The Unknown God

Acts 17:22-31

 

While Apostle Paul was the first missionary and our greatest theologian, one of the reason Paul founded so many churches was because many churches he founded asked him to move on.  There is no doubt that Paul was brilliant. No one questions his love of Christ.  No one worked harder and longer to tell the amazing story of God’s grace.  And yet when Paul arrived in Athens it was because he had been driven out of both Thessalonica and Corinth.

Paul simply wore folks out.  Paul’s giant and tenacious personality could be toxic.  Paul approached his new founded faith as if nothing else mattered.  Imagine how crazy he must have sounded?  He came to a foreign land preaching about a man who was resurrected from the dead.     For Paul, nothing but this crazy message mattered.  In Thessalonica Paul told folks to forget about their families, their jobs, or what might happen in the future. All that mattered was Jesus was coming.

What would we do if someone brought that message to us?  We would probably make some jokes and refer to them as some kind of nut case.  Paul received the same kind of treatment.  By the time Paul was booted out of Thessalonica his ministry had lost all its steam.  Many folks thought he was crazy. In an amazing display of faith, Paul picked himself up and headed for Athens, the center of intellectual thought.  He headed there by himself.  He headed there disgraced.  But he didn’t head there discouraged.  With the nerve of an aging quarterback who has been intercepted on his last three attempts, Paul took a five step drop and cocked his faith one more time.

Athens is where you go if you knew you were smarter than everyone else.  Plato, Socrates and Aristotle all played the Acropolis.  People would come to Athens to match their intellect against each other.  Folks would gather  to hear the wit and wisdom of anyone brave enough to endure critical responses.  Only the mentally strong survived Athens.  After Corinth and Thessalonica, you would think Paul would have run back to Jerusalem.  But not Paul.  This man who believed he lost his sight on the road to Damascus just so he could see the truth and walked into the Acropolis where every new idea in Athens was presented, tasted and digested.

Paul entered Athens proclaiming a revolutionary concept.  He spoke of a Jew to folks who adored Alexander the Great.  He quoted verses from the Torah to people who considered anything other than Homer or Virgil primitive.  Paul spoke against the cultural norms of the day, proclaiming a foreign God to a people who believed they were spiritually and intellectual superior to anyone on earth.  But Paul had learned some lessons from his previous adventures. Instead of imitating a bull in a china shop,  Paul soft-peddled his approach by complimenting the Athenians on being a very religious people.  He pointed to the statutes of Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite, and Poseidon, noting they seemed to have a god for every occasion.  Then Paul pointed to the monument with the inscription, “To the unknown God.”  Evidently the wise folks of Athens were not hedging their bets.  They were making sure no god was left unnoticed.     

Paul used this shrine as an opportunity to speak to their inquisitive hearts.   He argued that there was something missing in their array of gods.  While Zeus ruled the air and sky, Athena represented wisdom, Aphrodite imparted love, and Poseidon controlled the sea, there seemed to be a clear disconnect between the deities and humanity. Paul pointed to the statue of the unknown god and said, “In this God we live and move and have our very being.”  Paul continued, “You must be spiritually hungry.  You are worshipping objects made of stone.  How can they care for you?  How can they know you? Let me introduce you to the God that created you, loves you, even died for you.

Now that Paul had their attention, he went to work. “This one true God, not Zeus, is the creator of the heavens and the earth.  This one true God, not Poseidon, rules the seas.  This one true God, not Athena, is the source of all wisdom. This one true God formed man and women out of nothing but Godly imagination. This one true God sets humanity above all creation.  This one true God loves us like a mother loves her child.   This one true God stands alone.”

Did Paul really believe folks would easily give up what they had been taught by their ancestors? Why should they surrender what they already believed? Paul left Athens without a single convert.  Once again it appears Paul failed.

But if the sermon was a failure, why do I share it with you this morning? In many ways we are like the Athenians. We still build temples to the gods.  We call them shopping malls, athletic complexes, monuments to fallen heroes and in some cases even our homes.  We have all these gods we can’t seem to live without, until life itself hangs in the balance, and then the unknown God becomes the only God who really matters.

Think about it. We demand truth and the unknown God places us in relationships. We ask for solid ground and the unknown God puts folks in our path who challenge our absolutes and punctures our stereotypes. We search everywhere for answers and the unknown God keeps putting folks in front of us who challenge the very foundation of our beliefs by offering a confounding mixture of mystery and grace.

Most days Zeus or his modern day equivalent is enough. I thrive on intellectual stimulation. But when I am overwhelmed by life, when I wonder if the dawn will ever appear, I need something more than I can imagine to help me through the night.

Where is Zeus, the god of power, when a relationship is broken? Where is Aphrodite, the goddess of beauty, when a loved one is dying? Where is Athena, the goddess of wisdom, when the solid rock on which we have always stood turns to sand?

 Kipling wrote, “What do they know of England, who only England know?”   I hope the God you claim remains partially unknown. I hope the God you think you understand remains a bit misunderstood. I hope your list of the Godly attributes will always fall short. Once we build our monument, once we place our faith in stone, we risk closing our hearts to holy murmurs. 

Faith is not about solving the mystery of God but rather living in that mystery. Or as Fred Buechner once wrote, “To say God is a mystery is to say you can never nail God down.  Even on Christ, the nails proved ultimately ineffective.”     

To God be the glory.  Amen