While
traveling we stayed in a bed and breakfast owned by a couple, one of whom was “spiritual”
by his own statement. Having grown up
Roman Catholic to a degree and finding a lack of acceptance for his values he
drifted. Now in a later chapter he has been
on a pilgrimage to work on his spiritual understanding and practice. Like so many alienated from the Church, he
has discovered the meditation practice of the Eastern religions helpful. It took me awhile to come out as an Episcopal
priest. Yet once that was on the table we assumed a relationship of mutual
respect and our conversation deepened.
Tom
Bandy, the author of many books on evangelizing in our current postmodern
culture, talks about two possible approaches we can take: "adversarial to
culture or conversational with culture."
I took the later tact, to me the only tact. By hearing another’s journey one can discover the
overlap and respect the journey of the other.
One can name the similarities and explore the depths. In time one can
discover where one’s own faith may invite a deeper place to share spiritual and
faith learnings and receive them.
St
Paul takes that tact in Acts today. He
is troubled by the idols he sees everywhere in the streets and markets of Athens
as he waits for Silas and Timothy. He
built some relationships with the philosophers who asked him to make a
presentation at the Areopagus one day. It's interesting to note that in spite
of his disgust at the idolatry of the city, he begins positively and free of
even a hint of insult:
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. Acts 17:22-23
He
finds a springboard of connection and touches on an incompleteness in local
theology and thus practice. He goes on.
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." Acts 17:24-28
What
I respect deeply here is the search for commonality. All are granted life, all are at home in some
national identity, all search for God, and God is found close at hand, in the
heart, the hunger. He does hint at a divergence;
God is not in shrines or needful, subject to us. Rather, "In him we live and move and have our being."
Paul
has quoted some philosophy of his day, blended it so as to affirm the human
search for solid ground and practice.
He stays engaged with his audience including those who find truth in
current philosophy. He does lose some of
his hearers but he also retains some as he gets more particular about the
meaning of Christ’s coming and life and death.
When they heard of
the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, "We will hear
you again about this" (v. 32).
This
is a cost of holding a particular faith.
Some can imagine and be open to the revelation of God in Christ. Some cannot.
Yet insulting where they are, what they hold as true, does nothing to
include them. Paul it is clear took them
up on hearing him again. For him the
notion of God’s full coming to us in Jesus, forgiving us our errors, holding
out to us the way to know God and be changed into a deeper person, a likeness
to God we were designed to know and follow, was not incidental. It was essential to our full health and solid
life. Yet it is the work of the Holy
Spirit to open us. The effort of a “witness”
is to be useful from a base of genuine care and openness to another
traveler. Too often this has degraded
into the insult of pointing out another’s errors (as opposed to differences) in
the place of care for commonality as seekers who can notice bridges to what has
so far been revealed to them.
Paul
does have success. The seed has found
some soil which can live and root into Christ.
But some of them
joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman
named Damaris, and others with them" (v. 34).
Often
it has been remarked that Paul wasn't very successful with the philosophers of
Athens. But we have at least two people here who were led by the Spirit of God
to believe, Dionysius and Damaris. The former was probably a philosopher since
his association with the site of Paul's talk is mentioned with his name, and
the latter is likely a woman like Lydia, who was the first convert in Europe at
the banks of the river near Philippi. Who
knows how many other people were later influenced by those who were first
influenced by Paul. The narrative does say "others with them." We
never know how many people will become believers indirectly through the one
person that God used us to reach.
When
we left the Bed and Breakfast we were on friendly terms with our hosts. We shared two breakfasts and they had us to
dinner as well. The common places of our lives touched each other. We invited them to visit us should they come
our way. Perhaps they will or perhaps
they won’t. Perhaps I was useful to the
Spirit as John seeks God in ever deeper ways.
He was helpful to me in that I was reminded there are always seekers
after a God who can be known. My own
journey can be an aid to their full discovery.
All our discoveries of God in Christ can be useful to the Spirit’s
deeper work.
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