Finding the Unknown God
Finding the Unknown God Rev. David Baak Acts 17:22-31
The Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 25, 2014
John 14:15-17, 19 ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you…. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Introduction The question these weeks between Easter and Pentecost, which we celebrate in two weeks on June 8, has been: How do we live as a holy people in a broken and often unholy world? The framework for our thinking is the passage in 2 Peter: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people....Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy” (2:9-10). It begins with God’s grace and mercy, of course, as Chandler spoke about last week. Today I want to explore our role in finding that grace, mercy—and peace—and, indeed, holiness. Scripture Acts 17:22-31 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 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. 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 to all mortals life and breath and all things. From 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, so 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. For ‘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.’ 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. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because 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.”
Because sermons are prepared with an emphasis on verbal presentation, the written accounts may occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
Finding the Unknown God ---------------I think that our national holidays, especially those like Memorial Day, bring us together in this society in a very powerful way. Some of it is patriotic—we have a mutual feeling for this country (whether we like what’s going on, or whatever our politics are)—holidays bring a higher awareness, an “ownership” of the best of our life together. And, surely this weekend, we are brought together in memory of some of the worst of our common, national experiences, those of the destruction and loss brought through war. So, pain is also part of what brings us together, such as that experienced in tragedies like the shooting in California or natural disasters—like the tornadoes and hail storms in Colorado and Illinois again last week, the wildfires and dust storms out west, the flooding and rain on the east coast. But whether prompted by holidays or by pain or by disaster, we have a common emotional response—we “pull together”—because we have an emotional recognition that we are one humanity and that the similarities among us prompt similar, shared reactions. I think our lectionary reading suggests that faith actually can do the same thing, if we use what we say we believe to push us into positive action toward understanding and peace. In the late fifth century BCE, Socrates, the ancient philosopher in Athens, debated with anyone who would listen—in the temple, the marketplace, and the streets. He held views on religion that were out of the mainstream—he said that his own “inner intuition” was more trustworthy than all the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. In the year 399 BCE, the leaders accused Socrates of “corrupting the youth,” of “failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges,” and of “introducing new deities.” They brought him to the Areopagus—on the top of one of the highest hills in Athens, where for hundreds of years, their highest court met to decide capital cases. Socrates was convicted and subsequently he was executed. Now, let me read you a few verses just prior to our lectionary passage that was read a few moments ago: 16 While Paul was … in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? There is such a coincidence between this Paul story and the Socrates story that many doubt the historical accuracy of the Acts account. But, whatever the truth of either story, the author of Acts uses this platform as an “ideal setting” in order to speak a universal word to all the readers of the story, including us—not just the philosophers or judges or politicians of Athens. Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 2 of 5
May 25, 2014
Finding the Unknown God The speech uses the “unknown god” theme to show that Paul steps out of his Jewish, sectarian past into a broad openness to all people. Paul is very clear in this section about what he thinks about idols (he’s very distressed) and is very clear about what he believes about God (“what you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you” and, “…[God] has given assurance to all by raising [Jesus] from the dead”), but he still speaks in such a way that his audience begins to see in their own terms—and in their own understanding of faith—the God whom Paul confesses. (He says “the one who made all nations…and so we are [all] God’s offspring.”) You perhaps saw the article in the Grand Rapids Press or online this past week by Charley Honey that included comments by Imam Dr. Muaz Redzic—whom some of you know and who is one of the members of our community’s interfaith understanding planning group. Muaz said that because of the trauma of war in his hometown of Sarajevo, Bosnia, when he was a teenager, he has long realized the importance of interfaith understanding. That includes the use of public prayer and invocations—which was the subject of the article. Muaz said that the prayer, regardless of the faith of the individual, “…should trigger feelings of love, justice, peace and responsibility. It should be somehow inclusive. If it is exclusive, it’s a sermon.”1 (Muaz and I know each other pretty well and I can say that we do have different understandings of what a sermon is—he’s much more willing to use a sermon to answer a question and to direct his congregation’s action, rather than to ask a question. He is devout and that is his tradition, while ours is much more one of using a sermon to stimulate our exploration of faith.) But would we not also say that our public prayer or witness “should trigger feelings of love, justice, peace, and responsibility?” Should we not hope that our words, our presence, our witness, would prompt a feeling of unity, a recognition or an “ownership” of our common humanity? Our religions are different, in fundamental ways, but we see and hear authentic similarities, as well, in each other’s voices. That is very much what the apostle Paul did with the people of Athens. And, the teaching here in Acts is a very practical one for us, here in the twenty-first century, in a pluralistic society, among people who do not know God; or who have gotten tired of the old descriptions, idols, and altars of God; or who have become upset with the abuse of people in the name of religion—but who all still keep searching for meaning. They are our neighbors; some of them are our family; some of them are we, ourselves. Listen carefully to Paul: Charley Honey, “If We’re Going to Pray at Public Meetings, Let’s Respect Other Faiths,” Grand Rapids Press, May 22, 2014, B:1.
