Sermon 21st November 2010

Today, on the Sunday before Advent, our Vicar, Cameron Barker, concludes our study of St. Paul. His sermon is based on the reading from Acts 18: verses 18 to 23.
Pressure's on! Can I? Will you? Don't know. It was quite a good start; and got better. The last one was the best, and hard to beat. Worrying. This desk-stand message puts it well: SITUATION DESPERATE! And then it also gives the solution, in small print beneath: SEND CHOCOLATE!

Most sermons in this series have begun with jokes. Those have got ever better; so my final attempt at humour is in the shape of this changeable desk-display. It lives in my study, and helps to keep me sane. Not all the pages are equally fit for public consumption; but here's a sample that between them may amuse most of you. Like: IF AT FIRST YOU DON'T SUCCEED ... the small print advises: DESTROY ALL EVIDENCE THAT YOU EVEN TRIED. I also choose to display this one occasionally: BAD DAY IN PROGRESS ... so the small print warns: APPROACH AT YOUR OWN RISK. Here's a real favourite of mine: an arrow that points out of the door, saying: PROBLEMS AND COMPLAINTS THAT WAY. And finally this one, stating: CHAOS, PANIC, DISORDER ... with small print that says: MY WORK HERE IS DONE.

Yes that's the link! This was the last thing that the apostle Paul could even dream of saying at the end of his first 2 missionary journeys. His work was done for a while again, after at least 3 years on the road this time. What he left behind was anything but chaos, panic or disorder. Rather, look at the map – and see what has happened. We know how it all began, so small and seemingly insignificant, with Jesus' death in Jerusalem – and news of his resurrection. That small beginning leaked out, into the rest of the city; then into neighbouring Samaria. It crept up the coast, as far as Syrian Antioch. Then this good news about Jesus burst outwards from there. The apostle Paul was now the driving force. First he took the gospel through the whole of Cyprus. Then into mainland Asia: throughout Pamphylia; and Pisidia; as far as Galatia and Cilicia. And that was what had happened just on Paul's first journey!

During that first journey Paul followed God's shift of focus, beyond the synagogue, to the Gentiles. That continued and grew during Paul's second journey, which we have also covered in this series. The boundaries were pushed even further outwards then. For the first time the gospel reached mainland Europe. Paul went right through ancient Asia, and then crossed over into Greece, in about 51AD. That literally altered the course of history. Paul went back to Syrian Antioch again at the end of this stage of his efforts for the gospel. Even by the end of his life he couldn't possibly have imagined just what would be accomplished off the back of what he had done. But I'm sure that he would be delighted by it – because his aim was for the gospel to reach further and wider than anyone had dared dream might even be possible. And it most certainly did that even in Paul's own life-time.

Today, on this last Sunday of the liturgical year, we reach the end of our series from Acts. And it has been quite right to have called this series 'Adventures'; because there have been plenty of those – of all kinds – along the way! But I hope that we haven't ever lost sight of why we decided to explore this part of our faith heritage. Our aim has always been to be part of the gospel reaching further and wider in our own day than anyone had dared dream might even be possible. That aim has been, and must always be, solidly grounded on the facts of who Jesus is, and what his death and resurrection means. It – like life itself – is all about him.

As we said at the outset, without Jesus, there is no hope. Left on our own there is no hope now; no hope of change; and no hope for the future. By his death and resurrection Jesus transformed all that: there is now hope in the present; hope for real change, in ourselves and the world; and hope for an eternal future too, one spent with Jesus. This is the good news that Christians have to share with others – no matter how little they perhaps appear to need it. It's the hope of life as God made it to be; as the people God made us to be; now and for eternity. Our job is to tell others about this hope that we have been given – and how it all comes through Jesus.

That sounds simple – and is simple; but, as we have been discovering afresh over the past 3 months, it can get both complicated and difficult! Now in case you’re wondering how I can preach on those few verses that we heard from Acts 18, I’m not going to! Our task today is to look back over the whole series and see what we've learned from both of Paul's first 2 missionary journeys. Of course there are matters of interest in these verses. Paul’s vow and shaving his head at the end of it is fascinating. We could note how Paul went first to the synagogue in Ephesus. We might reflect on why Paul left Priscilla and Aquila, his travelling companions, behind there. Or we could look ahead to Paul’s hoped-for return to that city, which did then happen on his third journey.

