When in Athens--When in Vancouver(2012April29)

Sharing the Presence M6 (Acts 17:16-34) 04 29 2012 Speaker: Ken Shigematsu Title: When in Athens—When in Vancouver Text: Acts 17:16-34 BIG IDEA: When we share the presence with skeptics, we can point to the resurrection and to the evidence of God’s presence in the lives of our hearers. When I was an undergraduate student, someone who lived on the same dorm floor as I would ask me from time to time if I would have lunch with him. I did not know him well. He was just an acquaintance, but he would say every once in a while, “I have something important that I would like to discuss with you.” Finally, after some months we got together for lunch in the school cafeteria and I asked him, “So, what’s on your mind?” He said, “I know that you are a Christian and you really seem to believe. My sister is a Christian, but I don’t have faith. I don't believe. I wish I did, but I don’t. I have all kinds of doubt. I’d like to ask you why it is you believe.” When I was a student, when I was working in the corporate world and now as a pastor, once in a while someone who doesn't believe in God approaches me and asks me why is it that I believe. If you are a person who believes in God, really believes, once in a while this may happen to you. If you really believe in God and are not covert about your faith, chances are someone at school, or at work, a family member or friend will occasionally ask you in so many words why you believe. And even if we are not directly asked, if we are open about her faith, will share why it is that we believe. As we conclude our sermon series, Sharing the Presence, we are going to look at how the Apostle Paul engaged philosophers and skeptics with the gospel in Mars’ Hill in Athens who wanted to know why he believed. The Apostle Paul was one person who was very open about his faith in Christ. As a result, he was asked to give a reason for his belief. Today, we read a story about Paul engaging with philosophers and skeptics who wanted to know why he believed. If you have your Bibles, please turn to Acts 17: 16. In Athens 16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So he reasoned in the synagogue with both Jews and God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there. 18 A group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers began to debate with him. Some of them asked, “What is this babbler trying to say?” Others remarked, “He seems to be advocating foreign gods.” They said this because Paul was preaching the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. 19 Then they took him and brought him to a meeting of the Areopagus, where they said to him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we would like to know what they mean.” 21 (All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.) 22 Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. 23 For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of the very thing you worship—and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. 24 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 29 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by human design and skill. 30 In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31 For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.” 32 When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” 33 At that, Paul left the Council. 34 Some of the people became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. This is a rather dense passage. So let me begin by offering a roadmap us to forward and I go with it. First of all, we're going to look at how Athens is like Vancouver. Then were going to look at the two ways that Paul presents his faith in Athens. First, he talks about the resurrection of Christ. He offers what we might call historic, objective reason for his faith. Then he talks about how many of us have an intuitive sense of God or some greater power guiding our lives. He offers a more subjective reason for his faith. So to begin by talking about how Athens in Vancouver are alike. One early church fathers named Tertullian asked, “What hath Jerusalem to do with Athens?” I want to ask the question what has Vancouver to do with Athens? Show photographs of historic Athens (and keep up over the highlighted piece). Athens had been, of course, the city of the great philosophers, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicureas, and Zeno. And in some ways in Paul's day the glories of Athens was behind her, people still came from all over the world to visit Athens, to teach, to learn – and so like Vancouver it was an international city. We read in verse 16 that while Paul was in Athens, he was distressed to see that the city was full of idols. That was no overstatement. There were about 10,000 people who lived in Athens in Paul’s day, but there were about 30,000 statues of gods that lined the streets. Vancouver like Athens is a city of many idols – not idols in the way that we traditionally think about idols (statues made of gold, silver or bronze), but we have many idols. Kierkegaard defines idolatry as having something other than God at the centre of our existence. What do you think the idols of Vancouver are? For some it's recreation. People talk about living for the weekend. I have a friend who owned a condo at Whistler. A lot of weekends were spent skiing and snowboarding. There is nothing wrong with skiing or snowboarding, but this friend of mine sensed that recreation might be becoming a more important priority in the lives of some of his family members than worshiping God in community. So he sold his condo. For others it can be a relationship. Last Sunday at one of our services, Sara said “I wanted to get baptized [while ago], but I didn’t feel I was at peace with God. At that time, I hadn’t fully surrendered to God. I was in a relationship with someone who wasn’t following Christ. “ And what she was in effect saying was, a relationship at the time was more important in my life than God. God was important but this relationship was even more important. She broke up with her friend. An idol in Vancouver might be recreation, a relationship or something else. An idol is something we have at the centre of our existence, other than God. So like Athens, here in Vancouver we have idols. And as was true in Athens, in Vancouver we have