Exploring Culture
Sermon Notes 14th May 2023
Bruce Fleming
Acts 17:22-31
This passage in Acts is often falsely presented as a badge of academic honour for Paul; “Look how he was invited to present to the Areopagus, the court of philosophers of Athens, the centre of Reasoners and Thinkers in the Ancient world. Paul has earned his place with Socrates and Plato.” That may have been the case in 400 BCE, but not now. Greece is now simply a part of the massive Roman Empire and the Areopagus court is now simply a civil court addressing concerns of a civic nature. Paul has been invited to present his agenda in order to vet him. This was not a 1st century equivalent of a TED talk to inspire inquisitive minds. It was a case of his reputation preceding him - a reputation for causing division, conflict and chaos. Even in Athens you can’t just pull out an accordion and start playing - you need a buskers license! Modern Universities have a similarly cautious approach to public lectures on their campuses lest they be accused of entertaining “hate speech” or inciting violence. “Cancel culture” was alive and kicking back in Athens but Paul succeeded in allaying any fears they may have had that his message represented a politically motivated attack on their guardian and patron, the Roman Empire.
He opens with what he hopes might establish some common ground between his message and this pagan jury. As he gazed at the temples and shrines around him, he saw a universal human quest for meaning and their acknowledgement of mystery in an alter to “an unknown God.” He hadn’t come not to insult their culture but to share the great revelation of hope - something new had entered human history in Jesus Christ representing and responding to our ultimate needs and aspirations. But it also judges our flawed belief systems, what the Jews called idolatry - allowing a thing that is not ultimate to have a claim over your life as if it was. Like your Facebook profile, job status, military power, income, or a fashionable cultural ideology. There is much we can learn about the Gospel and culture from this short account of where Paul places his focus.
We are often keen to prove our culture WRONG, and so move to the important task of getting them to repent, and thus become RIGHT, what we often call being SAVED. Paul shows us a more nuanced approach. If you want to persuade people about where they may be wrong, or perhaps are in need of some clarity or a new perspective, sometimes it helps to show them where they are RIGHT. A positive approach to engaging the culture is to understand it, to read some of their “contemporary poets” and to hear what they truly value and aspire to. We may discover we share some common ground with our agnostic and atheistic artists and thinkers. Like Paul, we can assert some of the things we believe by saying, “as some of your poets have said…” Paul did not begin by quoting the Bible in Athens! He only began by opening the scriptures when he was addressing a Jewish audience who shared his belief that the Old Testament texts were authoritative. A good start for Christians might be to stop quoting the Bible at non-Christians as if that wins the argument.
So Paul did not begin with, “I hate your idols because they are an offence to the one true God and you are clearly breaking the first two Commandments.” Instead, he opened with, “I see you are a very religious people.” Such tolerance is astonishing coming from an orthodox Jew who absolutely abhorred idolatry. Then he seized on the place of confessed mystery - their alter to an “unknown God,” though that may just have been a concession for international visitors and tourists. They couldn’t cover every nation’s God in their temple precinct so they provide a place where those who don’t worship Aphrodite or Apollo may worship. But it is an opportunity for Paul to shed light on a “different” kind of God.
Before he says more, he says something I think Christians zealous to spread the gospel, have largely ignored. Paul acknowledges God’s gift of life (breath) and space to every human and every culture in history to both thrive and to seek him. God welcomes the spiritual search of every culture our world history has known so we must not disparage our Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi, or indigenous fellow travellers in their quests. God is glad that in seeking some may find him. Jesus said something similar - the one who genuinely knocks will find the door opens. For, as Paul proclaims, God is not far from any one of us. Carried within each precious human soul is God’s breath and Paul’s first quote from the Greek Religious thinkers acknowledges that; “For in him we live and move and have our being.” That was written by Epimenides, a philosopher of the 6th Century BCE and it was spoken of the Greek God, Zeus, not Yahweh. The original context is quite amusing.
The Cretans had apparently, sometime past, built a tomb to Zeus. A tomb! In the famous book, Greek Religion for Dummies, it explains on page one that a God is immortal. Gods don’t die. So to build a tomb to Zeus is actually an insult, if not blasphemy. But certainly, very stupid. (Hence the term “cretin” today for someone really stupid!)
They fashioned a tomb for you, holy and high one,
Cretans, always liars, evil beasts, idle bellies.
But you are not dead: you live and abide forever,
For in you we live and move and have our being.
Paul is affirming where Greek pagan theology gets it right. Then he commends their poems in which a personal relationship with Zeus is acknowledged by referring to humans as “his offspring.” Aratus of Cilicia (Stoic, 4th - 3rdC) wrote,
All the streets and all the market places
of humanity are full of Zeus.
Also full of him are the sea and the harbours,
and everywhere we all have need of Zeus.
For we are also his offspring.
And Cleanthes (Stoic, 4th - 3rd C), wrote,
The beginning of the world was from you,
and with law you rule over all things.
To you all flesh may speak,
for we are your offspring.
Therefore, I will lift a hymn to you and will sing of your power.
That last verse could have been written by Hillsong, but it is about Zeus. Only after respecting their temples, their literature, their search for truth, their believing, and their doubting, does Paul introduce them to Christ - a new word of hope from God - of power and new life available to all. But this God transcends the human echo chambers of our idols - our own contrived statues and dogmas - that rule us and that we use to rule others. From these dead ends we need to repent.
Paul shows the flaw in their system. If your insights are correct, and God is Creator and sustainer of life, and we are his offspring, then we are made in Zeus’s image! But your system has it backwards. You are the creators and have made the gods in your own image, reflecting your appetites, your value system (silver and gold), and even your bodies! And that is a great definition of idolatry - worshipping, binding ourselves to, or being ruled by something we ourselves have created. Even worse, we often use these constructs to lord it over others.
And is that not the history of most religion, philosophy, cultural fashion, ideology, politics, and even theology throughout history? Humans build conceptual edifices of meaning and power and worship it, submit to it, enslaving themselves to it, yet also wielding them to colonise and control others. Christ beckons us to leave these systems of enslavement that, more often than not result, in abuse, exploitation, corruption and misery, and trust the true God who is the source of life and breath itself. The true source of all breath and life desires to embrace, love, free, heal, and exalt every human to a pedestal of glory. Jesus represents resurrection transformation and hope for all. Our human systems that degrade, control or delude each other are revealed as religious imposters. This is what Paul wants the Athenians to repent of and we need to repent of them in our own culture and churches as well. As we find the stories and aspirations within our own culture for truth and beauty, peace and grace, we can harness those voices and add them to our own witness to Christ.