Sermons Online

return to archives

"An Anonymous God" by Rev. Charles Hoffman

May 5, 2002 Sixth Sunday of Easter
Acts 17:22-31

There's an old story about a young preacher who went to his bishop asking for advice. "What should I preach about?" was his question. The bishop thought a few moments and then gave his famous answer. "Preach about God, and preach about twenty minutes."

I don't know when that conversation took place, but the bishop's advice still stands. Maybe the twenty minute limit is even more important today than it used to be. Today we are accustomed to frequent commercial interruptions that give us a break in the action. I don't know, maybe that's how we should do the announcements in church.

But the bishop suggested the subject for preaching, too. Preach about God. Maybe you remember the story about the preacher who was giving the children's sermon. Once he had the kids gathered around him on the chancel steps he was ready to begin.

"Children," he said, "what has a bushy tail, gathers nuts, and lives in a tree?"

A little boy threw up his hand immediately. "Yes, Johnnie," said the preacher. Tell us what has a bushy tail, gathers nuts, and lives in a tree?"

"God," said little Johnnie.

Well that was one of those times when the children's sermon was over before it even got started. But following worship the preacher confronted the boy.

"Didn't you know I was talking about a squirrel?" he asked.

"Sure I did," said Johnnie, "But this is church and you're supposed to be talking about God, not about squirrels!" Talk about God. That's what we do in church. We talk about God in order to understand ourselves and to understand the world around us.

People often say that your concept of God doesn't make much difference. They suggest that all religions are going in the same direction. But they are wrong; nothing could be further from the truth. And that's true not only for different religions, but also within one religion such as Judaism or Christianity or Islam.

But let's stay with the one we know best, Christianity. If it were possible to visit five or six different churches on a Sunday morning it's conceivable that you would come away with that many different concepts of God. The differences might be subtle but they would be significant.

I saw a young mother in the bank the other day. She had two infants in the stroller, identical twin sons. She said she could tell them apart but her husband couldn't. Subtle differences matter. At numerous times in our history there have been Christians who believed that God told them to take up arms against the foe while others believed that God told them to lay down their arms. A few years ago a Jewish man said that God told him to assassinate the prime minister. Other Jewish men and women who worship the same God could not conceive of such a thing.

The challenge in trying to understand the nature of God is that of saying enough but not too much; certainly not more than you know. Some people's concept of God is too small; some too vindictive. Some people are comfortable with a nice God, a God who has little significance in everyday life.

Someone refers to God as the man upstairs. And usually that person's God might just as well be an upper-floor tenant in the apartment complex. He comes and he goes, but what he does nobody knows nor cares. So the little guy who sabotaged the pastor's story was right. His timing may have been off, but he was on the right track. When we come to church the subject is God.

But the quest for God is not limited to church. It's part of what it means to be human. Not only theologians, but philosophers, poets, and novelists also take up the subject in their own way. People seek God through art and music, in money and possessions, through power and pleasure.

Saint Paul saw the quest in Athens. Here were the most sophisticated expressions of this search for the Divine. Paul was the missionary to the gentiles. For Paul, God was revealed in Jesus the Christ who had died for our sins and been raised for our salvation. Paul felt compelled to share this good news wherever he went.

Now Athens was a place where they loved to debate and discuss and entertain new ideas. You get the feeling that there was a lot of intellectual stimulation but not much meaningful action. Over the years they had built a lot of idols in Athens. They even had one with the inscription, "To an unknown god." Paul had made special note of that one. So when they invited him to speak at a place called the Areopagus he decided to use that phrase as his text.

It was a clever move. He would reveal the identity of the one they referred to as the unknown god. So that's what he did. He told his audience that this God is the author of life and the creator of everything. So he doesn't need idols and shrines and altars. He told them that in spite of God's greatness, God is also very near to us, God's children (offspring). In fact, he said that it is in him that we live and move and have our being.

Paul's sermon aims to bring God out of anonymity for these sophisticated Athenians. And at this point he focuses the picture. This God, he says, is not only their Creator but also their Judge. So he urges his listeners to turn to God (to repent). And he assures them that his message is true because it rests on the fact of the resurrection of Jesus.

Well, the sermon had limited success. A few people believed him, others made fun of him, and some decided to sleep on it. That's the situation on Mars Hill that day. But here's the point I want to make for our day: Just as the Athenians preferred their unknown god to the one whom Paul described, so do we.

We don't do it on purpose. It's all very subtle. But there's a voice within all of us telling us that ignorance is bliss. There's some certain comfort in the idea that what we don't know won't hurt us. You see, to remain ignorant about the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ keeps us at a safe distance. But this God won't let us do that. This God is not content to remain anonymous. That's why this God comes to us not in a set of philosophical propositions to be debated in the academy, but in the flesh-and-blood person of the man Jesus of Nazareth.

And the beauty of it is that you don't need to be trained in the finer points of logic and debate to know the unknown, to put a name to the anonymous. All you need to do is to read the gospel. And when you do that you find that God is much more than a thin veneer hovering over the surface of your life. What you find is Someone whose being permeates the whole atmosphere of your life. Paul is clear. God is not an object to be invoked casually in the market or at a service club or even in church. God doesn't go in for small talk. In fact, Paul could easily have told the Athenians that God was dangerous. No one knew that better than Paul as evidenced by all the dangerous escapes he endured as a missionary.

The real God will stop you in your tracks and change the direction of your life. The real God makes unreal demands upon you. The real God causes you inconvenience, encourages risk, and applauds your willingness to be vulnerable for the sake of others.

Unknown gods don't do things like that. They can be domesticated, tamed, controlled and even set aside. You can count on them to be safe. But the whole idea of the Bible is to know God and to be known by God. So, says the book of James, draw near to God and God will draw near to you. What is desired is for that which is far off to be made near, for that which is lost to be found, and for that which is estranged to be made whole.

Blaise Pascal, the brilliant seventeenth century mathematician, scientist, philosopher and theologian could have participated well in the discussions of the Athenian intellectuals. But along with Saint Paul, God was for Pascal the known and not the unknown. The testimony of his faith was written on a piece of paper and sewn into the lining of his jacket. It was discovered there following his death at the age of thirty-nine. It gave the hour and date of his conversion. It said, "From about half-past ten at night till about half-past twelve. . . FIRE." And then these words: "God of Abraham, God of Isaac, God of Jacob. Not of the philosophers and scholars. Certainty, certainty, feeling, joy, peace."

Such is the experience of those who open their lives to the One in whom we live and move and have our being. Amen.