But, as I said, today we need mostly to look back, as we conclude this series. It's a near-impossible task: the whole book of Acts is only a summary of what happened in the early years of the church. This series has only been a short extract from that summary. And it has mostly been edited highlights at that! Even so, we have covered more ground than could be put into any concluding looking-back thoughts. So I hope that we'll regularly visit the blog-site – or the spiritual journals that some of us do hopefully keep. We need to keep on revisiting these lessons, in order to learn them fully. It's only when we have done that that we will live them faithfully, as we need to – ourselves, and as a church.

As so often, that has proved to be true for me personally. Time and again during this series I have found myself needing to apply these lessons that we've been learning week by week. It began from the very first week, with the experience of opposition we saw Paul deal with in Cyprus. There certainly have been some bumps around here over these past 3 months. Not all of those have been Godly, I would say. Of course the challenge is often in working out what's an unGodly bump, rather than a Godly-closed door. We spent time with Paul doing little but bumping into Godly-closed doors. For Paul it went on for months, as he stumbled ever westwards, across the whole of modern Turkey, until he ran out of land at the coast.

As we saw, Paul finally heard God's glorious YES, in Troas where Luke himself had joined the missionary party. We could have focused on the joy of the gospel then crossing into Europe. But Paul had had to endure so much before then – and not 'just' all that not knowing where to go next. In almost every place he had been, at some point Paul was forced to leave. In one of his letters Paul summarised it like this: “5 times I was given the 39 lashes by the Jews; 3 times I was whipped by the Romans; and once I was stoned ... In my many travels I have been in danger from floods and from robbers, in danger from fellow-Jews and from Gentiles; there have been dangers in the cities, dangers in the wilds, dangers on the high seas, and dangers from false friends ... Often I have gone without sleep; I have been hungry and thirsty; I have often been without enough food, shelter, or clothing. And that’s not to mention other things”; of which there were many, we know!

This was Paul writing much later, during – or after – his third 3rd journey. Of course some of this happened after this time when we leave him safely back in Antioch. But we have had more than a flavour of them from his first 2 journeys. We've seen how Paul was beaten, left for dead, stoned, thrown into prison, run out of town – and yet never gave up! Even at his lowest and weakest, Paul didn't stop trying his best! Even when he knew he probably wouldn't make headway for the gospel – as happened in Athens – Paul still gave it his all. He was passionate for and about the gospel. Paul knew what Jesus meant and could do – not just for him, but for all people.

Hopefully we have also learned something of the nature of Godly endurance in this series, then! There is every chance that each and every one of us will need that in some way – probably all too soon. Yes, that includes those who have needed it, and have shown it, before. Living for Jesus isn't easy – let alone preaching his gospel: there is opposition; there are times when we don't know where to turn next; we do run into problems; we do encounter suffering, in ourselves and/or others; and that happens time and again. But at all times, and in all circumstances, we are called to follow Paul's example, and keep on keeping on. We need to persevere, to give our best regardless and trust God – even if that's 'just' for the long-term outcome.

It's important not to lose sight of the success that Paul had in God's service, though. Despite all the above (or was it because of it, perhaps?) God took Paul's best efforts, and built and blessed His church on it. Paul wasn't perfect: his second journey began as it did partly because he was more ready to fight than to compromise with a fellow leader. But God even worked with that, to bring thousands of people to faith in Jesus through Paul. And this may be the lesson God is teaching you through this series – how he uses difficult people. There are so many possible learning options that come to mind – far too many to list now. But as we end, this series and this year, I will stress the key principles: hear whatever it is that God wants to teach you; learn it; obey it; live it. And, above all, do it for Him, and in Him.

I'll end with a learning point for the whole church, though. When we planned this series, we intended to introduce a new strategy to go with it. Despite the raft of challenges that we were clearly facing, I still hoped in faith to do that, and said so. As we saw what it would take to deal with the challenges, we had to admit that we were at our limits. But today is truly significant. This is the day that St Paul's – note the name! – will decide on the final scheme that PCC will then put forward for the church redevelopment – and we can (almost!) afford it! Isn't it 'interesting' that the final push to get us here at last was the 'problem' of the condemned church ceiling?! The work on that – and the dry rot – should begin by the end of this month, by the way. It was Paul who wrote, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose”. So now, in faith and hope, let's pray ...

Sermon 14th November 2010

Today our Curate, Gill Tayleur, preaches based on the reading from Act 18: 1-11.

