God's Gift: Power to Live, to Move, and to Be who We are!

The Areopagus, or Mars Hill, is a bare marble hill next to the Acropolis in Athens, Greece. Taking the name of this hill where they first began meeting, the earliest aristocratic legislative council of ancient Athens took the name "Areopagus."  The council kept this name as it changed locations to the marketplace and as its purpose evolved.  "Members of the Areopagus individually and the institution generally were held in high regard and considered to be worthy of respect."  (http://www.stoa.org: “The Council of the Areopagus” © Christopher W. Blackwell, January 26, 2003)

One day the Apostle Paul arrived at the Areopagus.  By the personality he reveals to us in his writings, Paul seems by nature to be a man who is “all in” to whatever or whoever it is that he believes in.  He can be quite hard and confrontational with people.  Although he is distressed by the rampant “idolatry” in Athens, he does not chastise anyone when he arrives at the Areopagus.  Instead, he meets these people where they are.  He recognizes something in their religious fervor and finds an opening to teach them about God the Creator of all.  This is not really surprising for, just as Jesus did, Paul saved his harsh critiques for believers.  This is especially true with jealous and powerful leaders in the Hebrew religious hierarchy that Jesus and Paul, each in their own way, seemed to be at odds with.  

These powerful Greek intellectuals of the Areopagus are so philosophical and "religious" that, among all of the gods and idols they have built, stands a shrine (idol) to worship a god they don’t even know.  Is that one of those fearful “just to be on the safe side” acts?   Maybe, but I think more likely this is their way of telling the world that they are perpetual “seekers.”   So, always and ultimately, is Paul!    The prophet Jeremiah once said, speaking for God, “I will let you find me if you seek me with your whole heart.”  (29:14)   Paul, a whole-hearted seeker is confident that those who are truly seeking God will find God, just as he did.   Maybe. 

I invite you to spend a few moments nurturing your seeking heart with the God of Unknowing as you read and pray and listen and celebrate God’s Presence through the Word.   Breathe and settle into a place of openness within yourself with a simple breath prayer.  Use this one or create your own (six to eight syllables is optimal for breath prayer but you can use more with deeper breathing :)

Breathing in ... Life-Giving God

Breathing out ... Let me breathe in your Presence

and when you are ready to move deeper into the text ... Pray:  As I breathe in your Presence, reveal yourself to me through my prayerful reading.  Amen. 

Read Act 17:22-31 from the Contemporary English Version (CEV) slowly.   Immerse yourself in the vivid images as you engage in Lectio Divina, or Praying with Scripture.  Allow yourself to be drawn deeply into God’s Presence as you read and pray and listen.

So Paul stood up in front of the council and said:  People of Athens, I see that you are very religious. As I was going through your city and looking at the things you worship, I found an altar with the words, “To an Unknown God.” You worship this God, but you don’t really know him. So I want to tell you about him. This God made the world and everything in it. He is Lord of heaven and earth, and he doesn’t live in temples built by human hands. He doesn’t need help from anyone. He gives life, breath, and everything else to all people.  From one person God made all nations who live on earth, and he decided when and where every nation would be.  God has done all this, so that we will look for him and reach out and find him. He isn’t far from any of us, and he gives us the power to live, to move, and to be who we are. “We are his children,” just as some of your poets have said.  Since we are God’s children, we must not think that he is like an idol made out of gold or silver or stone. He isn’t like anything that humans have thought up and made.  In the past, God forgave all this because people did not know what they were doing. But now he says that everyone everywhere must turn to him. He has set a day when he will judge the world’s people with fairness. And he has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death.

Read this passage again slowly and Reflect on just a word or phrase … or an image that emerges to draw your attention.   Sit with your selection and listen to the whispers of the God you know ... Listen!  Turn your word or phrase or image over and over in your mind.  Let God speak into your heart.

Where is God, the Creator of heaven and earth, speaking into your life through this passage?

Read the passage again slowly and Respond to God.   Once again turn your attention to your word or phrase or image.  Know that it is ok if you are being drawn in a different direction on this reading!

As you contemplate your word or phrase or image, how are you being called to respond to God?   In word … prayer … action … or some other way? 

Read the passage again and Rest.  Allow God to draw you deeper into the Presence of the within whom you live and move and into the relationship of love that God who gives you the power to be who you are.  Let all the words fade away ... until you are moved to take up a journal and write about your meditation or perhaps to take a walk and drink in the majesty of God’s creation ...

Pray: Once you were unknown to me but you made your presence known in my life in so many ways, especially as I gaze upon the beauty of the nature you have created.  Now I seek to be in your presence as my way of being in the world.  Lead me, guide me, and let me always offer to share your loving presence with all.  Amen.

The Witness of Paul: Seeking God

A panoramic view of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece taken from the Areopagus, also called Mars Hill.  Photo taken by Ggia and used by permission under a creative commons license [CC-BY-SA-3.0] via wikimedia commons

  

Acts 17:22-31    Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, 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.” What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 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, 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. 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.”  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. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 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.’ 

Setting the Scene:  Last week we read the story of Stephen who was stoned to death because he gave a strong and courageous witness about Christ.  Take this link and a moment to read Acts 7:55-60.  See the young man named Saul at whose feet the men who stoned Stephen laid their coats.  In the next verse, Acts 8:1a, we read, “And Saul approved of their killing him.”   The next few verses, Acts 8:1b-3 read, “That day a severe persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the countryside of Judea and Samaria.   Devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him.   But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison.”   See how this one act served to “scatter” the community of Christ-followers, spread Christianity, and made the world our mission field. 