people with a variety of different points of view. In Athens Paul engaged in conversations in the marketplace with the Epicureans. Epicureans believe that things happen by chance, that death is the end of our existence, that we should live for pleasure in the moment. There are those like the Stoics who believe that everything is God, that nature is God. The Epicureans were secular people who lived for pleasure. They believed that after you died and were buried in the ground like a carrot you became nothing. They did not believe in an afterlife. (Ken please bring 2 carrots as props) And in Vancouver though people do not call themselves Epicureans, there are many people who live for pleasure. There are many people who do not believe in life after death. They believe that when we die like a carrot we just rot in the ground. In Athens Paul also debated in the marketplace with the Stoics. The Stoics were pantheists, believed that basically everything was God – the dirt, the rock, the tree. I have a friend here in Vancouver who loves to mountain bike ride and says, “For me God is nature –God is the mountain, the woods, the ocean.” There are people in Vancouver who might not refer to themselves as pantheists, but the kind of technical philosophical term that most people don't use in everyday conversation, but believe, like my friend, that the world is God. Stoics also believed that whatever happened to them was predetermined. It was their destiny. As a result, they detach themselves from everything. If everything was predetermined by some impersonal force, why get attached to anything? And there are people in Vancouver who wouldn't describe themselves as Stoics, but believe in Karma and believe that things that happen to them in this life was determined by something that they did in a previous life. And so there are many similarities between Athens and Vancouver. And finally as was true for Paul in Athens, so in Vancouver there are those who oppose the message of the Christian faith. In vs. 18 we see people in Athens saying of Paul, “What is this babbler trying to say?” The word translated “babbler” originally meant a bird which picks up seeds, and it was used to describe birds picking up seeds. Over the time it came to mean “a person who peddled other people’s ideas without really understanding them, a chirping bird, who went around dropping the seeds of other people’s ideas.” And as in Athens so in Vancouver there will be some who oppose the message of Christian faith. But, even they resisted Paul’s message because it was something new to them, the philosophers of Athens wanted to hear more. So they took him to a meeting of scholars, which in Greek was known as the Areopagus and in Latin known as Mars’ Hill. The scholars asked, “What is this new, strange teaching that you are presenting? We would like to know what it means.” Paul begins in verse 22 as he stands up at Mars’ Hill and says, “People of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.” We know from verse 16 there was a part of Paul that experienced great distress over the fact that Athens was full of idols. I am sure there was a part of Paul that wanted to denounce their idolatry and point them to the truth, but he restrained himself and affirmed their common ground. As we engage in people who are skeptical about Christian faith and have some other kind of worldview, like Paul we do well to affirm our common ground wherever we can. When I was working for the Sony Corporation in Tokyo conversations, at work sometimes my Christian faith would come up and it wasn't at all uncommon for a Japanese businessman say, "I'm not religious.” And I would say ah, but you are. I see how hard you're working for the company, how devoted you are to you work, and that are you hoping to find some meaning in your work. And whatever you work really hard at, devote yourself to, hope to find meaning through that is your religion, that is your spirituality. Aristotle was right. Everyone seeks happiness. There are no exceptions. We’re all looking for happiness, some kind of meaning to our life, we’re all on spiritual search whether we use that language or not. And when we are engaging with people about our faith, we do well wherever possible to affirm our common ground. Whether people know it or not, they are searching for something spiritual, whether they believe in God or not, at some level everyone is searching for God. GK Chesterton once said, “Every man who knocks on the door of a brothel is really looking for God.” Paul does not just stop by speaking of common ground. He also challenges their points of view as he listens. How did he do this? Well, the people he is speaking to, the Epicureans and Stoics, do not believe in the resurrection. The Epicureans believe that once you're dead, your life is over, like a carrot that rots in the ground. And in vs. 18 and vs. 31 we see Paul speaking without shame about the resurrection. He's offering what we might call historic, objective evidence for his Christian faith. One of the ways that we can commend our faith in Vancouver is humbly point to historic evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Now, of course, many people in Vancouver think that the idea of someone rrising from the dead is ridiculous. But people in the world of the Apostle Paul were even more skeptical about the idea of the bodily resurrection. Today in Vancouver even if people don't believe in the resurrection of Christ, they've probably at least heard Easter and the belief that Christ rose from the dead. This idea of the resurrection at this point in history, likely less than 20 years after Jesus actually rose from the dead, was not nearly as widespread. And here in Athens, the Greeks would not have wanted to believe in a resurrection of the body. The Greeks though that the spirit was good, but our bodies were evil. To many Greeks “salvation” was seen as being liberated from the prison of our bodies. The Greeks didn't want to experience a resurrected body. They wanted to one day get rid of their bodies. There were, of course, also Jews in Athens. And the idea of Jesus resurrecting was unthinkable to Jews. As one of the most respected biblical scholars alive today, Tom Wright, points out in Jesus’ day while many Jews had come to hope that at the end of time there would be a bodily resurrection