“Paul’s missionary trips round the Med
Were exactly just what he had said
The spread of God’s grace
Was explained in each place
And the synagogue leaders turned red.

At some towns a new church was founded
And then the whole gospel resounded
But when gross opposition
Disrupted each mission
Then outside of that town they’d be hounded!”

From the Limerick Bible, by Peter Wallis.

(In today’s episode of Paul’s “missionary trips round the Med”, they aren’t hounded out of town, we’ll come to that in a bit.)

That Bible reading we’ve just heard is headed up “In Corinth”, following on from in Athens, in Berea, in Thessalonica and so on looking back over Paul’s 2nd missionary journey. “In Corinth” is not the most exciting title; a tabloid headline would probably be more like “Gospel comes to Sin City!” Yes Sin City would be a good description of what Corinth was like in Paul’s day.

Corinth had about quarter of a million free men in it, plus up to 400,000 slaves. Add in women and children and that’s a city bigger than Birmingham. It’s 50 miles West of Athens, just where Greece is almost cut in half by two seas. There’s a little strip of land, an isthmus, less than 5 miles across, between these 2 seas, and that’s where Corinth is. So all north south traffic had to pass through Corinth, and the east west traffic did too, because to sail round the southern tip of Greece was very dangerous. With all that trade and people passing through Corinth, it was a very cosmopolitan city. And it was a very “religious” city, with at least 12 temples, one of which was the Temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. It is thought there were a thousand temple prostitutes working there, who cruised the city at night. There was even a Greek verb “to Corinthianise”, which meant to practise sexual immorality. Yes this was Sin City indeed.

When Paul got to Corinth, he met a Jewish Christian couple, Aquila and his wife Priscilla. They had had to leave Rome when the Emperor Claudius expelled Jews and Jewish Christians, around AD49. (A few years later, when Claudius died and Nero became Emperor, they could go back, and we see Aquila & Priscilla were there later on from Paul’s letters.)

Aquila and Priscilla were tent makers like Paul was, and they struck up a friendship that was to last, as well as a working partnership. It may surprise us to hear that Paul earned his living as a tent maker, but in those days all boys were taught a manual trade regardless of how rich or poor they were. And rabbis were expected to earn their living from a trade.

Paul teamed up with Aquila and Priscilla in tent making. Tent making probably meant sewing together goat skins, or woven goat hair, into tents, but also all sorts of leather work. It was a skill Paul could use as he travelled around.

So Paul lived with Aquila and Priscilla, worked with them all week, and on the Sabbath he did what he always did when he got to a new place. He went to the synagogue and preached to the Jews about Jesus. We aren’t told here in Acts 18 what Paul preached in Corinth, but in his later letter to the Corinthian church, in chapter 2 of 1 Corinthians, he said “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing else while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Paul preached “Jesus Christ and him crucified”. He told them that Jesus was their long awaited Christ, the one they were waiting for to set them free. And Jesus had done this in a very unexpected way. He set them free, not free on the outside, free from Roman rule, but free on the inside, free from their sin, their self centredness, free to know and love God.
Jesus was born to die, for the people’s sins, dying in their place, that they might be forgiven and live a new life. And Paul challenged people to believe in this Jesus, and his death on the cross for them, and called them to repent or turn around from their sins, to turn to God, and start a new life as followers of Jesus.

This was the message Paul preached in the synagogue, trying to persuade them, week in week out. After a while, Silas and Timothy caught up with him from Macedonia, and it’s thought they brought a financial gift from the churches there, because Paul was able to stop tent making and gave his whole time to preaching.

But, as we know had happened in other places Paul visited, the Jews rejected the message about Jesus and Paul turned to the Gentiles, the non Jews. Paul made it very clear to the Jews that he had fulfilled his responsibility to bring them the good news about Jesus, and when they opposed him and his message, that was their responsibility. And the consequences would be their responsibility, not his. He even shook the dust from his clothes to show how serious he was about it.

So where does Paul go? Next door! To the house of a man called Titius Justus, a Gentile who attended the synagogue and became a Christian. And then a synagogue leader became a Christian too, and joined them. Next door! Talk about in your face! It must have made for strained relations with the synagogue, although no doubt it was a good location for influencing synagogue-goers.

And then we read that Paul had a vision.
The last time Paul had a vision, in Troas, in chapter 16, he was told to go somewhere unexpected, to Macedonia. This time he’s told to stay where he is.
His vision was of Jesus, who said: “Do not be afraid, keep on speaking; do not be silent. For I am with you, and no-one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city.”

