Touching Resurrection: Engaging Culture; May 10, 2026

speaker-1: ⁓ Our first reading today is from Acts ⁓ chapter 17 ⁓ 16 to 21. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout people, and also in the marketplace every day with those who happened to be there. Also, some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, what does this pretentious babbler want to say? Others said he seems to be a proclamer of foreign divinities. This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection. So they took him and brought him to our opus and asked him, may we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means. Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new. This is a word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

speaker-0: We're gonna continue ⁓ in our series, which we've been on since Easter, ⁓ essentially just talking about how Easter matters for more than just a day, and talking about the ways that this resurrected life that came out of the tomb with Jesus impacts our relationships, it impacts how we engage with our world, it impacts how we suffer. ⁓ And this morning we're gonna talk about how it impacts how we engage with the wider world around us and engage our culture. We're gonna do that as we carry on in this passage from Acts here with verses 22 through 24 in chapter 17. So listen with me for the word of the Lord. Paul was invited to the Areopagus and here he goes. Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, Athenians, I see how extremely spiritual 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, 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 peoples 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 fumble about for him and find him. Though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For quote, in him we live and move. and have our being as even some of your own prophets have said quote, for we too are his offspring. 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 or imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times 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. When they heard of the resurrection of the dead. Some scoffed, but others said, we will hear you again about this. And at that point, Paul left them, but some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysus, the Areopagite, and a woman named Demaris, and others with them. The word of the Lord. Thank you. Let us pray. Gracious God, we come before you. seeking to understand as we indeed fumble about ourselves that we might find you, for you are near to us. So now, O God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be pleasing and acceptable in your sight, O Christ, our rock and our redeemer. Amen. Dear mothers, I'm glad that you're here this morning. You fathers and all those other ⁓ folks gathered here with imaginations. You can follow along with us on this journey, but I imagine that when you realized that you were expecting you were flooded with all manner of emotion, excitement, joy, terror, all the regular guests, and as you entered into this unfamiliar territory, you may well have engaged those emotions by preparing in some way for what was to come. Getting a nursery ready, maybe. Eating strange combinations of things is important. Soaking in as much wisdom as you possibly could from other people in your life who had gone through this same experience. Maybe even you read a parenting book or two. And then at long last, the day arrives and after the travails of labor, they hand you a baby, hopefully your own, and you're left to figure it out. Here you go. Best of luck. You know? And all of the sudden, just like that, you're expected to be an expert, not only in keeping another human being alive, but nurturing them. and loving them into an adulthood wherein they can do better for the next generation than you've done for them. It is a most wonderful calling, and it's almost completely impossible to prepare for. No one really knows what the heck they are doing. But between instincts kicking in or not, the insights of people who have done this before, and the crash course of real life experience, you discover that you are indeed capable, and even called as a parent, to care for and to guide your children in every way. You share by the words you say and the way in which you live the sort of character and the manner of living that is an imitation of Christ. Or at least we're trying. So many of us learned what it was like to live a life of love and forgiveness, of peace and hard work by watching our mothers. Mothers given to us by biology, by adoption, or by the Spirit. Thank God for Christian community. Now, if someone was to tell you, new mother, that you didn't know what you were doing with that baby after suddenly acknowledging that there might be some truth to that, you would be so offended. Whether or not you are feeling like you've mastered this whole being human thing, guess what? Now you are in a position where you've got to share it with your child, right? There's no, you can't opt out anymore. So here we are, right? You have to engage the situation in which you are in. There ain't no takesies, backsies, and thank God for that because while all of us have likely considered a return to sender every now and again, all of these kids are indeed. a blessing. In much the same way, when you began to follow Jesus, you began at that very moment to learn a new way to be human. You get thrust into a new way of living. It's got that new life smell on its head. It's got that resurrection scent. This life is learning to love in the face of hatred. This life is becoming a person who is quicker to reconcile than to cut people off or hold a grudge. It's learning to suffer as though the Lord of the cosmos gives a rip about you and that he is gonna see you through. It's a life where we learn to always be pulling up chairs to the table of grace and learning not to be so dang afraid of our neighbors. It's a whole new way of being in the world that sprung from the tomb with Jesus now that death's stinger is soon to be pulled from the heel of our universe. But here's the odd thing, the very odd thing as far as I can tell. While it seems like such a way of living is fairly all-encompassing, we've been told for whatever reason that you aren't supposed to talk about it, really. You're not supposed to talk about religion or politics or money in polite society, but I'd argue that not talking about those things has not in fact made us more polite, neither as individuals or as a society. truth is that as the metaphors go, if we have been born anew in baptism, or adopted into the family of God, or sworn allegiance to God as citizens of heaven, or honored Christ as Lord of all, or become friends with God, or been saved, well seems that none of those metaphors are private endeavors wherein we should do it all in the corner by ourself, minding our own business. I would remind you that REM told us many years ago that it is in the religion or in the corner where one loses their religion. You're welcome, Gen X. Now I will say that if you want to live your life in the corner, a monastic life could be for you. There are options for you, but I imagine that most of you won't find it very appealing how itchy a brown monk's habit is. For the rest of us, We are blessedly stuck here in the world where we have to figure it out, right? We are here as God's people in the middle of a society and we've got to figure out what it looks like to live faithfully here as resurrection people because Christ is risen. We're too far away from Easter for that to work. We've got to...

