The Sixth Sunday of Easter, 17 May 2020 - churches closed
'Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus...'
The Areopagus. With a name like we’d give to a glitzy shopping precinct, or a multiplex cinema, or a shiny new sports stadium, in ancient Athens and named after the god Ares, The Areopagus was where influential people exercised their power, their judgments and policy decisions directed by their many different gods. Among them, besides Ares, there was Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty; Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest who gave feast or famine according to her mood; Thanatos, the frightening God of Death; and Zeus, father of all people, leader of the gods.
Paul had noticed that there was a god for every occasion in Athens, and the streets were full of altars to all of them. And he noticed something striking about one of these altars. It didn't have a name on it, no Zeus, no Athena, no Medusa. Just a simple plaque which read, 'To an unknown god.' It fascinated Paul that with so many gods to help shape their lives, the people had a sense that there was still another god who they didn't know and couldn't see, but who might just be there, watching and waiting for their worship.
I think we’re just like the ancient Greeks. We fill our villages, towns and cities with altars to all sorts of gods, but there's a still small voice in our ears whispering that there's an unknown god around.
For…. today we have the god Asda, a giant who straddles the earth providing all the food and drink we could ever need and whose priests are dressed in bright lime-coloured robes;
- today we have the god Bupa, who promises to attend to all our health needs at speed, though at great cost;
- today we have the god Lotto, who promises us the earth but disburses his gifts sparingly;
- and today we have the god Zoom, who labours to bring into our rooms the pixelated faces and cracked voices of our loved ones or colleagues far away.
We smile at this mention of these gods, because we know they don't truly serve or satisfy us. And I think the ancient Greeks would have smiled at their gods just the same, knowing their flaws. Paul said they were 'like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals.'
Paul gave the people of Athens a name for their unknown god: the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God who made the world and everything in it; the Lord of heaven and earth who gives life and breath to all people and all things, in whom we live and move and have our being; the God who calls all people everywhere to turn around, to turn our faces towards this One who he has appointed to judge the world in righteousness, this man who he has raised from the dead.
This God, said Paul, transcends Ares and Aphrodite, Demeter and Zeus. And for us, this God is the one by comparison to whom Bupa and Lotto, Nike and Asda, Barclays and Goldman Sachs, Ant and Dec, Google and Zoom, simply fade.
For we know that despite all the blessings these gods bestow on us, they’re incapable of satisfying our deep-down, aching, human needs; their agendas lead to conflict and distress. We know that despite living in one of the wealthiest, most comfortable societies the world has ever known, the pursuit of these gods of wealth and comfort brings with it poverty, discomfort, and unease.
You will have have noticed how the coronavirus crisis has revealed the deep inadequacies of our way of living, shown how our allegiance to the gods of our age has created a world of sharp inequalities, whereby those we applaud as our most essential workers are the least well-rewarded, many of them living precariously; a world of stark dislocation between humans and nature; an overheating planet; a competitive culture of high anxiety, loathing, self-loathing and depression.
Paul told the Athenians that the unknown God is very different; that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ isn't concerned to titillate or pamper us or make us affluent. This is the God who sets things in their proper place; helping us to live in righteousness, in right relationships, in this world.
It is very good news, to many, to discover there is a way out of the vicious circle in which the gods of this world function: that cycle of thrills and disappointment, plenty and loss which functions like an addiction to diminish and destroy us. This other way involves walking with Jesus, following his commandments to live in a state of love with God, the earth, and all people. He even promises us the Spirit of truth, to be with us for ever, to give us the help we need to turn our lives around to live in this way.
With the Spirit of truth in us we can keep God's commandments to love him and love others, as we love ourselves. For the Spirit of truth helps us face the truth, about ourselves and about the world; the Spirit of truth helps us let go of the hold the other gods have over us, and learn to live outwardly, to give generously, to love openly towards God, the creation, and others.
At the Areopagus Paul told the Greeks that in every generation people 'would search for God’ - ‘though they might perhaps grope their way towards him to find him’ [2] - ‘for indeed he is not far from each one of us.' So let us ask - Jesus, give us the Holy Spirit to help us in that search.
Notes
[1] This is a rewrite of my earlier talk, Gods of yesterday and today, preached in Liverpool, 2005.
[2] Acts 17.27 in David Bentley Hart, The New Testament: A Translation. All other quotations are as usual from the New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised.
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