“Do not be afraid”. Presumably Paul had this vision because he was afraid. You remember those verses I just read out from Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians, saying that when he preached in Corinth he resolved to preach only Jesus Christ and him crucified? Well in that letter he went straight on to say: “I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.”

Fear and trembling. We may think of Paul as fearless in his preaching, but perhaps not always. Corinth, Sin City, must have been daunting. So Paul was given this vision of Jesus, saying “do not be afraid, I am with you.” Knowing Jesus was with him, gave Paul the courage and strength he needed.

And Jesus added some lovely reassurance, and an instruction.
The reassurance was that Paul wouldn’t have to face beatings and floggings for the time being. In fact, he wasn’t even hounded out of town in Corinth!

And the instruction was to “keep on speaking”.
Jesus said that there were plenty of people in Corinth God still wanted to bring to faith, that would be his people, so Paul was to stay put and get on with the work of evangelism.
And that’s what he did. Paul stayed, preaching and teaching about Jesus and his death, for a year and a half. That was probably the longest time he’d stayed anywhere since he began his travels, back in chapter 11.

So what can we learn from all this? Well 2 things strike me, one about listening, and one about speaking.

First about listening. We have responsibilities as listeners!
The Jews heard Paul’s message, about Jesus and his death, and they heard the challenge to repent and believe, and most didn’t accept it. And Paul told them that the responsibility, for the consequences, was theirs. Because Paul knew what Jesus taught, about the reality of sin and judgement. I know this is an untrendy and unpalatable idea, but Jesus – and Paul - made it very clear that there will be a day of judgement, and that how people respond to Jesus plays a vital part in deciding their eternal destiny. Paul knew that people needed to repent, turn to God, for their wellbeing, not just in this life, but forever.

We might come to church from time to time, or week after week, and hear the message about Jesus, his death for us and his offer of forgiveness and new life.
And like those Jews, we might not accept it. We might think, some other time, one day I’ll think more about it, I’ve too much going on in my life right now.
But we have a responsibility as listeners! A responsibility to respond, or bear the consequences. Which may sound harsh – until we understand just what Jesus’ offer is all about, when we realise it’s the best offer ever! The offer of forgiveness and a new start in life, living in relationship to God as He has made us to be, as a follower of Jesus. This news about Jesus and his death for us, really is the greatest news ever.
But we are responsible for hearing and responding to it.
We have responsibilities as listeners.
...

Then, about speaking. If we’ve listened and accepted the news about Jesus and are now his followers, then we have responsibilities as speakers. Jesus told Paul to “keep on speaking” Don’t give up!”
I wonder how you feel about speaking about your faith, speaking about Jesus, to other people?
It’s very tempting to say, “well I live my faith as a Christian, I don’t need to speak about it as well”. But can we assume that people understand what is going on, when we only live and do not speak, about our faith in Jesus? We may hope that people will figure out the reason for the difference in us, but they may just regard us as one more version of human oddity. Everyone’s different! In some situations it is only words that can help towards understanding.

We may be worried that we’ll say something inappropriate that’ll put others off, and of course that is possible, but as long as we choose loving, thoughtful and helpful words, then surely speaking the truth will be something of beauty and power that can bring life and joy. God can take and use our words to great effect!

Does this sound scary? In such a not-Christian environment that we live or work in? Does it sometimes feel like Sin City? Well yes there’s a chance we may be sneered at as naive or losers or weaklings or frauds if we say what we believe. But if Jesus really is the best news ever, then so what if we’re momentarily uncoftable?! At home, at work, in our neighbourhood, people desperately need to hear this good news about Jesus and his death for us.
If we are filled with fear and trembling, as Paul was, hear Jesus’ reassuring words, “do not be afraid, I am with you.” His presence will give us courage. Today, Remembrance Sunday, is a day for thinking about courage, as we appreciate the enormous courage shown by so many men and women over the years, and still today, who risk their all for the peace, security and well being of others. Today we remember their courage, are thankful, and are inspired by it. We can be inspired by Paul’s courage too, in a different way.

“Keep on speaking!” We have responsibilities as speakers.
...

Listening and speaking about this wonderful news about Jesus.
There’s lots more that could be said about both, but for many of us, it’s not more talk we need, it’s simply action. And so I end with the challenge, to all of us, that we take our responsibilities as listeners and speakers to heart, and take the wonderful news of Jesus to heart, and live as listeners and speakers.