of the righteous when God renewed the entire world, they were certainly not anticipating a person rising from the dead in the middle of the history. For the Jewish person the idea of an individual being resurrected in the middle of history while the rest of the world continued on was simply inconceivable…crazy. Given that reality, it is not plausible to say that the first followers of Jesus would have invented this story that Jesus rose from the dead. In the first century there were many other messianic movements whose would-be messiahs were executed; however, as Tom Wright points out in not a single case do we ever hear the mention of disappointed followers claiming that their hero had been raised from the dead. It just wasn’t a category that they were thinking about. But after the death of Jesus his followers embraced the conviction which up to that point had been unthinkable, that Jesus Christ had actually risen from the dead. If the early Christians did invent the story of the empty tomb with the sightings of the risen Jesus, if it had just been a hoax, a kind of April Fool’s joke, would they have died for that known lie? Almost all of the original disciples of Jesus, with the exception of John, and almost all the early Christian leaders died for their belief that Jesus had risen from the dead. It is hard to believe that people would make this kind of self-sacrifice, support something that they knew was a hoax, a lie. Here’s something whether a person is believer or skeptic can’t deny: Something really powerful really happened in the world just outside of Jerusalem around the year 33 AD that changed the course of history. Author Andy Crouch has described the resurrection of Jesus like a cultural earthquake, its epicenter located in Jerusalem in the early 30s. He points out: One of the most dramatic cultural effects of the resurrection is the transformation of the heinous cultural artifact known as a cross, an instrument of domination and condemnation that comes as a symbol of the kingdom that Christ proclaimed: an alternate culture where grace and forgiveness are the last word. We don’t know the name of any person in the ancient world who was crucified. Many people were crucified in the first century, but we don’t know the names of any of them. But the most famous name in the world, the one that commands most loyalty and devotion, whom some one-third of the human race claims to follow, is the name of a person crucified in the first century. The most plausible explanation for that is the fact that he did rise from the dead at a time when no one was anticipating that. The evidence was so powerful that almost everyone at the time who knew him and believed in him died for that belief. If there is a God who created all the universe, who is the author and sustainer of life, then taking a dead body and bringing it back to life is not really that difficult! And Paul on Mars’ Hill is challenging the philosophers who do not believe that life is possible beyond the grave with the historical, more objective proof that God has given us by raising Christ from the dead. So Paul begins his presentation of the Christian faith with a proclamation of the resurrection. Then second, Paul turns to a more subjective, intuitive evidence for faith. In verse 23 he says, “For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. So you are ignorant of this very thing you worship and this is what I am going to proclaim to you. . 28 ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ Paul points out that in the famous city of Athens he found an altar to an unknown god. Apparently some people in Athens believed in what we might call “a higher power.” But these highly educated Athenians did not know who that god was. He points out in verses 24 and 25 that that God is the Creator who made the world and everything in it. Then in verses 26-27 he says: 26 From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. He points out to the people that they are not living in Athens as a result of some kind of cosmic accident, but God in his providence had arranged their lives so that they might seek him. So one of the evidences that Paul presents to the Athenians is the resurrection of Christ which is more historic, more what we might call objective evidence, based both on Scripture and historic sources outside of Scripture in the first century. The second argument that Paul puts forth is more subjective, more intuitive. He does not rely on Scripture but on people’s personal experiences and in their own sources and stories. In verse 28 we see that the Apostle Paul cites from their own philosophers, first in the phrase: “For in him we move and have our being,” he cites the Cretan poet Epimenides. In verse 28, when he says, “we are his offspring,” he is citing from the philosopher Aratus. And this might be another sermon altogether, but the message of the Gospel as was true in Athens, is embedded in messages of poet's, novelists, filmmakers of our day. As Robert McKee, the one who is considered the consummate screenwriting teacher, in his book Story points out in that in films there is almost always a crisis usually about twenty minutes in the movie--in Star Wars it's Wenlok when he comes home to find his aunt and uncle had been murdered by a imperial storm troopers; in Kramer versus Kramer it's when Dustin Hoffman is asked for a divorce. The climax of the film [ and of course I’m oversimplifying in the interest of time] is when there is a resolution to the crisis; for example,when the death Star is destroyed and new world of meaning is created in Star Wars, or when Dustin Hoffman is given back custody voluntarily by Meryl Streep's character. In these movies the storyline sounds familiar: things are normal, there is some catastrophe, there's a resolution of the catastrophe, and as a result and a new meaning in life. The gospel is not only embedded in the stories of our culture, but in the stories of our lives as well. One of the ways that we can point people to the reality of the Creator is by appealing to their favorite stories, and by appealing to their own story. I think of my friend Nathan. Over time and several conversations, he told me his story: Nathan shared that he had been a successful stock broker but found that the business world left his soul empty. As a teenager Nathan had been