speaker-1: We've...

speaker-0: We've got to figure out what it means to live faithfully as resurrection people in a world that refuses the invitation to get up out of that grave. And what is frustrating to me is when people tell me that Christianity should stay in its lane. Like a child. Or like a parent to a new child, brother, I don't got a choice anymore. You know I'm saying? Like, I'm in it now. I gotta figure this thing out and it matters for everything. I got this baby to take care and I might not be an expert, but I gotta figure it out. I've got this new life and this new Lord and I'm blessedly stuck figuring it out. Now you might not agree. with how I am engaging the culture or engaging the world with my faith, but that is a call for conversation and not pullback, right? Jesus is Lord of the entire cosmos and Lord of our whole lives, and that means that we've gotta engage those. We gotta figure out how those two things mesh. And I'd suggest that we do that in two primary ways. One is that we get to share with the world that we don't have to live dead anymore. There is resurrection life for us and it is new and it is better than the ways that we've been trapped in before. The second is that we get to lift up the places in our culture that are buzzing with resurrection life already and just not named as such because the fact is that the Spirit of God, and we're going to get to her in Pentecost in a few weeks here, the Spirit of God goes wherever she will like the wind, uncontrollable, untamable. So boy does it ruffle my face. I gotta tell you to be told to stay in my lane as a Christian person Especially when I'm told to stay in my lane by other Christian people. I think they tell me that just because they don't like what I'm saying I Don't know what that lane is is my point Other than some private sentiment that is hardly a religion worth believing in But I am NOT We are not the first to feel the tension there Paul makes his way to Athens, as we read, and there in Athens, he feels exactly this. The Areopagus was Athens' center of cultural life, a place where idols were a dime a dozen. All those Greek idols and Greek gods that you learned about when you were a kid, they were all there, plus more of them. It was there that philosophers would come to argue about truth and beauty and religion and judge and civil matters. It was the real life-educated TikTok of its time. And there, Paul is walking around sharing his resurrection perspective on life, and some philosophers begin to engage with him. And did you notice what they have to say? It's hysterical to me, and like a pretty sick burn, what does this pretentious babbler want to say? I think that they think that Paul's new perspective on the world is absolute nonsense. They believe that Paul has no clue what he's talking about because Paul's perspective doesn't fit in very neatly with the world that they have known. And Paul is trying to find a way to mesh these two together. As some have said of Jesus's own teachings, say of turning the other cheek or loving one's enemy, it's just not practical in our world. Jesus should probably stay in his own lane. Don't you think? So they bring Paul to the Areopagus and I don't think they're bringing him there so that they can hear him out and give him a fair shake. I think they're bringing him there so that he can be made a fool of. But here is where Paul is indomitable. He isn't there just to shout them down like some obnoxious street preacher with a big sign. No, Paul, as much as Paul isn't probably a fan of the 40 foot statue of Athena in the city center, and as much as he intends to challenge them, Paul is indeed there not to own the Greeks. He's looking for inroads because not everything that is happening in Athens is terrible, no good, or very bad because the spirit is also present. The spirit of God is present in Athens, in their questions, in their poetry, in their people, because truth is truth is truth is truth wherever it arises, which is why we don't have to enter into our world with an us against them vibe all the time, because the fact of the matter is that we don't own God. God is as much out there as God is in here, and it's our job to find the places where that door is open and walks through it, and Paul does that brilliantly right here. He begins with, I see how extremely spiritual all of you are. This is Paul, like, at his absolute smoothest. Paul sometimes strikes me as a hammer looking for a nail. And so I've got to imagine that he is just, like, super proud of himself ⁓ for coming up with this line. And then he tells them that he's found an altar to an unknown God and this is his open