And so let’s pray...

Sermon from Sunday 7th November 2010

Today our Vicar, Cameron Barker, preaches based on the reading from Acts 17: verses 16-23.
Have you heard the one about the anthropologist going to study the peoples of a far-flung tropical island? He found a local guide to take him up-river in a canoe, to where he would make his observations. On the 2nd day they began to hear drums. The anthropologist asked nervously, “What does this mean?”

The guide said, “Drums OK, but very bad when they stop.”

As they travelled on, the drums grew ever louder. The anthropologist grew ever more nervous, but the guide kept saying, “Drums OK; drums not bad. When drums stop, then very bad!'

Suddenly the drums stopped. The terrified anthropologist yelled to the guide: “The drums have stopped! What happens now?”

The guide crouched down, put his hands over his head, and said: “Guitar solo.”

OK so there's no deep spiritual point here: except perhaps that we all need help when we first encounter a foreign culture! We need to know what does happen when the drums stop, or we could be in big trouble. That principle applies to us today, as we study Paul's encounter in what appears to be such a foreign culture. Strange as this may sound, though, in some ways Athens was a more foreign for Paul than it is for us. But there are other significant cultural differences that we must grasp. Unless we do we won't understand what's going on here and why.

Having said that I don't intend to spend much time looking at cultural differences! These ones are fascinating, and we could take most of our time to examine them. But if we do we will miss the most important points from this clash of cultures, and philosophies! So, what are those most important points for us here? I'd say there are three. They don't all come directly from passage itself; but they are: 1. Instant success isn't guaranteed, not even with God; 2. That's no excuse to give up without trying; and 3. We must be willing to take the long view.

I will come back to those; but we first need to look at the story in detail. Half-term means we've had 2 weeks away from Paul and his companions – including Luke, the writer of Acts. We left them moving away from the excitements of Philippi, at the 'request' of the city leaders. That was at the end of Acts 16. Today we're picking up in the middle of chap. 17, where we find Paul in Athens, on his own. Why? Well, to put it simply, there had been more trouble! From Philippi Paul went to Thessalonica; there he preached in the synagogue as normal; and that literally caused a riot! Paul only just escaped being lynched; but other believers were arrested and punished. So they had asked Paul, Silas and co. to leave in a hurry; and they did!

Looking at the map, they went a fair distance – to Berea. Undeterred by his latest experience, Paul went to the local synagogue, to preach about Jesus. But before long word got back to Thessalonica; and a delegation of angry Jews turned up intent on causing trouble. Paul was clearly seen as the main problem this time, because he was the only one made to leave. The local believers decided to make sure this problem went a long way away. They didn't just put Paul on a boat; they got on it with him – to Athens! Again, looking at the map, Athens was a long way away. And it's possible that Paul himself wouldn't have chosen to go there then.

I know what you're thinking: this is where point 1 comes from – Instant success isn't guaranteed, even with God. But you're wrong! Think about it: aren't there letters, from Paul, to the churches – in Philippi and also Thessalonica? He didn't write to a church in Berea; but these other letters speak loud of the success of this part of Paul's journey. Years later Paul wrote to people he knew, to churches that he had founded. These were churches that had in turn grown and spread, as they had followed Paul's example, and heeded his teaching, on preaching and living the good news about Jesus. For Paul success wasn't measured by if he was or wasn't beaten, arrested, or forced to leave town. What counted was the legacy of a thriving church.

It is in fact from Paul's experiences in Athens that the 1st point comes. We didn't hear the end of this story today, and we won't next week. You'll need to read the rest of Acts 17 for yourself. Then you'll find out both more of what Paul said in the city council meeting and also just how few people responded to his preaching. And it is significant that there is no letter from Paul to the church in Athens in the NT. The evidence is that by his own measurement Paul was remarkably unsuccessful there. But instant success is not guaranteed, remember. And so this fact of Paul's apparent failure in Athens is both unsurprising and surprising at the same time.

This is where we need to grapple with some of the cultural and philosophical stuff. I'll do it as simply as I can, not least because its depths are beyond me. But I do know that Athens really was (and is) the cradle of Western civilization. That 2nd part may surprise you – but it is true: so much of what and how we think and live here today dates back to Greek philosophy from 4th Century BC on! Yes, much of it comes to us now in modern guises; but there really is little new under the sun. Our philosophical fathers are thinkers like Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. To that list add Zeno and Epicurus, founding fathers of the Stoics and Epicureans.