1
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 3 of 5
May 25, 2014
Finding the Unknown God What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, God who is Lord of heaven and earth…, since God [is the one who] gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth…, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for God and find God—though indeed God is not far from each one of us. For “In God we live and move and have our being.”… “For we too are God’s offspring.” Those last two phrases are quoted from Epimenides, the Greek philosopher poet who lived perhaps a hundred years before Socrates, and the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes, who lived a hundred years later. Paul pulled those quotes out of his education—and his understanding of the culture in which he lived. Using what was an unintentional altar in Athens and a famous line from a so-called pagan Greek philosopher, Paul speaks what has become a basic Christian understanding; it becomes the vehicle for God’s grace to shine through, even for those who do not know what they are searching for. “In God we live and move and have our being.” Marcus Borg, retired professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University and author, explains it this way: …this concept imagines God as the encompassing Spirit in whom everything that is, is. The universe is not separate from God, but in God.”…. God is the one in whom “we live and move and have our being.” Notice how the language works. Where are we in relation to God? We are in God; we live in God, move in God, have our being in God. God is not “out there,” but “right here,” all around us.2 God is right “in here” in each of us—in all of us. At a very important, certainly theological level, that is the image of God in each of us. That is how we begin to understand what it means to “see the face of God in the other.” We confess in our faith that all people are God’s offspring. It is at the core of our Christian belief. That is why we believe that because we are Christian and because we have felt welcomed into the heart of God, we welcome everyone. But that is not just a Westminster or a Christian welcome. At its very core, Islam teaches the same, Muaz tells me. Because he is a Muslim, he welcomes everyone, even as he has experienced the welcome of God. Much of the language—and belief—of his faith and the language—and belief—of my faith are the same. When we look beyond our own prejudices and fears and assumptions and can hear from the other our own voice, and when we see in the other our own humanity, we begin to experience, “love, peace, justice, and responsibility.” It is a matter of conviction of our own faith, as Paul had, and respect for another’s faith, also, as Paul had. 2
Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), p. 66.
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 4 of 5
May 25, 2014
Finding the Unknown God It is a willingness to listen carefully and to be in discussion about our faith so that we can hear our voices in what the other person is saying—as a way of understanding—which becomes a way of acceptance of each other and as a way of living in peace. When we live this way, we begin to know the God who is so often “unknown” in the middle of our lives and culture. For if we “live and move and have our being in God,” if we hear our own voice in that of another, whatever their faith tradition, and if we begin to recognize the face of God in the other, we also can begin to understand that there really is not an “other.” In the power of the Spirit of Truth, as Jesus speaks in the gospel of John, “You will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” I don’t pretend to understand that, but somehow we become—somehow we are—one with each other. You may have heard the question: If a tree falls in the forest and there is no person there, does that crashing tree make a sound? There is a very real sense in which unless there is an eardrum nearby, there may be a movement of leaves and branches and air, but there is nothing that can be called a sound. Perhaps that is the key to understanding this passage, this concept, of Paul: I am not complete as the face and voice of God unless I can see and hear and accept God in you. Until and unless I receive you as part of me, only then, and only together, are we an expression of God that is complete, and it is in that transaction between us that we experience God’s grace. God loves each of us, and we each receive God’s grace—that is gospel. But, the tree makes a sound only when I’m there to hear it—to complete it. And there is also a very strong gospel sense in which God’s grace is made complete only when we experience it together and through each other. And, I would call that holiness the essence of peace, the reality of a holy nation, God’s own people. One of my treasured possessions is this white stole I am wearing—it was a gift; it is the only white stole I own; I wear it in the seasons of Christmas and Easter and for the sacraments of baptism and communion. The dove on it is the very Christian symbol of the Holy Spirit, at the center of the very Christian doctrine of the Trinity. And it is balanced with the word Peace, which is much broader than a Christian message, but which certainly is at the core of our belief and witness. This stole was made by women in Sarajevo, during the war when the Serbian army besieged and shelled the city. I don’t know that the women were Christians—I doubt it, but there were Serbian Orthodox Bosnians and Croatian Catholics living together with the Bosnian Muslims before the Serbs attacked and killed and terrorized whoever was in the city. But the women obviously were comfortable in making this very Christian statement. There is a voice, if you will, of holiness and reverence in this stole—and also in them—that is God reaching to make me complete. It is in such expressions, in all of our lives, that we find God and we experience holiness. And, it is also where faith is as practical a way to bring us together as is a holiday. In the name of God: Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 5 of 5
May 25, 2014
The Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 25, 2014
John 14:15-17, 19 ”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you…. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Introduction The question these weeks between Easter and Pentecost, which we celebrate in two weeks on June 8, has been: How do we live as a holy people in a broken and often unholy world? The framework for our thinking is the passage in 2 Peter: “You are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people....Once you were no people but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy” (2:9-10). It begins with God’s grace and mercy, of course, as Chandler spoke about last week. Today I want to explore our role in finding that grace, mercy—and peace—and, indeed, holiness. Scripture Acts 17:22-31 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 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. 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 to all mortals life and breath and all things. From 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, so 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. For ‘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.’ 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. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because 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.”
