what the apostle Paul looked like. There are likewise no drawings of his appearance produced during his lifetime.

But if you see a painting of him—or an icon or a stained glass window—he is easy to spot by his high, balding forehead.

This became the traditional way of depicting Paul because of his intelligence. I guess all of that brain activity scared the hair away. And not to point fingers, but Peter is usually depicted with a bushy, full head of hair.

Of all the figures in the New Testament, we get a special insight into Paul. We have at least seven letters that were written by Paul, comprising more books than any other single author in the the New Testament.

In his letters, we get to know Paul though his very own words.

And he is no cardboard cut-out character. He has a full range of emotions and moods. At times he is joyful and light-hearted. At other times he is grumpy and edgy. He even admits sometimes that he is merely stating his own opinion, and may not know the Gospel truth on a given matter.
When we hear these letters written by Paul—which we call epistles—read from the lectern on Sunday mornings, we can easily forget that before they were canonized as books of the Bible, they were actual letters written to specific people.

They were not written to us, though they often address the very same questions regarding faith that we face today.

Paul wrote these letters for the communities he was shepherding.
Reading Paul’s words, we get to look over his shoulder as he addresses these struggling early Christians communities, who occasionally frustrate him, or challenge him, and whom he calls his beloved.

He shows great care to help them not lose their way, using humor, irony, exasperation, and prayer.

***

Paul was not afraid to travel in diverse circles, and to put himself into situations that were often very risky, all in order to share the good news.

As well as being intelligent – writing long complex thoughts, always unafraid of a run-on sentence – he was unafraid of risk. The Gospel he preached, which was known so deeply as to totally penetrate his entire being, gave him the courage to travel and preach. He was unafraid of the hostility that sometimes met him, or the hardships of being put in prison for what he preached.
In this morning’s reading from Acts we get an account not written by Paul, but recounting a speech of his to the Greeks in Athens.

If there ever were any letters of Paul to the Athenians, none of them have survived. And Paul never writes about his experience in Greece in any of his extant letters, except to mention that he has been there. So the account in Acts is all we have to describe what must have been a fascinating episode in his journeys.

Evidently, he went and saw the sights of Athens – the Acropolis, and the temples with their impressive statues depicting the Gods of Greek mythology. And he met with the big thinkers of the day, the Greek philosophers who were interested in discussing with him this new and strange teaching that he brought.

In today’s reading, we find Paul addressing these Athenians, standing at a place called the Areopagus, which is a small marble hill near the Acropolis that still stands today. The word Areopagus, means “Hill of Ares.” Ares, the God of war, is the same as the Roman god Mars, so this location is also known as “Mars’ Hill.”

And if you visit Mars’ Hill, you will see that there is a bronze plaque with Paul’s words, preserved on the site where he spoke them.

Paul says to the Athenians:
“The 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, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives all mortals life and breath and all things.”

For Paul, it is about knowing the difference between what is and what isn’t God.

Miroslav Volf, one of my seminary professors, liked to remind us that if you think you’ve got God, you’ve really got something other than God.

God is not a thing to be possessed.

God is a who, to stand in the presence of, to be possessed by.

***

Paul says to the Athenians:
“Since 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.”

Imagine being the offspring of GOLD!

It sounds like an odd notion at first, but maybe we actually do seek this in some ways. Think of the golden images of beautiful people that we see in magazines, as if we are to aspire to that.
But we are not gold. Actually, we are something much better.

Our bodies, well they are just vessels, nothing more.

But our selves are precious.

Our bodies are circumscribed, and can be summed by figures – inches and pounds. We have traits – for instance: bald or not bald!

But ultimately, what matters about each and every one of us is totally unquantifiable. We cannot measure our souls.

Paul is kind with his words, though. He does not attack the Athenians. Rather, he points hopefully toward an opening that he has discovered. He has seen that they have an altar that is marked “to an unknown God.”

A wise pastor named Rob Bell (who incidentally created a church in Michigan named Mars Hill) points out that where there is truth, there is God.

And Paul seems to think that these Athenians, who are looking earnestly for truth, may have gotten a taste of the true God and not even known it!

Karl Rahner would call them “anonymous Christians”—who say “Yes” to God’s Spirit which reaches out to all, even when they do not know God’s name.

And Paul appeals to them to understand that God surpasses their imagination for what a deity can be. That “in God we live and move and have our being.”

***

Paul reminds us that we are God’s daughters and sons. In the Gospel of John this morning, Jesus puts words to what this means. He says:

“I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you…. I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”

We abide in God, and God abides in us. This already happens, whether we know to claim it or not! And this abiding love is how we come to know God.

Notice that this is already true! We just don’t fully get it yet.

Jesus says:

“They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

To participate in love is to enter into the life of God, and this is the most important commandment of all.

To love another person is to know what the world looks like from God’s perspective, through God’s eyes.

By simply entering into the power of love we come to know the Unknown God.

– Amen.