Those were the two main schools of philosophy that Paul encountered in Athens. And it was quite a clash! As a Jew Paul's thinking patterns were very different to Greek ways. That's why I said that Athens was more foreign to Paul than it would be to us! And he clearly wasn't impressed by what he heard – or saw – in Athens. Luke says what Paul truly thought in today's 1st verse. Not to understate it, Paul was horrified! There's a whole sermon to be preached about idols, and how we respond to them as Christians. I preached that here, on this passage, 7+ years ago. This is different, because we now need to hear another message.

As I've said, this time we're learning about: the nature of success; whether we give up without trying; and taking the long view. But next we need to focus on the cultural stuff a bit. We may recognise the underlying philosophy of Greek culture, even if we couldn't name it as such. But I'd guess most of us don't 'get' how much danger Paul was in! It sounds friendly enough to us, this invitation to speak in the Aeropagus/city council meeting. Paul received it as a result of his speaking in the market place as well as preaching in the synagogue. People in Athens spoke in the market place, so Paul joined in, and gained much attention doing so.

This wasn't a friendly invitation, though. We get a hint of that from what the philosophers called Paul: an ignorant show-off, or 'babbler'. They also accused him of preaching about foreign gods. That was a crime in Greece, for which Socrates himself was tried and punished. And there was quite a threat in how Paul was invited to speak too. The NIV is right to translate it as a question in verse 19: 'May we know what this new teaching is?' If Paul's answer had been 'No', that would have shown this was a secret society, with certain information restricted to members only – and those didn't down well in Athens.

To be clear, this was an amazing opportunity for Paul. Pitfalls and all, he was being invited to present the truth about Jesus to the leading Gentile thinkers of his day. So that's what he then did, in very clever ways intellectually and philosophically. The details of that are also now for another sermon. It's worth noting now though, that Paul began at a point his hearers recognised. He chose something they already knew: that altar to an unknown God. Even in his summary of what Paul said Luke included some of his quoting of leading Greek poets and philosophers. But what Paul went on to say was no attempt to pretend that the gospel of Jesus only needed minor variations to Greek thinking.

Rather Paul showed how radically different way this was. He even challenged 1 foundation of the Aeropagus itself. This council was based on the belief that resurrection couldn't exist: and Paul said not just that it does, but that the whole gospel hinges on it. No wonder this message met with so little enthusiasm in Athens! For the Greeks to have received Jesus would have taken a fundamental shift in their philosophy and theology; and those don't happen quickly! Not many in the Aeropagus even wanted to hear Paul speak about this again – much less came to faith that day. And so Paul didn't establish a church in Athens: he failed, then!

In many ways there couldn't have been a better man than Paul for this job. He was bright, well trained theologically and philosophically, and a fearless preacher. But even he knew that he was unlikely to get very far, if anywhere, here. It is true that even with God instant success isn't guaranteed. We need to learn that lesson with Paul as we seek to live and share the gospel here today. But we also need to see how knowing that didn't stop Paul from trying – and his best at that. Paul found access points; he identified with Greek culture; he started from where they were and tried to lead them on. He may have doubted that he would succeed in Athens. It was too much for any one person to take on; but he still tried.

Nobody can know if Paul was taking the long view here. We know that he didn't stay too long in Athens, taking on their philosophers. Whether or not he thought his job was done, or impossible, he moved on. Paul preached the gospel in the rest of Greece, and in other places, with more obvious success. But I was so struck last week by what the judge said when sentencing the woman who stabbed the MP Stephen Timms. The judge spoke of Mr Timms' Christian faith, and how that supplies the values that our common law was founded on. More than that, the judge said that they still underpin our systems of law and justice today, and must continue to do so.

And I think that we have Paul and others like him to thank for that! Paul didn't expect instant success. Even when he feared failure, he didn't not try. In time the truth he taught became part of a culture to which it was once so foreign. We too can, and must, take the long view in our preaching and living of the gospel today. We may be successful; even if we're not, we mustn't ever stop trying – because God can, and will, take our efforts, and work them into his long-term plan amazingly. So let's pray ...

Sermon from July 2003

Here's Cameron's sermon from July 2003 based on the reading from Acts 17: verses 16-34
Now there’s a question! ‘How upset / distressed do you get when you see idolatry all around you?’!

