Resurrection, To Make The World Right

The Sixth Sunday of Easter

Text:

Acts 17: 22-31 (NRSV)

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." 

Question:

Can you describe a time when you felt compelled to do something outside you comfort zone? Something that afterward you might have said, “I can’t believe I did that? Something that either afterward you thought, “Boy that was irresponsible!” or “Man, that turned out way better than I thought it would!” Or maybe the opposite, was there ever was a time when there was something or some direction you thought of doing but finally decided not to do?

Sermon:

Resurrection, To Make The World Right

by Dr. Robert Mason

For those Christian groups who follow a liturgical calendar, we have been discussing themes related to Easter, the cross, and the resurrection.  Next week the focus shifts to the Ascension so this week will be the last Sunday with a liturgical focus on the resurrection.  The reading this week from Acts 17 is a famous narrative about Paul’s visit to Athens where we hear Paul’s gospel message to people who have not been socialized in Jewish traditions and are unfamiliar with Jewish theological frameworks.  In fact, this group, composed of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, would have been not only critical of a Jewish god, but also heavily invested in a critical appraisal of Greek and Roman gods as well.  So it is no wonder that they had to compel him to attend one of their meetings and of all places, on the Areopagus, the symbolic epicenter of Greek philosophical discourse.  It is here that we find evidence of Paul’s Hellenistic Jewish education.  The author of Acts has him quoting Greek poets in his attempt to embed the Jewish God Yahweh in the Greco-Roman pantheon (as he says, “Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you” v. 23b).  And he can swing the anvil of criticism against idolatry as well as any Jewish teacher metaphorically smashing the ideological support for idol worship (as when he says, “we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill” v. 29).  And as a good Jew, he can reframe talk about the gods into a sharp focus on God-talk—for Paul God was the creator of all things, the sustainer of all of the cosmic systems, and as such a sustainer he is alive and near to each of us.  This actually would have been well received by the philosopher-minded crowd at the meeting.

I think that if he had stopped there, he would have gained honor in the sight of all present, rather than just a few.  But in vs. 30-31 he continues to unfold his understanding of God’s present activities through the lens of the messianic activities of Jesus of Nazareth.  Paul’s criticism of Roman culture as consumed with idolatry is thoroughly Jewish. Idolatry is such a complex human preoccupation from the beginning of human history to the present that there are many definitions.  So since my definition is rather terse I want to state it twice.  Idolatry is tied up with the preoccupations, practices, and predispositions that focus on self-centered and self-centering things as having ultimate significance.  So Paul states that the ignorance that is tied up with preoccupations, practices, and predispositions that focus on self-centered and self-creating things as having ultimate significance must no longer be left unchallenged in the light of this man Jesus and the god-path he followed.  In fact, because of the way that Jesus appropriated and carried out his messianic vocation, Paul says that God’s supreme trust has been given to him by appointing him to be the man to dispense justice, by which I take Paul to mean to make the world right (dikaiosune—means to make right).  Paul is quoted as saying that God has made this divine declaration of trust evident to all humans by raising him from the dead.  Now lest you were listening to that last sentence when the dog jumped in your lap, I want to be transparent and say that I just said something that might cause some to raise their eyebrows.  This is a rather different interpretation than you would get from Bible translations, pulpit, or commentary.  For instance, look at how the last sentence of Paul’s speech is translated by NIV,” He [God] has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”  You wouldn’t know from this that the word for ‘proof’ is ‘pistis’, the word normally translated faith, or trust. So again, it seems to me in making better sense to understand the divine action as proclaiming God’s supreme trust in how Jesus lived his life so that he appointed him as the way to make the world right, rather than as some kind of final proof that Jesus is the judge of the world. 

