The Amazing Race - Paul in Athens
Today, Paul is in Athens. This is an absolutely amazing city. The Parthenon sits high up over the city, making
a rather steep climb to reach the top.
Temples and marketplaces are everywhere.
The city teams with life. And
Paul goes from place to place teaching the message about Jesus Christ.
Today’s passage begins by stating
that as Paul waits for Silas and Timothy to join him Athens, he is deeply
distressed to see how the city is full of idols. As a Jew, Paul has been raised with the
strict understanding that there is one God and there are to be no graven images
made of this God. This understanding
goes back to the Ten Commandments and is repeated over and over again.
Paul knows the reality of human
nature, he knows that his people have turned to other peoples’ gods, he knows
that even the Hebrew people worshipped the golden calves as Moses went up the
mountain to receive the Ten Commandments.
Idol worship is nothing new to him and yet he is greatly
distressed. Perhaps he sees that here,
in Athens, the cultural center of the Greek people, speaking about an invisible
God that does not want images to be made and then worshipped is going to be a
hard message to convey. Paul knows he
is once again up for a tough battle.
In many of the reality TV game
shows, there are competitions that the contestants participate in either to win
immunity, or a prize, or a certain position of power within the game. On the Biggest Looser they have many of these
competitions, the goal of the game is to see who can loose the most
weight. But every once in awhile,
instead of a competition, there is a temptation. One such temptation was the gym filled with
covered dinner plates. Some of the
plates had food, some had prize money, and some had bonus pounds lost to be
used at the weekly weigh in, a much coveted award.
Once a lid was taken off the dish,
the contestant either had to eat the food or won the prize. The contestants went crazy, eating their way
through the food to find the money and the bonus pounds lost. They did everything they had been working
against. They had been training for
weeks, eating healthy sensible meals, staying away from the sweets, and they
threw it all away to obtain the prize.
Temptation.
Worshipping false idols and gods in
world today is our temptation. They are
all around us. I remember in middle
school it was the Benetton sweaters, the Guess jeans, the Reebok tennis shoes,
the Ray-Ban sunglasses, and the CB jacket.
Fashion was the god to worship and if you didn’t worship the right one,
you were not part of the crowd. I saw in
high school it was the car that you drove or the car your parents owned. Anything that gave you prestige, such as
where you vacationed or the size of your house.
When I moved to Charlotte, NC for my first call in ministry, I learned
that being made-up was part of the culture there. I needed to wear more make-up and have my
nails done. This was not my style, but I
succumbed to the pressure and fell to the false idols imposed upon me.
What
idols would Paul see around us today?
What are our temptations? Our Celebrities
such as movie and rock stars are very much gods in today’s world. When Michael Jackson died people have made shrines throughout the US
for him. On a news caste - one person
stated, she was at the stadium for his funeral rather than at her grandfather’s
100th birthday party. Did
Michael Jackson really feed people’s soul?
Is his music really that powerful?
I was interviewing for a youth ministry position years ago, and during
the interview one parent shared with me that he and his wife had been invited
to the Kentucky Derby and missed their daughter’s ordination service as a youth
elder. What message does this send to
our families? Choosing celebrities or
events over family moments and gatherings.
Have we masked our true hunger for seeking a deeper purpose in life with
entertainment? We worship our sports, we
worship our celebrities, we worship our Tvs and our phones. What would Paul have to say to us?
As Paul spends time in Athens,
teaching in the synagogues and the marketplaces, he also spends time absorbing
the culture around him. He is trying to
learn about the people that he is bringing this message to. He does not just have a canned sermon that he
can use everywhere he travels. As
pastor’s we know that if we re-use a sermon from place to place, it may go over
very well in one church and not be well received at another. Each congregation has its own culture and a
pastor has to learn about the congregation in order to try and speak to
them.
When Paul preaches in the synagogues
he knows that those he speaks to are familiar with the Hebrew scriptures. He has a common base to build upon. But to the gentiles, the Greeks, Epicureans
and Stoics, they may or may not know anything about the Hebrew faith. He has to start at the beginning, give the
basics, and teach in a non-judgmental way.
And so he finds something within their culture that he can begin
connecting the beliefs he wants to share with those that his listeners already
have. They have an alter to an unknown
god. This, he claims, is the God to
which he speaks. He knows he is speaking
to an audience that seeks, whether they seek knowledge, or faith, or a
religion, or philosophy, they are a people that seek to know more. Both the Epicureans and the Stoics sought
ways to apply their beliefs to how they lived.
Paul is seeking to give them a belief system that they can also apply to
how they live. He shares that now is the
time that God is calling all people to repent.
In this case, he is shares that one thing that the people need to repent
of is worshipping God as if God is gold, or silver or stone or an image formed
by mortals.
Paul meets them where they are, he
speaks to them in a public place within their city. He uses one of their cultural connections to
begin a conversation, and then he shares the message of the one true God and
the call to repent from worship of false idols.
Theirs is a temptation they didn’t even know existed. Just like the people on the Biggest Looser,
who have lived their lives eating in an unhealthy way. Many of them do not even know what they are
doing to themselves until they get on the show and have a wake up call. On the show, the viewer can see how so many
of the contestants grow in self awareness as they overcome insecurities, hurts,
laziness, and just plain bad habits.
They become free of their burdens and renewed and energized. So many of us are just the same way. We are so use to our temptations we do not
even know they are there. I know mine is
watching too much TV. I really need to
cut back, I really need to just turn it off.
It takes self work, self-awareness, and disciplined time in God’s living
word to grow into the healthier person God has created us to be.
Paul meets the people where they
are. He goes out into the world rather
than waiting for the world to come to him.
At one of my interim churches in CT, the joke was: If we build it, they will come. They built this new church knowing that the
community was growing all around them.
And they waited, and they waited, and they waited, and the people did
not come. I am learning more and more
that in order to do ministry, in order to bring people into the church, we must
go out to where people are. Some
churches are started ministries in the local coffee shops. The Truck Stop ministry does their weekly
Bible Study at a diner. In Florida we
would meet with the youth at a local breakfast place, or in North Carolina I
would go to the sports fields. Ministry
did not happen in my office, I had to go out to where the youth were and let
them know that I was present, interested in their activities and hobbies.
As missional church, we look out
into the community to see where God is already at work. We are seeking to engage the upcoming Habitat
for Humanity Build, a place in our greater community where God is at work. What is the common language of today’s world,
and how might we learn to meet people where they are in order to share the good
news of God’s story to the world today?
Amen.
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