I have been reading the report from the 9-11 Commission. I’m fascinated by some of the things I’m learning, but I also find myself feeling angry once again that our nation was so ruthlessly attacked.
I find myself thinking of all of the victims, the families and relatives of those who died, the innocent people who were so directly impacted by this event, and the terrorists. Nineteen hijackers, who have turned the world upside down. (Think about that number, only 19)
Look around this Sanctuary. Nineteen people. That’s less than it takes to fill two pews in here this morning and that small group has caused trouble all over the world.
Small groups of people have always had the power to change the world.
Fortunately, the change does not always have to be such a negative and hate-filled change.
In our New Testament lesson, we see another small group that changed the world – Paul and Silas.
They changed the world, “turning it upside down” for the better.
Small groups have always had that power – to change the world for better, or for worse.
There were 19 highjackers on September 11th.
But there are more than 19 Christians here.
There are, on any given Sunday, over 300 people worshipping in the services here at Good Shepherd.
There are over 700 members in our church.
There are over 2 and a half million Christians in the Presbyterian Church, USA.
There are over 2 billion Christians in all of the various denominations of Christianity.
You cannot tell me that 19 people who set out to destroy and hurt and kill have more power than 2 billion who are called by God to love others and to change the world for the better.
It only takes a few people, if they are truly committed to what they believe in, to change the world, for good or for bad.
One of the things that fascinate me about our New Testament text from the Book of Acts is that it gives us a good handle on how to behave as Christians in the modern world, and as we deal with the secular, non-Christian world.
I think this is also a passage in which we see Paul learning and growing.
The lesson begins with Paul and his small group going to the city of Thessalonica. Paul goes to the synagogue and he begins to teach the Jews that Jesus is the Christ. The Jews have been waiting for the Christ or the Messiah, and now Paul tells him that the Messiah has come, and that the Messiah is Jesus.
Paul always had a habit of rubbing people the wrong way. He is direct and often abrasive. He’s passionate, but not always compassionate.
And time and again in the Book of Acts, he is in conflict with the community around him.
Things in Thessalonica get bad enough for Paul and Silas to leave town. Their next stop is Berea, a city that Luke, the writer of the Book of Acts says was inhabited by “people of more noble character than in Thessalonica.”
But those Thessalonicans! They can get over their anger with Paul and when they learn that he is in Berea preaching the Gospel, they send people to Berea to cause trouble for Paul.
So Paul and his group leave Berea.
At this time the small group of Christians have separated for a brief time and Paul finds himself alone in Athens, waiting for his companions to join him.
The Book of Acts says that while he was there, “he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols.”
He spent his time preaching with fellow Jews and God-fearing Greeks, but then he finds himself approached by people of different religious faiths and philosophies. Acts refers to them as a group of Epicurean and Stoic philosophers.
There is no reason for us to discuss right now what these particular philosophies believed and taught.
What is important is that these were non-Christians, and we can learn a lot by how Paul deals with them.
We need to deal with non-Christians in our world.
We don’t want to be looked upon by the non-Christians in our community as being a bunch of troublemakers. Nobody likes to be labeled that way.
Troublemakers destroy and cause havoc. We want to build up, encourage love and justice.
What Paul does here is to do three very important things. And these are three things we need to do when we invite people to our church or to become Christians.
First, Paul goes to them. He doesn’t just wait for others to come to him. He meets people where they are. In the Book of Acts, Paul goes to the Areopagus, which was an important hill where the people of Athens believed the mythical god Ares had been murdered.
We are very reluctant to go to people and ask them to become Christians or to join us in church.
I’m not suggesting that we walk down the street and simply knock on the doors of strangers. That may have worked at one time, but in our present society, most folks don’t feel comfortable with strangers knocking on their doors.
But on the other hand, we just wait for people to come to us and we never invite folks to come to experience Jesus Christ.
My father and I were fishing one time and we were in a boat. The fish in the lake were very active, they were jumping out of the water all around us. It was frustrating. You’d see a fish jump up over there, and I’d cast my line over there, and then there would be another fish jumping up over yonder, and I’d cast my line over yonder! But I wasn’t catching anything.
Now, what I am about to tell you is true!
I did not make this up!
My father and I were sitting in the boat and one of the fish jumped out of the water and landed in my boat.
