Have you ever gone on holiday or vacation to see a place that is unfamiliar to you? Perhaps you take a tour and the guide knows the language and all the history, nook and crannies of place you are visiting. It is a trip to collect information, to observe the people customs and influences of their lives. You tour these places and work hard at not messing up anything, the environment, the people and the attitudes of the destination. You depart without leaving anything behind, except perhaps your money. That’s what I tried to do this summer, when I along with a group from our church went on a “Reformation Tour”. I wanted to see everything, collecting information and experiencing the rich history around me while not leaving behind anything – except of course money. Imagine yourself in Geneva, the ‘Rome’ of Protestant faith in the time of the 16th century. Sunday morning we arrive at the Church of Scotland, which meets in Calvin’s Auditorium, called the John Knox Chapel, and are greeted by elders and friends of our own members Lyn and Malcolm Lloyd-Smith who had set up a royal greeting for us. We were invited to enjoy both the service and the fellowship upstairs after the service. The service was wonderful with an excellent sermon given by a fine pastor with a great Scot’s brogue. It was also communion Sunday and together we broke bread and shared the cup, literally we shared the cup. Those brave Scot’s don’t do intinction or provide individual thumbnail size cups, no we each drank the wine from a common cup symbolic of the common faith we have in Jesus. We saw St. Peter’s Cathedral where Calvin preached and visited the Reformation museum. It felt like a Reformation Tour! But even my previous studies and work did not prepare me for all I experienced this summer.

Monday we took our coach to Zurich and there visited the Grosmunster and the Fraumunster where artist Marc Chagall’s painted glass windows depicted the accounts of the Bible from creation to the New Jerusalem were displayed. From there to Oberamergau where I believe all the crosses of Germany are kept and the streets were filled with tourist searching for the perfect one to bring home. From there we saw King Ludwig’s castle: Neuschwanstein and on to Prague. It wasn’t until our first full day in Prague that as our young Czech tour guide was leading us that I came to the realization; “Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore!” My revelation happened while we, the 12 disciples of The Village Church, were crossing King Charles Bridge, one person in the group asked the guide about a statue on the bridge of Christ Jesus on the cross. “Tell me” our group member said, “about this statue”. The young tour guide, looking at the crucifix statue and responded matter of factly; “Oh that man was a Jew who did something very bad, so they killed him.” On hearing the story I felt at first that I misunderstood or perhaps the guide didn’t understand the question. But the reality of her answer settled on me like a ton of bricks. We too often assume that we are never far from another believer, I wondered, however, what it would be like to feel absolutely isolated in my faith, alone and without the fellowship of other Christians around me. The Apostle Paul felt that reality when we came alone to the city of Athens as recorded in the 17th chapter of Acts. It was a place full of people who had never heard of the good news of Jesus Christ. Please turn with me to Acts 17 as I begin to read in verse 16. 16 While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. 17 So 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. 18 Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, ‘What does this babbler want to say?’ Others said, ‘He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.’ (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) 19 So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, ‘May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? 20 It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.’ 21 Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.

22 Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. 23 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. 24 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, 25 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. 26 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, 27 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. 28 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.”

29 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. 30 While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, 31 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.’ 32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ 33 At that point Paul left them. 34 But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.

The chapters in Acts between 14 and 21 are the missionary journeys of the apostles. Paul had left Timothy and Silas in Berea and journeyed on to Athens the greatest university city of the time. As we’ve read in scripture there is a city to which we all could identify. The eclectic smorgasbord of beliefs based on idols du jour can be easily identified today with the same lost pursuit of self in the commonly known phenomenon of post modernity. It is a philosophy of many of our baby buster and gen. Xers that believe “Reality is not simply mirrored in human understanding of it, but rather, is constructed as the mind tries to understand its own particular and personal reality. For this reason, postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal.”ⁱ Newsweek focused their weekly report this week on “In Search of the Spiritual”ⁱⁱ Americans are not becoming atheist, in fact they are embracing a plethora of ‘Spiritual option” in search of encountering God. This chapter in Acts so similarly defines our present world view that we can see in Paul a model for relating Christ to a skeptic world.

