6 Easter, Yr A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
6 Easter, Year A (2023) The Rev. Karen C. Barfield
Acts 17:22-31 St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church
John 14:15-21
In the name of the one, holy, and living God:
in whom we live, and move, and have our being. Amen.
This morning we witness an encounter between the Gospel and the world it is meant to transform.
Paul has been traveling now on his second missionary journey,
experiencing varying degrees of success.
Invariably each time he teaches and preaches he converts some Jews, Greeks, and even prominent women.
But, for as many as become his followers,
many more are angered and come after him to kill him.
Just such a group of angry Jews followed Paul from Thessalonica to Beroea
and there began to incite the crowds against him as well.
So some of the believers,
fearing for Paul’s life,
quickly escorted him down the coast to Athens.
Paul then finds himself alone in Athens –
a cosmopolitan city where just about anything goes.
As he wanders the city he argues in the synagogues, the marketplaces, the street corners –
anywhere that people will listen –
and then he finds himself in front of the Areopagus
addressing the philosophers and perhaps even Roman leaders in the city.
“Athenians,” Paul says,
“I see how extremely religious you are in every way.
“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.’”
Now, Paul’s address to the Athenians seems very supportive,
but Luke, our storyteller,
has already told us that Paul was deeply distressed at the sight of so many idols in the city.
As Luke relates the story,
Paul very cleverly does not try to deny Greek philosophy,
but rather recognizes it as a legitimate conversation partner.
He does not condemn “the poets among you” in order to assert the truth of the gospel.
Instead he proclaims God
– the God of the Hebrew tradition –
as the unknown god whom they already worship.
Paul is finding common ground upon which to build his case for Christ.
Paul proclaims the God who created the world and everything in it
– the “Lord of heaven and earth”
as the God for whom they all search and grope.
He then continues by saying that once people find God,
they will then recognize their need for repentance.
Every time I read this passage in Acts,
I am struck by these words:
“so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for God and find God.”
It seems that we are all created to search for God,
grope for God,
feel around in our hearts and our lives and reach out for God.
Indeed, I believe that we,
each in our own way,
search for and long for this God who knows us,
who created us,
and who indeed is not far from each one of us.
And, by “us,” I mean the whole of humanity.
Everyone, in some way, longs for God and God’s presence.
One of my favorite movies is about a young man who sought God and redemption without ever really knowing that it was God for whom he groped.
He was a young African man – perhaps in his late teens – named Tsotsi.
He had been orphaned at a young age and grew up with other orphans,
living in sections of large concrete conduit,
that had apparently been abandoned at an old construction site,
in the middle of a desolate field on the edge of the city.
The boys fended for themselves,
learning how to survive alone on the streets,
using guns and knives to make a living by stealing anything they could get their hands on - instilling fear in their victims.
One day this young man was out in a rainstorm,
watching a house,
waiting for the owner to arrive home at the end of the day.
A nice sedan pulls up to the front gate, and the driver – a woman – points the gate opener toward the gate, but the gate doesn’t open.
After a few moments she quickly jumps out of the car and buzzes her husband at the intercom by the gate to open the gate from inside the house.
As soon as she leaves the car,
Tsotsi jumps in and begins to back out of the driveway.
Seeing him trying to steal the car,
she opens the passenger side door,
only to be shot in the stomach.
She falls to the ground,
and he drives away.
As Tsotsi leaves the city and is driving down a deserted road,
he suddenly hears the cry of a baby.
He stops the car, checks the back seat, and finds a baby bundled up in a car seat.
And the baby is hungry.
And the baby wants his mother.
It is clear that Tsotsi doesn’t know what to do.
He can’t very well take the baby back.
He doesn’t even know if the baby’s mother is alive.
He can’t take care of the baby.
He can barely take care of himself.
But something tugs at his heart –
a love he’s never before experienced.
He takes the baby home to his corrugated tin shack –
a great accomplishment in his life –
a place of his own off the streets.
He puts the baby in a paper sack and leaves him on the floor.
Tsotsi then leaves to exchange the stolen car for the money he needs to live on.
When he returns,
he realizes from the smell in his one-room home that the baby needs a diaper.
He, of course, has no diapers,
so he wraps some newspapers around the baby’s bottom
and puts his clothes back on him.
The stiffness of the papers chafe the baby,
and he screams even louder.
I won’t relate to you the whole story,
but you get the sense of the tragedy of it all.
Here is a young man, alone and lost –
caught up in surviving the only way he knows how –
bringing ruin and devastation to many along the way.
But through this little baby, he glimpses Life,
a yearning for love,
a sense of belonging,
an awakening to the Creator – the Lord of heaven and earth for whom he begins to grope
– a searching for an unknown God.
The story takes many twists and turns – along with a few boxes of Kleenex!
I won’t tell you all, but (spoiler alert)
in the end Tsotsi returns the baby to his parents.
He is in the middle of the street,
surrounded by police guns all pointed straight at him.
The baby’s father tells the police to put down their guns,
and he walks up to this broken young man,
receiving his infant son back into his arms.
Tsotsi knows the wrong he has done,
yet he has experienced redemption by an unknown God.
Now, while the particulars of Tsotsi’s story differ from our own,
and while some of us may not be so well versed in Greek philosophical debate,
I would hazard a guess that we each in our own way search for the God
in whom we live, and move, and have our very being.
In today’s Gospel Jesus tells his disciples just before his arrest and crucifixion:
“I will not leave you orphaned;
I am coming to you.”
Indeed, Jesus tells his disciples - and us -
that he abides in the Father,
that we abide in Jesus,
and that Jesus abides in us!
We all share in the indwelling of God – what awesome news!
God meets us wherever we are,
in whatever circumstances we find ourselves,
beckoning to us,
drawing ever closer,
offering us redemption and abundant life.
Amen.
