Sermon for the Sixth Sunday of Easter
May 29, 2011
The Rev. Leslie E. Chadwick

Acts 17:22-31 
Psalm 66:7-18
1 Peter 3:13-22             
John 14:15-21

Two weeks ago, as we said goodbye to Peter and Wisnel, our reading from Acts challenged us to think about one of our promises at baptism.  Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, the breaking of the bread, and the prayers?  Today’s reading from Acts challenges us to look at another baptismal promise, “Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?”  Most of our youth who are getting confirmed think of this promise as one of the hardest.  They are relieved that we have been given an “out” by this famous quote attributed to St. Francis: “Preach the Gospel at all times.  If necessary use words.”

Why do words scare us so much?  We Episcopalians have an aversion to forcing what we believe on others.  Many of us, especially those of us from the South, have had unpleasant experiences of people accosting us and demanding if we are saved.  There is no context of friendship or relationship—it’s as if those evangelists have a quota they’re supposed to make, an obligation to give a pre-scripted spiel to relieve their own conscience;— they have done their part so that God can check off their report card in heaven.  They are as grating as a telemarketer rushing to read as much of a script as possible before someone slams down the phone. Their words sound and feel like blunt weapons.

But today’s reading from Acts invites us to think about evangelism another way.  As story.  Stories open us up instead of shutting us down. They relax us instead of keeping us tense and defensive.  And they are important tools for helping us think about things, to get perspective.  A famous movie from 1989, “When Harry Met Sally” plays with the importance of storytelling.  The movie opens with a documentary of an old married couple.  The man begins, “I was sitting with my friend Arthur Kornblum, in a restaurant.  It was a Horn and Hardart cafeteria. And this beautiful girl walked in and I turned to Arthur and I said, Arthur, you see that girl?   I’m going to marry her.  And 2 weeks later we were married.  And it’s over 50 years later and we are still married.”  Throughout the movie, Harry and Sally move in and out of relationships.  The world of dating and love seems much more complicated than that first story suggests.  But at the end of each tumultuous chapter in their lives, we hear more old couples looking back on their lives telling their stories from a place of contentment.  Those stories anchor the movie, and by the end, 12 years and 3 months later, Harry and Sally are able to tell their own love story from a place of humor and maturity.

In today’s reading, Paul tells a love story from a place of calm and maturity.  He doesn’t use words as blunt weapons.  He is a master storyteller.  A professional Evangelist. He was officially commissioned by the church of Antioch, who laid hands on him and Barnabas and sent them out with the Holy Spirit to proclaim the word of God all over Greece (13:3).  He’s one of those rare people who has clarity about what he was made for.  He is not a pleasant person.  He doesn’t win friends and influence people by charm.  He’s a force of nature.  Paul’s encounter with Christ may have changed his life, but it has not changed his personality. We are told that he gets annoyed with people (16); he yells insults at folks who get in his way (13); he gets kicked out of most cities he enters for disturbing the peace.  Just before our reading, he has split “with the band” because Barnabas wants to bring back John Mark who deserted them in Pamphylia. Paul stomps off with Silas and Timothy only to get chased out of a town for “turning  the world upside down.” We see him now all alone, waiting by himself in Athens for his friends to join him.  I imagine his kicking stones, reading monuments, and sightseeing to pass the time.  As he reads the inscriptions on each bust, Paul is “deeply distressed to see that the city [is] full of idols.”  He starts to argue with people in the marketplace.  So they take Paul to the Areopagus where Athenians and foreigners “spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.” 

Based on past behavior, we might expect Paul to launch into a diatribe against idols.  But he does not sound angry or distressed as he begins his story.  He has been brought to a place where it’s appropriate to tell and hear each other’s stories and teachings as the ancient philosophers did.  He doesn’t start with his own story as he does in Galatia, “you have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism. I was violently persecuting the Church of God and was trying to destroy it.”   He doesn’t tell of his dramatic conversion when blinded, he was knocked to the ground and heard Jesus’ voice.   He is calmed by his surroundings and begins respectfully; he puts a positive spin on his hosts’ pantheism: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.”  He’s paid attention to their world, their “world view” (Randall R. Mixon, pastoral perspective F on W, 474), “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.”  Paul looks for and finds an opening in their seeking and “religious curiosity” (Mixon, F on W, 472 and John S. McClure, Homiletical Perspective, 473, 475).  Then he proceeds with a beautiful summary of the story of God’s love for us from creation to the end times.  He is not  anxious about the Athenian’s conversion.  He simply tells the story that has become his own.  And he tells it with love and maturity.  He includes the Athenians in the story of God’s creation; they are God’s family and children.  He describes God as one who knows them and wants to be made known.  He is not an image of gold, silver or stone formed by the art and imagination of mortals. Paul concludes with Jesus’ being raised from the dead. Some people scoff, but others say, “We will hear you again about this….”  Some even join him on his journey.

This reading suggests that proclaiming the good news of God in Christ is not so much  about forcing a message on people as it is claiming the story of God’s love as our own and sharing it with others.  It is hard to tell a story before we know how it’s going to turn out in our own lives.  It takes a while for us to mature and to look back on things.  How God has been present in our lives.  How his love has shaped and guided us.  It’s important to pause and reflect from time to time on what this story means for us.  I saw people doing that in a concrete way this week on a Caringbridge website for an old college friend who is ill.  Not everyone wrote about God’s story, but a surprising number put their encouragement and good memories from the past in the context of the Easter season.  The most moving entries were not quotations from poets or Scripture, urging this friend to stand firm against death.  The most moving entries wove together images of grace and love overcoming fear with stories of friendship.  Those stories were told with maturity and humor.  They were stories of a life changed, but of a personality still unchanged and going strong.  They were stories of people looking back to see God guiding them and leading them into new life.

May we not distance ourselves from the story of God’s love for us.  This love was made known to us in creation, in the calling of Israel to be God’s people, in the prophets, and above all in the Word made flesh.  May we tell that story to our children in Godly Play, to our families in the way we live, and to those we meet in word and deed.  May we let that story so permeate our lives that our lives become a love story.   Others who meet us as individuals and a congregation will long to hear that story and be a part of it.  Here’s the challenge for today: think about God’s love story as your own.  Ask yourself these questions. What about the story of God’s love speaks to you?  How does it help you live your life and face difficulties? Paul tells us:  God made the world and everything in it.  From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the earth…we all search for God and perhaps grope and find him—indeed he is not far from each one of us.  For in him we live and move and have our being.  He has given assurance to all of us by raising Christ from the dead.’

I will close with an old hymn,

“I love to tell the story love
        of unseen things above,
        of Jesus and his glory,
        of Jesus and his love. 
        I love to tell the story,
        because I know 'tis true;
        it satisfies my longings
        as nothing else can do…

I love to tell the story,
        for those who know it best
        seem hungering and thirsting
        to hear it like the rest. 
        And when, in scenes of glory,
        I sing the new, new song,
        'twill be the old, old story
        that I have loved so long.
Amen.