Luke records Paul’s reaction to Athens in four parts: in what Paul saw, felt, did and said. Paul saw a city full of idols or given over to idols. Athens was still a city to behold a great tourist attraction in that day. Paul could easily have roamed the streets taking in the incredible buildings and monuments exquisitely built. But Paul only saw the more than 30,000 idols lining the city and perhaps 30,000 more in the Parthenon. Athens was more than full of idols Paul saw a city smothered, drowning in idols. When we see similarities of our world in pursuit of something other than the one God, we believe that it is indeed a sad affair but no affair of ours. Paul’s reaction was entirely different. He felt deeply distressed. He could not be a casual observer of his surroundings; he was not on a holiday or a history tour he was on mission to bring the gospel of Jesus to all people. The word distressed is conveyed in strong succinct wording that one might want to understand Paul’s feeling as complete horror over the idolatry he saw. Paul’s deep emotions came out of his love for the Name of God and the horror in which he observed idols receiving the honor and glory that the one, living and true God deserved.

We see things all the time and in fact it is not infrequent for us to react to what we see with strong emotions. But for most of us our engagement stops there. We may see a person on the side of the road with a flat tire or their hood up and feel badly that they are stuck while we usually drive by assured that Triple A or some similar service will come to their rescue. Paul however, reacted to what he saw and to how he felt. He began to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ and his resurrection. Paul’s motivation was the sense of urgency in sharing the gospel. And that is exactly what he did. He began to share the gospel, in three different venues: First, he began with the faithful, the Jews in the synagogue. Secondly, He went to the market place: both a place for selling of goods as well as a place of public life. In every city we visited while on our trip we were taken to or found the town square, it is still the center of much of what does on in the city. Thirdly When approached by the philosophers Paul went to their Areopagus their council to meet with them. It is with this last group that Paul states his apologetics. These groups were diametrical apposed, philosophies differing between the Epicureans and the Stoics. The epicureans were those who loved to indulge in everything, as they saw no personal ties to the gods, any ability to influence life or future. We visited a palace in Potsdam, Germany called Sancoucci, which means ‘no worries’ in French. It was built in the mid 18th century and was used as a summer home for Prussian King Frederick II. The Epicureans of the first century held to this ‘no worry’ attitude, “eat drink and be merry”, unlike the Stoics who emphasized fatalism, submission and the endurance of pain. Their watchwords were more along the line, “grin and bear it.” They believed that God was a little spark inside them and once dead the spark would return to God. These two groups took Paul to the Areopagus as some assumed he was a babbler, a seed picker: other assumed he was proselytizing some new divinities (vs. 18). In a world that often times mock the Christian faith, deserting it to pick ‘new’ religions or rebirth very old ones, we can learn from what Paul said in terms of how we can be effective Christians in a postmodern world.

Paul began by relating to the council through the acknowledgement of the idols and in fact points to the use of the words “unknown god’ as a reference for his discussion. He quotes form their philosophers and identifies for them a building block to begin his argument. Paul then lays outs the gospel in five succinct comments beginning in vs. 24 (pg. 285) 1) God is creator of the universe; God who made everything does not live in temples built by hands, God is bigger than your greatest imagination. 2) God is the sustainer of life; “he himself gives all people life and breath and everything else”; we are dependent on God not God on us. Kabbalah, a form of Jewish mysticism believes that God’s power depends on humanity’s actioniii, if taken to extremes we once again limit the power of God into our limited power. 3) God is the Ruler of all nations; from one man he made every nation of people, and he determined the times set for them and the exact places. We were created to be in relationship with God, unlike the 60’s where “god is dead” thesis was widely circulated in the intellectual and progressive world, disclaiming any need for a God. 4) God is the Father of all human beings; therefore do not try to design God in your image even with the use of precious metals of gold and silver. Paul comes back to remind them of their idolatry. Today we create idols for limiting God, trying to domesticate God, making him dependent on us, taming and taping him. All idolatry tires to minimize the gulf between the Creator and his creatures, in order to bring God under our control. John Stott writes; “Idolatry actually reverses the respective position of God and us, so that instead of our humbly acknowledging that God has created and rules us, we presume to imagine that we can create and rule God.”^iv

It is our ultimate rebellion against God and the reason why Paul’s fifth point was made. Paul summarizes his apology with the statement that 5) God is the judge of the world “while God has overlooked the time 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.” (vs. 30, 31) This judge who judges has been raised from the dead. Here is the good news for all humanity. A righteous judge is coming, to rule the world it is definite even if we do not know the date or time. Jesus, the one resurrected will come to judge. The uniqueness of Christianity is that God is with us in the person of Jesus Christ, who died and was resurrected from the dead. How many religions and opinions do we hear that affirm the person of Jesus as having existed, as being a great prophet even many concede that he died a painful death but the world ABSOLLUTELY REFUSES TO BELIEVE IN SAVING DEATH OF THE CROSS AND THE PHYSICAL THE RESURRECTION OF JESUS.

