Text: Acts 17:22-31

I had this whole section that didn't make it into the final sermon about how every cultural has certain shared assumptions. One of the shared assumptions in classical Greek cultural was that the body and "soul" were fundamentally different, that the body dies and doesn't matter much. The message of resurrection was offensive because it is based on the testimony of the Hebrew Scriptures (our "old" testament) that God created human kind as bodies and souls together. Ressuerction is a very bodliy thing. If Paul was proclaiming something like "our souls go on forever" everyone would have agreed and that would be that.

For God, bodies matter.

Enjoy...

Steve

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The problem with modernity

Here is the truth. I was brought up in the faith and formed as a pastor in a world that has gone away. Many of you were brought up in that world, too.

Back then normal people went to church. Everyone went to church.

When you met a new person it was a meaningful question to ask what church they attended.

Now the fastest growing religious identification is “none” which means “don’t put me on your list. None of your categories matter to me.”

Times have changed. That world has gone away or going away fast. The tasks of welcoming new members use to be helping Methodists become a Lutheran. Now it is helping a pagan become a Christian.

People INSIDE the church bubble don’t always see it because most of our world in inside that bubble.

The point - We live in an age of mission much more like that of Paul then that of 50 years ago.

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Paul visits Athens, the seat of classical culture and learning. The biggest questions ever asked where being asked at the place and time. What is the nature of reality? What is the purpose of life? What are the gods?

Paul is teaching among the Jews – inside the bubble of his cultural and shared common values. But word of a new teacher gets around and Paul is asked to explain. In Agora – in the market place - Paul explained the gospel in one the most perfectly crafted classical speech in all of scripture.

Paul begins by complimenting them. “Athenians” he began, “I see how extremely religious you are in every way.” The Athenians were very religious, searching for something deeper or more meaningful then their lives. And the result of that search is the legacy of classical Greek philosophy and science.

Paul doesn’t start with the Hebrew Scripture, because his hearers don’t know them. They are Greeks, not Hebrews. Paul starts with things he has in common with them. He reminds them of the order and beauty of the universe, the round of seasons in the course of the year, telling them that nature is surely a testimony to a greater, higher power, that “in him we live and more and have our being.”

Then Paul comes to his point and his point is simple. The core message of the Gospel is very simple.

“The one whom you seek for – even grope in the dark for – has been found. The search is over. His name is Jesus. He has been raised from the dead. One day he shall one judge the world.”

Note what happens next

His cultured, sophisticated Greek audience is with Paul as he speaks of the beauty and order of nature, the turn of the seasons.

But when he speaks of Jesus, a crucified Jew, risen from the dead, who will come to judge the world, they thrown up their hands, laugh and mock, and Paul’s great speech comes an abrupt end.

But don’t be too hard on the Athenians. After all, Paul spoke of something they cannot comprehend.

They probably liked to think of themselves as intellectual, open-minded people. But they are not. Like people of all times and place, they think on the basis of previous experience, on the basis of what they already know, judging on the basis of what is known and accepted.

And that works well for most things. These Greeks know about the passage of the seasons, the beauty of a snowflake, but what do they know of resurrection? That is the sort of knowledge does not come from experience. It only comes as a gift.

In our age of mission we like to think of ourselves as completely able to think about anything, to get our heads around everything.

The truth is that we live in a world that is limited to what we know, what we have experienced.

In our world what lives dies. What can we know about the resurrection?

Christians are people who live in a wider reality beyond our senses and our thinking and our flat day-to-day, this equals that and can mean nothing else ways of thinking. What we have to say to the world goes way beyond common sense and worldly wisdom.

We proclaim Jesus, the crucified Jew, risen from the dead. Jesus, who will some day judge the world.

No wonder the world scoffs. The thought that life is stronger than death, that we shall be held accountable to a standard of judgment beyond our own standards is our message.

No wonder the world mocks, shakes its head, and walks away.

Yet some believe. Not a majority, not nine out of ten perhaps, but some. And Acts 17 says that it has always been so.

A better promise

There are times in human history when the common shared answers and assumptions that have held societies together for a very long time begin to break down. These are times of great turmoil, seeking and questioning. Jesus, Paul and the NT Church lived in such a time. We live in such a time.

In such a time multiple new questions arise and with them new answers emerges, each offering the promise to a deeper, richer, more meaningful life.

What Paul said on that day in Athens 2000 years ago is the same messages we have to say in are day.

In Jesus there is the Better Promise – the best promise of all.

Not some spiritualized life after death. Not some spiritual system or self-help manual. No.