Since this is the last Sunday that we will focus on the resurrection for a while, at least from a liturgical calendar perspective, I would like to flesh this out a bit (pun intended).  First, how was his speech, with its reference to the resurrection, received by those listening?  The writer of Acts says that some received it well while others sneered.  Now why, I wonder, did some resonate with the message while others did not?  Was it the God-talk, or the idea of resurrection, or maybe even Paul’s presentation (he was perceived, after all, to be a “dabbler” in v.18 (again I don’t mean to bash on the NIV but it has ‘babbler’ which misses the point that Paul was perceived as an unschooled novice).  Actually, who knows really, as we are getting Paul’s story through the writer of Acts and who knows how many sources he had.  But I still want to press a little here.  Dionysius, Damaris, and others actually became followers due apparently to what they heard.  Why?  We know at this time, in the mid-first century, there was a religious-cultural shift occurring within Roman society towards a monotheistic understanding of the universe.  There were actually parallel resonances with the philosophical traditions as well away from pantheism and toward a monistic or unitary view of the workings of the universe.  Indeed, Dionysius is reported to be a member of the Areopagus.  Paul argues that his God creates and sustains all things, all peoples, and all creatures.  Roman religion was intimately connected with the maintenance of Roman social institutions like most religions.  Family, work, travel, all aspects of life were tied in to divine power through participation in sacrifice by the Populus and construction of representations of the gods by the elites.  But for many these traditional forms were becoming less satisfying.  Paul comes presenting a driving source of power that is near each person, and this power is represented in a man who walked the walk and talked the talk to such an extent that he earned the trust of Yahweh, who is not just another lifeless idol or statue.  Well, this apparently made enough sense to Dionysius, Damaris, and others that they became followers of Paul and attached their aspirations with the group formed around Paul’s gospel.

So why did some sneer?  It apparently had to do with the idea of resurrection.  Now I want to press here as well.  Was it because they had never heard of the idea of resurrection before?  Many preachers relying on some prominent biblical scholars and others would say, “That’s right.  Jesus’ bodily resurrection was unique and unprecedented and was so foreign that the hearers scoffed.  The argument continues that Roman culture considered the physical body as something negative and so the bodily resurrection as absurd.  

Now I don’t have the time for a full discussion about the form and meaning of the resurrection of Jesus but I do have two last points.  First, if this is a case of a negative view of the body and a disparaging dismissal of Jesus’ resurrection, then why would millions of converts to Christianity in the first 400 years cherish the idea of physical resurrection, an idea completely opposed to what they held as true?  Actually to the contrary, Roman culture held the body in some high regard as attested to the importance of sports, and the importance of health and medical technology.

Second, it is significant that what came to be known as Christianity was not a religion originally promising anyone immortal flesh.  For instance, Paul says that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God in 1 C 15:50.  The idea of a physical resurrection became absorbed into the Christian view of resurrection but in response to and in a different context a little later on.  But the idea of God raising Jesus from the dead had already become perceived as a powerful event that had taken on tremendous symbolic power as a primary vehicle to communicate that God was active in the world and the way that he was active was through Jesus the Christ with his challenge to make the world right through peace, love and love’s social counterpart, justice.  

Unfortunately, this radical message that Paul was attempting to disseminate was rather quickly highjacked by the dominant social and political power structures.  Christianity became aligned with the state, orthopraxy gave way to orthodoxy, love and mercy for the oppressed became entangled in salvific regimes that ended up othering the others we were supposed to be embracing, and the radical gift of grace was gradually transformed into a transaction bereft of the power to transform humanity.  So that the Western church finds itself today in decline due to a brutal history, violent soteriology, destructive ecology, and moral complacency.  Is it not time to follow examples like Dionysius and Damaris, who chose not only to listen and learn but to become a part of the solution.  Perhaps we can use a word of the Lord to the children of Israel when they were standing on the shore of the Sea of Reeds and seeing the dust from Pharoah’s army charging down on them.  They did not see a way forward, but God told Moses to say to them,  E-sa-u.  Go forward.  Get going.  Trusting that the sea would open up.  Perhaps we need that same word.  E-sa-u.  Get going because if Jesus could gain God’s trust perhaps we should do the same. Put love on the pedestal over condemnation, make the arms we pick up in the name of God the loving arms of the father who welcomed his wayward son, shift our vision and hope from an idyllic perfect future to trying to make the environment as sustainable as possible here and now, and help us work through the morass of disinformation to make our lives count as disciples of Jesus.  To all us, right now, I say, E-sa-u.