Most of us approach evangelism that way. We are sitting in our pews and we are just hoping that some soul will jump up and land right next to us in the pew.
Well sometimes that happens. People do walk into a church without an invitation. And that happens more than fish jumping into a boat.
However, what we need to do is to go out where the people are and invite them in.
And again, you don’t have to knock on the doors at the homes of strangers or pass out pamphlets to people coming out of a baseball stadium.
How do you share Christ?
Well, how do you share with people a television show you like?
How do you invite folks to read a book you enjoyed?
How do you tell people about a great restaurant you discovered?
You don’t tell these things to strangers. You tell them to people you know in the places where you see them.
At work, at school, at your community club, or walking in your community and chatting with neighbors.
You need to find a way to share Christ that is culturally appropriate, and that is comfortable for you and for the person you share Christ with.
That’s what Paul does here. He found a way to share Christ in a way that was culturally appropriate for the people of Athens, and in a way that everyone was comfortable.
You have an important opportunity in the days ahead. When we have the 40 Days of Purpose it will be easier than ever before to reach out to others for Christ.
How much more comfortable and culturally appropriate can this be?
You don’t have to invite them to come to a church. A lot of people have never been to a church, or they haven’t been since they were children, and they feel uncomfortable accepting an invitation from you to come to church because they are afraid they won’t know what to do or when to stand and sit and sing.
But wait – during the 40 Days of Purpose, you can invite friends and coworkers to go with you to someone’s home and to be part of a small group that is studying the questions of life – such as “what on earth am I here for?”
It is not threatening to them. In fact, it is the kind of thing that most people would be interested in – Christian or not.
In our New Testament lesson, Paul met people where they were, and so can we.
A second thing that Paul does in the Book of Acts is that he has respect for other people and their beliefs – even if he doesn’t agree with those beliefs and even if he is troubled by them.
When Paul arrives in Athens, he sees all of the various temples to different idols, false gods.
But when he talks to the people who worshipped these false gods, he doesn’t attack them. He doesn’t put them down. He doesn’t insult them or degrade them.
I suspect that was a challenge for Paul, because he was so passionate for God and for truth.
But in this case, he was not a trublemaker.
He was a peacemaker, bringing people to God with love and respect.
Instead of putting down the worship of false gods, he finds a common ground. The people of Athens are spiritual people, searching for God.
He looks at them and says, "Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else … Seek him and reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ’For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ’We are his offspring.’”
No one likes to be put down for his or her faith or beliefs. When we talk to people about Jesus, what is most important is that we introduce them to Jesus, not debate the poverty of their values or beliefs.
The third thing that Paul does here is to state his faith very clearly.
Now we might say that this was easy for Paul – after all, he was one of the great theologians of all time, and anyone who deals with Christian theology must deal with Paul.
But the faith that Paul proclaims to the men of Athens was a clear and simple statement.
There is a God, He really does exist.
He made us, and the rest of the universe.
He loves us, and wants us to seek him and to serve him.
He sent His son Jesus Christ so that we might be able to find him and have a relationship with God the Father.
When preachers stand at the front and say, “Share the Gospel, share your faith with others” a lot of people sit in the pew and say, “Yeah, right…”
“That is not going to happen…”
I know many of you think that because you feel uncertain about what to say, and how to say it, and you don’t feel like seminary trained theologians.
But you don’t have to do that – you don’t need to explain the Trinity, or predestination, or transubstantiation – whatever that is.
You don’t have to suddenly begin to talk about the complexities of doctrine and theology.
Instead, talk about a relationship.
A relationship with God who made us and loves us and wants us to seek him.
That is what Paul did.
And Paul was a highly educated man – and he was talking with highly educated philosophers – and while he mentions a few doctrinal statements in passing, the center of his talk with them was this:
(Acts 17:27-29)
“God (wants us to) seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.
When the Forty Days of Purpose arrives and you invite people to join us in our study, think about that. We’re not asking you to become a scholar and teacher of complex doctrines. We are asking you to invite people into a relationship – a relationship with God, who loves them and who made them.
You and I have the power to turn the world upside down – not as troublemakers, but to change the world for the better by inviting people to join in a loving relationship with God.
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Written by Maynard Pittendreigh
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