TEXT: Acts 17:22-31; John 14:18-21; 1 Peter 3:13-22

Acts 17:22-31

22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, "Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.23 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.24 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,25 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.26 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,27 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.28 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.'
29 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.30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent,31 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."

1 Peter 3:13-22

13 Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good?14 But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear, and do not be intimidated,15 but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you;16 yet do it with gentleness and reverence. Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame.17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God's will, than to suffer for doing evil.18 For Christ

also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit,19 in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison,20 who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were saved through water.21 And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you-not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ,22 who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.

John 14:18-21

18 "I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you.19 In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live.20 On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.21 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."

"A WIDER RATIONALITY"

TEXT: Acts 17:22-31

Perhaps a major reason why some of us have such a hard time bearing witness to Jesus is that we have not allowed his story to catch our story up into it so that our story becomes transformed into his story. Sound confusing. Well think of a personal example-that of a spouse, a loved one, a friend.

The Apostle Paul had allowed that to happen to him. Yet Paul was not inclined to keep quiet. While in Athens he sought out a variety of places and audiences to tell his story. He witnessed before the Jewish devout in the synagogue (17:17), the esteemed philosophers (17:18), the masses in the marketplace (17:17), and the simply curious (17:20). Speaking to so many audiences with such equanimity brought Paul to the attention of some of the city's leaders. They brought him to the "Areopagus" to once again recite his message.

This "Areopagus" is not clearly defined. An equivalent for us here in Manhattan would be one of the public parks such as Bryant Park or Washington Square.

As Paul begins his address he inclusively addresses all "Athenians", not any particular philosophical or religious group. Perhaps it is because of the mixed nature of his audience that Paul's words seem to be capable of communicating on both a strictly biblical and a more inclusively philosophical level. His format is precise; his argument, progressive. It has the shape of a learned philosophical presentation such as a speech which could have been given by the Stoics or Epicureans or representatives of any one of many of the religious groups of his day. Groups which were perhaps not a whole lot different from those with whom we have daily contact in this diverse city.

Paul, in effect, claimed that until then, God, out of divine generosity, had overlooked their narrow rational way at interpreting life, their denseness if you please. But the time had come for repentance, for a change of mind and a change of world view. Their lives with all of their certainties had a vast undercurrent of insecurity. That was the very reason for the altar to "an unknown god" to which Paul referred.

The Athenians, like many within the world in which we live, had come to a point where rationality ruled and the sense of wonder had been lost. Like Aldous Huxley, they could have said, "There was a time when I gazed upon the stars with great wonder and amazement. Now, in late life, I look up at the heavens in the same way in which I gaze upon the faded wallpaper in a railway station waiting room."

An observer of our contemporary culture has commented that "Modernity does that to us. One of the characteristics of the modern world was 'demystification,' the loss of wonder, the dissipation of mystery and awe. The world becomes flat, predictable and explainable." Even the conservative evangelical Christian community desire it so. "If we can just find Noah's Ark or the Ark of the Covenant or verify the authenticity of the Shroud of Turin, we can prove the Bible true." There will be no need for mystery or faith then. Just the facts.

But Paul doesn't just relate facts. He tells a story. He begins by flattering the Athenians gaining their ears. They pride themselves on being seekers. Again not so unlike today. Notice how many books on the bookstore shelves feed that hunger.

He then tells them that he has found the one who is the goal of their-of our-search. He takes them on the search. The beauty of the universe. That which they observe. That for which they hope. And then, he speaks of Jesus. One who not only has been found, but who has been found because God has come to us as this same Jesus, a crucified Jew, risen from the dead, and who will one day stand as judge of us all.

Paul started out well, but by the end many of the crowd are laughing and scoffing.
Some ask him to come back the next day and tell them more. A few-two, a man and a woman-believe and are converted. One was perhaps part of the educated crowd, the other standing on the fringe.

Those Greeks, and our associates, like to think of themselves as open minded intellectuals. But that's just not so. Like so many of us, their previous experience dictates what they will accept as valid. New ideas are judged solely on the basis of past ideas.

And honestly, much thinking may work just that way. We understand beauty, the cycle of the seasons, mathematical reasoning, but what does such teach us of life.? Of resurrection life? Of judgement? We think we are able to think and understand anything and everything. Yet, we really do live and think in a very flattened world, one which is increasingly being shrunk. That which lives lives, that which dies dies. We even make our bombs smart and are embarrassed when "they" make a mistake!

What Paul had to say, what we have to say to the word appeals to a wider rationality. A rationality which goes beyond our simple "cause and effect," one plus one equals two, way of thinking. We proclaim a story which is beyond common sense but which we claim to know to be true because it has become our story as well. We proclaim Jesus, crucified yet risen from the dead-Jesus who promised that all who believe upon him have life even though they die, Jesus who will judge the world one day.

No wonder they scoffed at Paul. No wonder they scoff at us. The world mocks, yet some believe. We Christians are caricatured as being narrow minded, closed, and a bit retarded (to use a politically incorrect word). We are told to face the facts, to get real, to get with the program, but Paul asked "who defines what is real or what exactly the facts are?

We have a larger, wider view. A view that sees a larger reality. We have been given a more inclusive view of what is going on in the world if we will just be willing to embrace it.

Some would hope that we would just move to a more obscure corner of society and be quiet. But we are here, right in the middle of what God is doing, and we are not going away. IN fact we are here to tell a story, the story. We shake hands with all the intellectual positions around us, recognizing that all of those positions are more or less commentaries on a person's social position or personal history or education, we acknowledge that most intellectual positions are interesting and need to be understood. So we are courteous. But we do not stop with that affirmation. We say, "Now I have a story to tell you, and it is a story which goes beyond the facts as you have perceived them." The world is not flat. There is a wider reality than you have previously embraced. This is not a matter of digital thinking, no matter how good digital is for movies, computers and cell phones. This is analogical thinking requiring subtlety, a willingness not to be definite and concise. It is a wider rationality requiring that you listen to a story, and to believe it. This is the story of the "unknown god" whom you have been seeking. That God has come to us with an offer of life, a life full of meaning, a life eternal. "For we are God's offspring" and must no longer think of God as an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals such as us. "God was in Christ reconciling the world to God's very self."

This was Paul's reality. This was Gene Barnett's reality. This is my reality. Will it be yours?