The Missionary Impulse

Acts 17.22-31

Rev. W. Alan Froggatt

The Missionary Impulse

Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost

I’m going to read this morning’s scripture a little differently today.  This passage from Acts is one of my favorite passages in the New Testament, and in a few minutes you’ll come to see why.  So instead of reading it straight through, I’m going to offer an introduction and some running commentary along the way to help us understand the context and contour of the story:

Paul undertook three missionary journeys during his career – this passage takes place during his second, and it is set in Athens, in particular at a place called the Areopagus.  The Areopagus was – and is still – a large outcropping of rock a stone’s throw from the Acropolis in Athens.  In ancient times the city’s council of elders met there; it also served as the site of legal trials – in playwright Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Orestes was tried for the murder of his mother Clytemnestra at the Areopagus.  But by Paul’s time, it no longer served as a court of sorts, but rather it was a place where public debates were held.  “All the Athenians and foreigners would spend their time at the Areopagus in... telling or hearing something new,” Acts tells us.  Being so close to the Acropolis, Paul could clearly see the Parthenon, which is the Temple of Athena; and closer to hand he could also see an altar inscribed, “to an unknown God.”  Taking his cues from his surroundings then, Paul begins his address:

 People of Athens, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.

Now, the use of compliments was not permitted at the Areopagus, so these words of his are either simple statement of fact – or, and I think this is more likely to be the case, Paul is being mildly sarcastic:  People of Athens, 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.”

Paul is very good at picking up on the cues of those things the Athenians already believed.  Greece had so many gods & goddesses, they were afraid they might unintentionally forget one, so therefore they created an altar and dedicated it “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, 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.

“Grope for him;” this vision of reaching out and searching for something that ought to be right in front of your eyes indicates  Paul may have had in mind Diogenes the Cynic, who famously walked the streets of Athens with a lantern in broad daylight, claiming to be searching for an honest man.

Then Paul employs the first of two quotations that would have been familiar to Athenians:  For “In him we live and move and have our being;”

We know Paul was a well-educated man – he was a rabbi, a teacher – thus he would have been familiar with Greek philosophy, and here Paul is quoting Epimenides of Crete, a sixth century  BCE Greek philosopher (the whole quatrain from which Paul  is quoting can be found on the back of today’s bulletin).  In fact, Paul used another part of the same quotation in his letter to Titus, chapter 1 verse 12:  “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts [with] idle bellies (or “lazy gluttons”).   Maybe he left that part out because, if compliments were disallowed at Areopagus, perhaps insults were as well.  Then he offers the second quotation:

as even some of your own poets have said,  “For we too are his offspring.”  This quote comes from Aratus, a lesser known poet from the third century BCE.

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.

By saying this, Paul calls attention to the idols and altars in the Greek pantheon.

While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now God commands all people everywhere to repent, because God has fixed a day on which the world will be judged in righteousness by the one whom he has appointed, and of this God has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.’

Did you notice?  Throughout this entire speech, Paul has been able to articulate the entire gospel message without ever mentioning the name of Jesus.

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Acts 17.22-31 for today

(And so I wonder, if Paul were to make a similar speech today, let’s say in the middle of the Farmer’s Market some Monday at Veteran’s Park down by the Depot, what he might say...)

People of Beverly and beyond, as I move through your towns and cities, I see that you are an extremely – well, very – or mostly – at least occasionally religious people:

  your currency, your coins and your bills, are emblazoned with the words, “In God We Trust.”

  you salute your national flag with the words, “One nation, under God.”

  you lift up your voices and sing at baseball games, “God bless America!”

  why, even your football players kneel in prayer after a touchdown.

Yes, I perceive that you are a generally religious people in so many ways.

Yet what you generically call the God of your currency and your flag and your baseball and football stadiums, I am here to proclaim to you that this is not a God in a far-off realm, but a God who desires a close, personal relationship with you.

This is a God who cannot be kept at arms’ length, waiting patiently to be called upon for weddings and baptisms and funerals, this is a God who knows you better than you know yourselves, and who insists that you pay attention.  This is a God who became human and who feels the way you feel, who laughs when you laugh, who weeps with you in your sorrow, who holds your hand and your heart in your time of deepest need and whom you fill with joy whenever you stretch out that heart and that hand to someone else in holy love.