Of course that’s a question grammatically speaking – but it’s not just any old question. I’ve raised it now at the start because it might well be the most important question this passage from Acts 17 invites us to ask today. So let me repeat it – and then give you some time to brood over it: ‘how upset / distressed do you get when you see idolatry all around you?’ …

Now I could hazard a guess as to how most people would have answered that question: ‘you what?!’ Idolatry isn’t a topic that usually crops up in everyday conversation within most churches let alone outside them! I think we tend to see idolatry as an Old Testament problem rather than a contemporary one. I think that’s a serious – even dangerous – mistake to make, so it’s an issue I’ll be coming back to later. For now let me simply remind you that idolatry is anything that takes a place ahead of God in our life – and then point us back to Paul.

As we come to the end of the series we’ve been engaged with since Easter, we need to review where we’ve been and why. Regulars will know well that we’re embarked on a year of growing outwards. This is the year in which our main focus is on seeing other people come to faith in Jesus. To encourage and help us, we’ve been looking at how the early church grew so effectively and quickly. We haven’t thought specifically about what drove the early church to want to grow – but that has been an important sub-text throughout this series.

Today I want to bring that sub-text to the forefront for a while – in the hope that will carry us on into the summer. And I want to say there were 2 main factors in the desire of the early church to see others come to faith. The first factor was positive: sheer enthusiasm for Jesus!

What we have to remember is that the early church was mostly made up of Jews. As a nation Israel had believed in the promise of God’s Messiah for centuries. They had looked forward to his arrival eagerly. Remember, they expected the Messiah to bring not just liberation from their enemies but a whole new start with God. So when these Jews came to believe God had kept his promise and had sent Jesus as his Messiah, that was something to be hugely excited about!

I’d liken it to the first flushes of being in love. Those first Christian experienced that all-consuming rush of passion. With it came an overwhelming desire to tell everyone what had happened to them. The faith they now had in Jesus as Messiah changed everything: it dominated their lives and their purpose in how and why they lived. Persecution may soon have become part of the package. But despite even that, they could no more not talk about what God had done in Jesus than they could choose to stop breathing!

Of course they wanted to tell the people who were most likely to grasp the significance of Jesus. Throughout most of Acts, in every town the Christians went to preach the gospel they headed first to the Jews – as Paul did here in Athens. Their enthusiasm for Jesus drove them to share this good news with people who would understand it as such. And they persisted with that approach – even when
the reaction wasn’t always what they would’ve hoped for.

So that’s the positive reason the early church grew as it did – the sheer excitement about what God had done. Is that how you feel about your faith? Do you long to share it with others because you’re so excited about what God has done? Are you so passionate about Jesus that living for him dominates every part of your life? If it’s not then we need to be reminded that God expects us to maintain that kind of passion for him. And it may be that hearing how these Christians lived will rekindle our passion too.

Perhaps it won’t; maybe then we need to hear the second reason the early Christians were so keen to share their faith. We might call it a negative reason, or at least a less positive one. It’s the reason we see stated outright here in Acts 17. In Paul’s words in verses. 30-31: “in the past God overlooked the times when people didn’t know him; but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has fixed day when he will judge the world with justice by means of the man he has appointed”.

That’s why Paul was upset / distressed by seeing a city so full of idols. What it represented to him was ignorance – not just of what God had already done, but what he had promised to do. I know judgment is not a trendy subject; but that won’t make it go away! If there’s 1 thing the Bible makes crystal clear it’s there will be a day of judgment. and Paul says here that God has already fixed the day – even if we don’t know when it will be.

This is a subject Peter tackled in his second letter. We may think God is being slow – but the day of judgment has not happened yet because God wants all people to turn to him. And that was the 2nd driver to mission for the early church. It was the certain knowledge that judgment is coming, and that how people respond to Jesus plays a vital part in deciding their eternal destiny. So their job was to tell people how in Jesus they could escape judgment.

Now you might think that’s another untrendy notion, this idea that how we respond to Jesus counts for anything. I’m sure people will tell you that if you talk to them about it. But knowing that didn’t stop Paul in Athens. Greek culture in Paul’s day didn’t believe in the existence of an afterlife at all. The concept of eternal judgment was totally foreign to them – and as for resurrection, that was madness! But Paul wasn’t going to be put off by local culture. What he saw in the idols in Athens was a dangerous ignorance of God’s action. He knew he needed to speak about that danger as widely and as persuasively as he could.