recognized as a gifted artist. He was admitted to one of Canada’s finest art schools but because of financial difficulties that his family faced, he pursued a business career. However, after he became successfully established in business, he decided to leave the business world and, quoting Joseph Campbell, to “follow my bliss.” He turned to Buddhist writings but sensed a yearning for something more, and then through a friend he was introduced to our church. I and a few of his Christian friends were able to show Nathan how his experience of business leaving him feeling empty, his pursuit of beauty through art, and his dabbling in Buddhism helped prepare him to open up to Jesus. I met with a friend a few months ago whose faith in God really began with a sense as he looked back over his life there was some kind of force, some kind of power that at certain points had guided him. It seemed less plausible that his life was a cosmic accident than to believe there was some mysterious being that was directing his life. Some of us, as we look back over our life, are living in a kind of movie where there is some unseen, a movie director, orchestrating the events and we intuit that there is some higher being guiding us. Steve Jobs, not a believer in God, during a commencement speech at Stanford said as he reflected back over his life after having been diagnosed with cancer said, “You can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something.” Part of the way we can engage people is by listening to their favorite stories and their personal stories and seeking to point out places where they can connect the dots and show them how their unknown God has been guiding them to himself. “We are not congealed stardust, an accidental byproduct of cosmic chemistry. We are not just something. We are someone.” George Weigel Our great privilege and call as people who know the unknown God is to formally and gently tell people that we know the God they have been knowingly or unknowingly looking for their whole lives. There's nothing arrogant about that. Last year around this time, while running down some uneven stone stairs at False Creek, I rolled my ankle and torn my ligaments. I had to switch from running to biking. I didn't know much about bikes. I was searching for a bike. A friend of mine, an avid biker, said I'd been researching bikes for a long time. I know the bike for you. There's nothing arrogant about that. So Paul, in his address to the Athenians on Mars’ Hill, speaks of both the resurrection and also the intuitive experiences of the Athenians themselves. He uses both what we might call more historical objective proof, and what we might call more subjective, intuitive proof too. And when people around us are searching, everyone is searching knowingly or unknowingly, and we who know God, say to them at the right time and through the guidance of the Holy Spirit, “I know that God you're looking for,” gently pointing them to the God they're looking for. There's nothing arrogant about that, or offering them a great gift. As someone has put it was simply one beggar, telling another beggar where we found bread. As we see in verses 30-31, Paul called them to repent, which means “turn to God.” Paul is calling them to make the Living God, and nothing else, the centre of their lives. What happened? According to verses 32-34, when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered. Others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” And a few of them believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, and a woman named Damaris. So, as a result of Paul sharing the presence, some people mocked him, others wanted to think about it further, and a few believed. As we share the presence, sometimes people will mock our ideas, probably not in an overt way in Canada. We are too polite for that, but they may raise an eyebrow. Others may want to think about it. And some may believe. Back to the scene from my lunch appointment with a fellow student in the dorm. At lunch he said, “You really seem to believe in God. Why is it that you believe?” I wasn’t conscious of Acts 17 in that moment, but here is a brief summary of what I said over that lunch that lasted probably an hour: “I believe for two reasons. I believe because of the historic evidence that Jesus Christ actually rose from the dead. (I outlined some of it.) Then there is a second reason and it is more subjective. It is that Jesus Christ has changed my life from the inside out. As I look back over my life, I believe the hand of a personal God has been guiding it. Here are some stories that persuade me.” At the end of our lunch he responded. Unlike the first category, the people at Athens, he did not mock me. He said, “That is interesting. I will have to think about that more.” In that moment he did not repent and commit his life to Christ. Probably in most cases as we share the presence, people are not going to fall on their knees and immediately receive Christ. Sure, there are exceptions but it usually takes months, if not years, or maybe a life time for a person to make a commitment. As I listen to the stories of people’s spiritual journey, it is usually the case that through a variety of different experiences and relationships, and hearing the message about Jesus many times, that their hearts are finally opened. It takes time. Our calling is to sow the seed, water it, and trust God will reap harvest in due course. Like Paul, when we are open about our faith, we will find that others will ask us questions – that we’ll have opportunities to give reasons for our belief in Christ. In Paul’s case, though some sneered, others believed. As we share our faith and give others reasons for our own belief in Christ, we can trust that some will believe…that God will use our efforts to bring others to him. There is no greater privilege than to be involved in the work of proclaiming the message of Jesus Christ. Like Paul, whether it is in the church, as a few of us are called to do, or in our families, relationships, schools and in the marketplace as all of us are called, it is the one work that enables us to receive the gift of eternal in this life and in the age to come. It’s one gift that will help make sense of their story of the Story. Pray. Receive this Christ? If you know, share this with. Pray for that person.