Because sermons are prepared with an emphasis on verbal presentation, the written accounts may occasionally stray from proper grammar and punctuation.
Finding the Unknown God ---------------I think that our national holidays, especially those like Memorial Day, bring us together in this society in a very powerful way. Some of it is patriotic—we have a mutual feeling for this country (whether we like what’s going on, or whatever our politics are)—holidays bring a higher awareness, an “ownership” of the best of our life together. And, surely this weekend, we are brought together in memory of some of the worst of our common, national experiences, those of the destruction and loss brought through war. So, pain is also part of what brings us together, such as that experienced in tragedies like the shooting in California or natural disasters—like the tornadoes and hail storms in Colorado and Illinois again last week, the wildfires and dust storms out west, the flooding and rain on the east coast. But whether prompted by holidays or by pain or by disaster, we have a common emotional response—we “pull together”—because we have an emotional recognition that we are one humanity and that the similarities among us prompt similar, shared reactions. I think our lectionary reading suggests that faith actually can do the same thing, if we use what we say we believe to push us into positive action toward understanding and peace. In the late fifth century BCE, Socrates, the ancient philosopher in Athens, debated with anyone who would listen—in the temple, the marketplace, and the streets. He held views on religion that were out of the mainstream—he said that his own “inner intuition” was more trustworthy than all the gods and goddesses of Greek mythology. In the year 399 BCE, the leaders accused Socrates of “corrupting the youth,” of “failing to acknowledge the gods that the city acknowledges,” and of “introducing new deities.” They brought him to the Areopagus—on the top of one of the highest hills in Athens, where for hundreds of years, their highest court met to decide capital cases. Socrates was convicted and subsequently he was executed. Now, let me read you a few verses just prior to our lectionary passage that was read a few moments ago: 16 While Paul was … in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. 18Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? There is such a coincidence between this Paul story and the Socrates story that many doubt the historical accuracy of the Acts account. But, whatever the truth of either story, the author of Acts uses this platform as an “ideal setting” in order to speak a universal word to all the readers of the story, including us—not just the philosophers or judges or politicians of Athens. Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 2 of 5
May 25, 2014
Finding the Unknown God The speech uses the “unknown god” theme to show that Paul steps out of his Jewish, sectarian past into a broad openness to all people. Paul is very clear in this section about what he thinks about idols (he’s very distressed) and is very clear about what he believes about God (“what you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you” and, “…[God] has given assurance to all by raising [Jesus] from the dead”), but he still speaks in such a way that his audience begins to see in their own terms—and in their own understanding of faith—the God whom Paul confesses. (He says “the one who made all nations…and so we are [all] God’s offspring.”) You perhaps saw the article in the Grand Rapids Press or online this past week by Charley Honey that included comments by Imam Dr. Muaz Redzic—whom some of you know and who is one of the members of our community’s interfaith understanding planning group. Muaz said that because of the trauma of war in his hometown of Sarajevo, Bosnia, when he was a teenager, he has long realized the importance of interfaith understanding. That includes the use of public prayer and invocations—which was the subject of the article. Muaz said that the prayer, regardless of the faith of the individual, “…should trigger feelings of love, justice, peace and responsibility. It should be somehow inclusive. If it is exclusive, it’s a sermon.”1 (Muaz and I know each other pretty well and I can say that we do have different understandings of what a sermon is—he’s much more willing to use a sermon to answer a question and to direct his congregation’s action, rather than to ask a question. He is devout and that is his tradition, while ours is much more one of using a sermon to stimulate our exploration of faith.) But would we not also say that our public prayer or witness “should trigger feelings of love, justice, peace, and responsibility?” Should we not hope that our words, our presence, our witness, would prompt a feeling of unity, a recognition or an “ownership” of our common humanity? Our religions are different, in fundamental ways, but we see and hear authentic similarities, as well, in each other’s voices. That is very much what the apostle Paul did with the people of Athens. And, the teaching here in Acts is a very practical one for us, here in the twenty-first century, in a pluralistic society, among people who do not know God; or who have gotten tired of the old descriptions, idols, and altars of God; or who have become upset with the abuse of people in the name of religion—but who all still keep searching for meaning. They are our neighbors; some of them are our family; some of them are we, ourselves. Listen carefully to Paul: Charley Honey, “If We’re Going to Pray at Public Meetings, Let’s Respect Other Faiths,” Grand Rapids Press, May 22, 2014, B:1.