So Paul left the Jewish synagogue for the pagan market-place. And there he preached about Jesus to anyone and everyone who passed by. Of course the local intellectuals didn’t let him get away with that. The market-place was their territory; there they debated philosophy and politics and whatever else came their way. So the Epicurean and Stoic teachers went at it with Paul – and were impressed enough by his learning to offer him a bigger stage.

Paul was invited to speak at a city council meeting and present his case for the gospel there. How he did so was very clever - and very instructive for us. It clearly wouldn’t have made any sense for Paul to speak about Jewish history; his audience didn’t have the background to understand the significance of it. Instead he found hooks into the local culture, and used those to talk about God.

There’s another good question for us: how well do we find hooks into our culture? We live in a society in which the vast majority of people say they believe in God, but only a tiny minority believe in Jesus. How do we make the kind of jump that Paul did? He picked up on the altar he’d come across in Athens – the one dedicated to an unknown God. Paul used that to introduce them to Jesus. He also affirmed the local culture, quoting Greek poets to them. So how do we do that too: how can we affirm our local culture for the sake of the gospel?

Those are questions well worth grappling with. But I invite you to note that wasn’t all Paul did. He said very clearly that the local culture was wrong, and so were their poets because they didn’t go far enough! Paul told the brightest and smartest people in Athens outright: they needed to repent, turn to God, if they wanted to be safe when God’s judgment comes. And there’s another set of challenges for us: when and how do we tell our culture it has got things wrong? And yes, I know that’s very hard in the post-modern era when we’re told there is no one right way.

I want to go back to Paul again because there’s plenty more to learn from his evangelistic exploit in Athens! I think we need a lesson in evangelistic realism. It was a lesson that Paul learned the hard way in the Aeropagus that day. When he spoke of Jesus being raised from the dead, people began to sneer at him. In fact that pretty much ended Paul’s chance to present the gospel. What he had said was so far outside the Athenians’ frame of reference they couldn’t hear him.

I think we need to have that in mind when we present the gospel too. For some people the story of Jesus is literally in-credible: it can’t be believed. And there is a chance we will be sneered at as losers or weaklings or frauds if we say that’s what we believe. Anyone who watches or reads about Big Brother may have spotted something of that in the way my namesake has been treated in the media.

Well, that’s life: it happens! We can’t win them all, even if we wanted. But we can win some. And that’s what Paul also experienced in Athens. In the last verse of the reading we’re told that a handful of people believed; they weren’t enough to start a church as far as we know. But what’s important is that some people came to faith in Jesus even in a sophisticated trendy city like Athens. And the story of Acts is a story of what can happen from small beginnings.

The events in Athens are a great note on which to pause our Acts series for the summer. I say pause because we are coming back to Acts in September. Then we’re going to see what impact just one person – Paul – had for the gospel. But since Easter we have seen a wide range of people in action for their faith. Many have been rather more ordinary people than how we tend to see apostles like Peter or Paul. And what we’ve seen is these ordinary people praying, serving and preaching – which are the 3 things that make up our evangelistic strategy this year.

I hope this series has encouraged you to pray, serve and preach, and to feel you can. Today I hope you’ve thought a bit about what your motivation to do those things might be – sheer excitement at what God has done; or because you are sure there will be a day of judgment? And I hope you will begun to think of ways we can engage with our local culture. We need to know both how to affirm it and find in it a starting point to explain how Jesus is good news.

I said at the beginning that I needed to come back to the issue of idols. I need to because our city is full of them! Think of how many distractions there are from God round us. The list is long and seductive: money, power, sex, drugs; and more subtle ones like success, education and prestige. At the right time and in the right way we need to name those things for what they are: idols that our society worships.

Maybe we should be challenged by Paul’s distress at seeing such things in Athens. Maybe we should be just as challenged by what he did about it. His response was to preach the gospel – and to do it in a way that got him a hearing locally. There’s a challenge to take away for the summer: how can we present our faith in a way people won’t immediately dismiss us as naive or foolish? And if you want more, where do we need to tell postmodernism that it’s wrong or deluded? I have ideas – but no time!

Of course I want to urge you to go on praying, serving and preaching over the summer. Other ordinary people have done it before: God used them to bring people to faith: why shouldn’t he use you? Pray, serve and speak, knowing that individual people can make a difference – and come back to learn how Paul did. Above all this summer remember: what counts is not that we have great faith. What matters is that we have faith in a great God who wants people saved. So let's pray ...