And that is exactly what happened on the Areopagus with Paul and the philosophers of Athens. “When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, others wanting to hear more on the subject again and a few embraced the gospel and believed. It wasn’t another Pentecost day with 3000 being added to the church, it was merely a handful, at least one known woman, and one known man. Paul gives to us a model in sharing our faith. Relevant faith is not our ability to bring the gospel down to the level of someone’s culture and experience and leave the message there; relevant faith is the ability to bring the people up to a reality of God who is bigger than their world. It is to bring people into a relationship of worship with the Son and the Spirit. Perhaps we do not speak for the gospel in the world full of postmodern ‘relevance’ because we are missing the passion that carried Paul all the way to Rome to preach the good news. Our faith is easily cocooned in our environment of other Christians. Perhaps we do not see as Paul saw.

We arrived in early afternoon at Wittenburg, the town where Luther began the great reformation in presenting his 95 theses against the church. We were now in East Germany a part of the country that had but a short time earlier reunited with a free Germany. We had a fantastic tour guide, an enthusiastic young man who was studying for his Ph.D. in 20th century Lutheranism in Germany. We eventually asked him if he were a believer, my first clue that he was happened when he was explaining the baptismal font. He explained that infants would be submerged in baptism symbolic of dying to the old life of sin, he said, “We know that everyone sins.” Christians seems to understand our sinful nature and need for redemption.

We saw the Castle Church and St. Mary’s church where Luther preached over 2000 sermons. We also discovered that only 20% of Wittenburg is registered in the church. Germany taxes her faithful. There is tax to pay and perhaps that discourages believers. The tax is 7% of the state taxes. If you pay $30K in taxes another 7% or $2100 of that taxed money will be assessed to you to belong to state church.

We thought perhaps there were many more Christians but they just didn’t want to pay the tax. In East Germany we saw the effects of a country that had expunged the freedom of religion for nearly four decades. It has not resurged with the force that one might hope or expect. They have other gods to pursue and statistics show us that they learned it from their western friends. Idols are not limited to former communist states or ancient societies. Idols are found everywhere, we all substitute God for something secure, financial, powerful, prestigious, the list continues.

Our guide through the secular humanistic palace of Sanssouci in Potsdam Germany, was a young woman who had been a young teenager when the reunification too place. I asked her how she felt about the event. She exclaimed that she was very happy because she had been baptized as a baby and was a Lutheran growing up under communism. She said she would never have been allowed to continue on in school if the reunification hadn’t happen. Her faith lived out would have cost her an education and future. If one did not belong to the political party despite any test scores to continue in the gymnasium, ones formal education would cease at 8th grade and that person would be left with pursuing a technical skill.

She had resigned herself to the reality of a limited future for the sake of her faith. Reunification didn’t change he faith just opportunities in which to share it!

What did I see on our reformation tour? In all the beauty and the splendor of the countries in the context of visiting it with dear fellow Christians I saw a world lost in present pursuit of other things. I felt overwhelmed with the loss of faith in the eastern part of Germany, a sad emptiness even in the great city of Berlin where a former communist guided us on our tour. I was a tourist sight seeing, collecting information observing the people customs and influences of their lives. I saw the distractions the idols, I felt a heavy sense of longing for the people to know truth, but unlike the Apostle Paul, I did and said nothing.

Relevant Faith is the ability to see the world and identify with all its inadequacies, to feel the deep compassion that Christ has for that world. Relevant faith is the act of following through on what we see and feel by speaking and doing the gospel. A gospel that doesn’t’ make the gospel relevant to the people but rather makes people relevant to the God. Let us together strive to see, feel, do and speak the truth of our resurrected Savior.

Amen.

ⁱGoogle, Post modernity
ⁱⁱNewsweek; Sept 5, 2005, Special report: Spirituality 2005
ⁱⁱⁱ bid, pg. 61
^iv Stott, John, The Message of Acts, pg. 287

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