That passionate and brutal young man Saul is the apostle Paul that we read about in our passage for study.  Take a moment to simply breathe and try to get a deep sense of just how far God has brought Paul so that he can stand to give a strong and courageous witness about Christ ... like Stephen did.    Scripture does not record the actual occasion or tell us the reason that Saul came to be known by the name Paul.  Acts 13:9 simply says, “But Saul, also known as Paul …” and it may be as simple as one side of the “family” calls him Saul of Tarsus and the other side of the “family” calls him the Apostle Paul.  However, we know that throughout biblical history a name change (Abram>Abraham, Jacob>Israel, Simon>Peter to name just a few) denotes a core spiritual change within a person.   Saul of Tarsus was actually knocked from his horse, blinded, and “visited” by Jesus.  Acts 9:4-6 reads, “[Saul] fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’  He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.  But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’”    His inner change began in that moment and it was quite a journey from that moment to this one.

Yes, Paul has walked a long way to come to this moment, traveling many miles and entering new places to spread the Gospel.  Paul normally entered a new community via the synagogue and yet because of his history, he was not always welcome, for in the minds of the Jewish people he was a traitor to God, to them, and to himself.   At the same time, the fledgling Christians were also afraid of him because he had once sought and obtained permission from the high priest to kill them.   A man named Barnabas was not afraid, and he became Paul’s closest companion.  They traveled great distances together spreading the Gospel.  One day they had a falling out over a young follower named John Mark and parted ways.  Paul took Silas and continued on.  Soon after an episode in prison, Paul was sent ahead to Athens where he became distressed over the abundance of idols so in Acts 17:17-18 we read, “he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the market-place every day with those who happened to be there. Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him.”    Finally, Paul was taken by some of these men to the Court of the Areopagus in order to explain his new teachings.  Everett Ferguson, in his book called Backgrounds of Early Christianity, says that “during the first century, [the Areopagus] appears to have regulated educational and religious affairs.”  (42)  Some believed.  Some didn’t …

Making Connections:   Have you ever had a conversation with someone from a different religious background?  If so, what was your experience talking about God with someone who didn’t believe as you did?  If not, how comfortable would you be talking about your own religion using concepts from another religion?

Going Deeper:  In 1 Corinthians 9:22b-23, Paul said “I have become all things to all people, so that I might by any means save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, so that I may share in its blessings.”    Paul seems by nature to be a man who is “all in” to whatever or whoever it is that he believes in.   The Paul I meet in Scripture doesn’t just follow the drama, he creates the drama ... in many ways he is the drama!   And yet, here in this passage, I meet a man I like a lot. Although he is distressed by the rampant “idolatry” in Athens, he does not chastise anyone.  Instead, he meets the people where they are.  He recognizes something in their religious fervor and finds an opening to teach them about God in Christ.  

These Greek intellectuals are so religious that among all of the idols they have built stands a shrine (idol) to worship a God they don’t even know.  Is that one of those fearful “just to be on the safe side” acts?   Maybe, but I think more likely this is their way of telling the world that they are perpetual “seekers.”   So, always and ultimately, is Paul!    The prophet Jeremiah once said, speaking for God, “I will let you find me if you seek me with your whole heart.”  (29:14)   Paul, a whole-hearted seeker is confident that those who are truly seeking God will find God, just as he did.  

Pondering:  John Wesley, the father of Methodism, said, “I look upon all the world as my parish; thus far I mean, that, in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation.”    As I consider this quote, I hear echoes of Paul’s sense of passion for evangelism, which simply means “sharing the Good News with others.”     

• When you hear the word “evangelism” what comes to your mind?  
• Have you shared your “Good News” lately?

Gene Mauch, a professional baseball player and manager said, “You can't lead anyone else further than you have gone yourself.”   I have heard this said in many different ways by many different people.    It reminds me of Paul’s relentless search for God which gives him an uncanny ability to challenge others to grow in their relationship to God.  

• How would you describe your spiritual journey to a seeker?
• How might you invite others to share their journey with you?

A.B. Simpson, a Presbyterian minister and the founder of Christian and Missionary Alliance, said “As long as you want anything very much, especially more than you want God, it is an idol.”  This is the essence of Paul’s distress in Acts 17.

• What are the “idols” in your life that you are tempted to want more than God?
• How do you resist these temptations, smash those idols and turn toward God?

St Augustine of Hippo said, "You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."   As I consider this quote, I remember Paul’s openness to the religion of others as he appealed to a Greek poet who said, “In [God] we live and move and have our being” which ultimately is the the power and presence of the Spirit in our lives.    

• Has your heart ever been “restless” for God? 
• How did you find rest for your restless soul?  

Praying:  Take a deep, deep breath and invite the Spirit of God into your heart and mind as you let this prayer of St. Augustine of Hippo (AD 354-430) become your daily Prayer of Eastertide

Breathe in me O Holy Spirit that my thoughts may all be holy;
Act in me O Holy Spirit that my works, too, may be holy;
Draw my heart O Holy Spirit that I love but what is holy;
Strengthen me O Holy Spirit to defend what is holy;
Guard me then O Holy Spirit that I always may be holy.  Amen.