door, right? You've been groping around looking for, let me tell, I found him. I know who he is. And he tells them that he's found this God. And if you pay close attention, Paul is contrasting the character of this God that he has known with the gods that they are trying to please. This God that Paul knows isn't a God unlike the other Greek gods. He isn't capricious. You can count on him. This God isn't needy in stark contrast to all the others. This God that Paul knows isn't fighting for superiority or driven by desire, but this God gives life and breath to all things and selflessly even gives God's self for the world. This is a God who won't abandon us to some murky afterlife in which we get to hope that we've got fair enough to cross the river Styx, but instead this God promises to someday renew. all things and bless all creation with resurrection. Just like we might find resonance with the good news of Jesus, In music or movies or culture, I'm here to tell you that Kendrick Lamar is a prophet and everything everywhere all at once is just about as truthful and beautiful a film as one can find. Paul goes looking for glimmers of good news in what he knows of his culture. And he engages there. Interesting point. I know that most of you have heard it because most of you have been at least to one of these other sermons, but you've heard the scripture, in him we live and move and have our being. Have you not? In him we live and move and have our being. Paul stole that line from the Cretan poet Epimenides who wrote it about Zeus. But Paul finds resonance here with that truth that other people are groping for and he just says, ⁓ actually, you're talking about the one true God here. You see how this works? Please tell me where the lane for Christianity is again. Tell me what this God in whom we live and move and have our being isn't supposed to touch. And I'll be sure to pass the message on. So Paul finds resonance. He also wants to challenge. So he ends with a call for repentance, a word which we've flattened into oblivion. You may have heard this word as a call to, quote, turn around or, quote, knock it off. But Paul standing. in the middle of the most sophisticated crowd in the ancient world, giving in a remarkably engaged sermon on the issues of the day, do you suppose that he wants to end this brilliant bit of rhetoric with the command to knock it off? That would make no sense. The Greek word for repent is metanoia. It is a compound word meaning meta, change or above, come up out of, and noia, which is a form of the Greek word, nous, which is mine. So change or come up out of. your mind. Paul is inviting these folks who are knocking themselves out to please the gods of their day or desperately trying to reason themselves into being honorable or figuring out a way to conform to the Emperor's demands. He is inviting them to have a change of mind. to be lifted up out of their ways of thinking so that they can be offered a different view of what the world is really like. A resurrected view. of what the world is really like. One where God is love and God is life and God is peace and who invites us along for that ride. He is offering them this new world, this opportunity for metanoia, for a life change, a mind change, because it's in that is God's desire to offer new life to them. I'll tell you friends, suspect that if we are courageous enough to meet the world on the world's terms, to engage in culture and politics and current events in good faith and not just in opposition, but with an invitation to see a new way of seeing the world, I imagine that we will be met with similar results as Paul. Totally mixed. Because that whole crowd is not... indeed converted. This is not like what happened on the day of Pentecost where thousands were added to that number and everybody was like, you're right Peter, we believe in you, we believe Jesus. Thousands of people do in fact not flock to Jesus. Most of them think that this is totally ridiculous. And that's because this isn't about winning the culture wars. This is about loving God's world enough to engage with it in ways that are meaningful. It's about loving God's world enough to engage with it in ways that it makes sense to offer a resurrected life, a new life in Christ to it. Our call is to be faithful to Christ in every arena of our living. I don't think there's a lane for that. And I don't think that we're all going to be experts at it either. But what I do know is this. That God is out there. As much as God is in here. And God is doing God's thing. mothering our world into goodness and you and I are invited to join in that work with God. Thanks be to God. Amen.