As even one of your philosophers has said, “It is only with the heart that one can see clearly – what is essential is invisible to the eye.” I pray that you will have the eyes of your hearts enlightened, even as I wrote to the Ephesians.

Because “you have got to serve somebody – it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you’ve got to serve somebody” – as one of your own poets has said.

Since we have to serve somebody and since what is essential is invisible to the eye – then the claims of the idols of this world, those things we can see and touch – fade into irrelevance because it is here [heart] not here [eyes] that we serve the one in whom we live and move and have our being.

For we know that God calls all people everywhere into community, a community of welcome and a community of care and a community of service; God calls us into lives that are shaped by grace and compassion, so that everyone who looks at us with their eyes will see clearly that we wear the heart of God, the God who loves us beyond measure, the God who loves us without fail.

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Is this what Paul might say?  We can only wonder, but what’s notable is that there at the Areopagus we find the intersection of the Christian gospel with Greek philosophy – the philosophy of Epimenides and Diogenes – and with ancient poets and playwrights like Aratus and Aeschylus. 

This is one of the reasons this passage in Acts has always had a special place in my Bible; and as I read it, I think to myself:

How cool would it be to be able to stand where Paul stood and look around and see that intersection of classical poetry and philosophy and Christian theology.

How cool would it be to stand in the Areopagus and look up and see the Parthenon and be on the very spot where Paul stood when he offered this address?

How cool would it be to stand in some of those places where the earliest Christian churches stood – not just in Athens, but places like Corinth and Thessalonica? 

How cool would it be to sail the same seas Paul sailed when he made these missionary journeys that took him to places far from Jerusalem and Antioch?

How cool would it be to see for myself if the people of Crete are really gluttons and liars and beasts, as Epimenides said... if the people of Crete are really – well – Cretins?

And then it occurred to me:  this is precisely what sabbaticals are for: to have the kind of experience that brings stories like this alive in a way nothing else can.   And you, the good people of Second Congregational UCC were very clear when you called me, that after every five years of ministry, you want to provide me with the opportunity for three months of sabbatical, in part for this very reason - and I confess, I’ve been remiss in this part of my ministry.  Because next year I will have been your Senior Minister for fifteen years, and so far my only sabbatical was the trip we took to Italy in 2008.  So as I thought, “Wouldn’t it be cool to stand in the Areopagus and look around and witness for myself that intersection of classical poetry and philosophy and Christian theology, and to visit places like Corinth and Crete and Thessalonica and to sail the southern Aegean Sea....”  I also thought:  this is what sabbaticals are for!

Now even though math is not one of my stronger suits, even I can do the simple division and know that fifteen years divided by five means another sabbatical is due, if not overdue, and having received the approval – and blessing - from our Board of Deacons earlier this month, next summer I will be going to Greece to do just the kinds of things we’re talking about here today.  I will be spending at least a week, possibly more, in Athens, a week sailing the southern Aegean Sea, a week with the gluttons and liars on Crete, and several days in both Thessalonica to the north - with a stop at Mount Olympus along the way – and in Corinth on the Peloponnesian peninsula to the south.  My sabbatical will begin at the end of June and extend for three months to the end of September.  As plans develop I will share them with our Deacons and with all of you, but I do want to say once again how deeply grateful I am for your generosity, your support for my ongoing education and experience, and the provision for sabbatical you have given me.

One of my dear colleagues, Dennis Calhoun at Old North Church in Marblehead, put it well:  he said, “Vacation is about getting away – sabbatical is about coming back.”  As much as I’ve been able to share the fruits of my last sabbatical to Italy and my study week last fall in Istanbul, I can’t wait to share with you all there is to be experienced in Greece next summer.

So whether it is the experience of Second Church’s young people at places like the Heifer Farm; or whether it is the making of disciples at the font in the name of the Creator, Christ & Holy Spirit; or whether it is Paul spreading the gospel from Jerusalem to Athens to Rome to all the world; the missionary impulse is a powerful one, and continues to bear witness to the living God in all ages, times and places.