1
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 3 of 5
May 25, 2014
Finding the Unknown God What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, God who is Lord of heaven and earth…, since God [is the one who] gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor God made all nations to inhabit the whole earth…, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for God and find God—though indeed God is not far from each one of us. For “In God we live and move and have our being.”… “For we too are God’s offspring.” Those last two phrases are quoted from Epimenides, the Greek philosopher poet who lived perhaps a hundred years before Socrates, and the Stoic philosopher Cleanthes, who lived a hundred years later. Paul pulled those quotes out of his education—and his understanding of the culture in which he lived. Using what was an unintentional altar in Athens and a famous line from a so-called pagan Greek philosopher, Paul speaks what has become a basic Christian understanding; it becomes the vehicle for God’s grace to shine through, even for those who do not know what they are searching for. “In God we live and move and have our being.” Marcus Borg, retired professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University and author, explains it this way: …this concept imagines God as the encompassing Spirit in whom everything that is, is. The universe is not separate from God, but in God.”…. God is the one in whom “we live and move and have our being.” Notice how the language works. Where are we in relation to God? We are in God; we live in God, move in God, have our being in God. God is not “out there,” but “right here,” all around us.2 God is right “in here” in each of us—in all of us. At a very important, certainly theological level, that is the image of God in each of us. That is how we begin to understand what it means to “see the face of God in the other.” We confess in our faith that all people are God’s offspring. It is at the core of our Christian belief. That is why we believe that because we are Christian and because we have felt welcomed into the heart of God, we welcome everyone. But that is not just a Westminster or a Christian welcome. At its very core, Islam teaches the same, Muaz tells me. Because he is a Muslim, he welcomes everyone, even as he has experienced the welcome of God. Much of the language—and belief—of his faith and the language—and belief—of my faith are the same. When we look beyond our own prejudices and fears and assumptions and can hear from the other our own voice, and when we see in the other our own humanity, we begin to experience, “love, peace, justice, and responsibility.” It is a matter of conviction of our own faith, as Paul had, and respect for another’s faith, also, as Paul had. 2
Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2004), p. 66.
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 4 of 5
May 25, 2014
Finding the Unknown God It is a willingness to listen carefully and to be in discussion about our faith so that we can hear our voices in what the other person is saying—as a way of understanding—which becomes a way of acceptance of each other and as a way of living in peace. When we live this way, we begin to know the God who is so often “unknown” in the middle of our lives and culture. For if we “live and move and have our being in God,” if we hear our own voice in that of another, whatever their faith tradition, and if we begin to recognize the face of God in the other, we also can begin to understand that there really is not an “other.” In the power of the Spirit of Truth, as Jesus speaks in the gospel of John, “You will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.” I don’t pretend to understand that, but somehow we become—somehow we are—one with each other. You may have heard the question: If a tree falls in the forest and there is no person there, does that crashing tree make a sound? There is a very real sense in which unless there is an eardrum nearby, there may be a movement of leaves and branches and air, but there is nothing that can be called a sound. Perhaps that is the key to understanding this passage, this concept, of Paul: I am not complete as the face and voice of God unless I can see and hear and accept God in you. Until and unless I receive you as part of me, only then, and only together, are we an expression of God that is complete, and it is in that transaction between us that we experience God’s grace. God loves each of us, and we each receive God’s grace—that is gospel. But, the tree makes a sound only when I’m there to hear it—to complete it. And there is also a very strong gospel sense in which God’s grace is made complete only when we experience it together and through each other. And, I would call that holiness the essence of peace, the reality of a holy nation, God’s own people. One of my treasured possessions is this white stole I am wearing—it was a gift; it is the only white stole I own; I wear it in the seasons of Christmas and Easter and for the sacraments of baptism and communion. The dove on it is the very Christian symbol of the Holy Spirit, at the center of the very Christian doctrine of the Trinity. And it is balanced with the word Peace, which is much broader than a Christian message, but which certainly is at the core of our belief and witness. This stole was made by women in Sarajevo, during the war when the Serbian army besieged and shelled the city. I don’t know that the women were Christians—I doubt it, but there were Serbian Orthodox Bosnians and Croatian Catholics living together with the Bosnian Muslims before the Serbs attacked and killed and terrorized whoever was in the city. But the women obviously were comfortable in making this very Christian statement. There is a voice, if you will, of holiness and reverence in this stole—and also in them—that is God reaching to make me complete. It is in such expressions, in all of our lives, that we find God and we experience holiness. And, it is also where faith is as practical a way to bring us together as is a holiday. In the name of God: Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Westminster Presbyterian Church, Grand Rapids, MI
Page 5 of 5
May 25, 2014
