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Sermon for April 26-27, 2008
The Sixth Sunday of Easter
Words and Works of Truth and Love--Acts 17:16-31, 1 Peter 3:12-22, John 14:15-21
We heard earlier that when St. Paul was in Athens, Greece, and saw that the city was filled with statues of gods and goddesses “his spirit was provoked within him”—he was angered, as if poked with a sharp point. Thinking about that, I couldn’t help but remember Carmen Bernos de Gasztold’s Prayer of the Hedgehog: “Yes, Lord, I prick! … How else can I defend myself?”
How do we respond when someone’s (or a whole people’s) religious beliefs, or disregard for religion altogether, clash with ours? For most of us, our natural response is like that hedgehog: to bristle-up in self-defense because we feel personally threatened or attacked. St. Paul bristled-up inside as well, but his response was not about himself or how he felt … it was about the universal truth of God in the life, sacrifice, and resurrection of Jesus. He spoke words of witness about Jesus in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout followers who gathered there … he went to the marketplace each day and spoke with whomever he encountered. The philosophers who taught and discussed the matters of life and truth didn’t know what to make of Paul and what he said … ‘he seems to be like a bird picking up seeds of various words and truths from here and there; he seems to be talking about a religion we don’t know anything about.’ Did they drive him away? No. Instead, they invited him to the Aeropagus—the place for public speaking—and said, ‘Tell us more; we want to know what this is all about.’
What a magnificent turn of events that was—Paul was invited to speak in public! You see, that feeling of being pricked and bristling-up didn’t lead Paul to blast them all out and condemn them to hell, it led to an opening. It led him to speak God’s Word of Life in Christ Jesus in truth and love … to bring them along by even complimenting them for their religious devotion and saying, ‘You have an altar to an unknown god—the one you’re not aware of; well, let me tell you who he is.’ He spoke the universal truths that God has made the earth and heavens … that he’s not confined to our earthly dwelling but yet gives life and breath to every person and creature of this earth. He told them that God has placed within us that desire, that seeking of him … that hope that we’d be brought to him and come to see that we are children of God—‘people who live and move and have their being in God,’ as even one of their Greek astronomer-poets had written. He told them to see that God is actually not far away from each one of us, and because of that we can come to him with a changed heart and mind and outlook … we can know the certainty of a new life through Jesus’ own rising to life.
How refreshingly different Paul’s approach was from the “lashing-out and telling how wrong others are” that Christians or people of any religion can easily fall into. It’s exactly what St. Peter encouraged of Christians even suffering hardship because of the faith they held … the words we heard earlier: ‘Have no fear of them; don’t be troubled, but in your hearts regard Christ as holy and always be prepared to give an explanation of the hope that is in you … but do it with gentleness and respect with a good conscience, for it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil.’ Isn’t that exactly what we see in the life of Jesus? Suffering because of doing the good will of God, not doing evil, and being restored to newness of life beyond death … so that all people of this earth might come to know the hope and truth and life that exist in him … so that all might come to the saving faith given by the Spirit in Baptism … so that all might come to the gracious forgiveness and fullness of life in Christ Jesus.
I recently read and article about religion in Nigeria. That nation is the most populated country in Africa: 140 million people (one-seventh of all Africans). It’s one of the rare nations where Christians and Muslims number almost the same. One story in that article was especially gripping … what happened between a Christian pastor and a Muslim imam. When James Wuye was 27, religious tensions erupted in his region, and (hating the Muslims), he joined a Christian militia. When he was 32, he woke up from up battle to find that not only were twenty of his friends gone, but so was his right arm. On the other side of the river was Muhammad Ashafa, a Muslim who grew up hating Christians, who also joined a militia. A Muslim holy man told Muhammad, “You will not cross the ocean with hate in your heart”, but when that holy man was killed and thrown down a well by the Christian militia, Muhammad vowed to kill James. But then he remembered his teacher’s words on hearing a sermon that we should not seek to destroy those who mistreat us. Muhmammad was moved to tears and experienced a profound change. The next time he met James he forgave him entirely, and even went to visit his sick mother in the hospital. It took James a while, but at a Christian conference he, too, heard words that changed him: “You can’t preach Jesus with hate in your heart.” They both got past the point of bristling-up in hatred and learned about love.
That Christian pastor and Muslim imam have been friends for more than a decade now and have worked to stop the violence and bring peace in their region and country. Pastor James affirms that Jesus alone is “the way, the truth, and the life” and would love to see Muhammad become a Christian, while Imam Muhammad would love to see Pastor James become a Muslim. But what propels their friendship is the dialogue they have with each other, like Paul did with the Athenians about their ‘unknown god’, as well as the gentleness and respect Peter counseled, saying, ‘It’s better to suffer doing good than to suffer doing evil.’
Well, we don’t have to be in Nigeria, and we don’t even have to be dealing with Muslims, but here in this congregation … in this town and wider region, we as people baptized into the life of Jesus—as people changed by the love of the Holy Spirit—have many opportunities to live out Paul and Peter’s words and works and witness. Even if we still bristle-up at first, may we look for and wait for an opening to proclaim Jesus as the Lord of life and living God of salvation; may we remember and be propelled by these words of Jesus: ‘Those who love me keep my teachings. And those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and make myself known to them.’ Grant this ever in our lives and world, O Lord God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—Amen!