Introduction | Learning to Speak

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you have something to say, but you don’t have the means to say it? It could be that you’re in some sort of public meeting and the more you listen, the more words have escaped you, and then the more you want to say, and then maybe you get an opportunity, and the words you thought you had just won’t find their way to your mouth. Yet, I don’t really mean getting tongue tied, more have you ever found yourself in a place and wanting to speak, but the culture, the ways and the norms are so different it is hard to know even where to begin.

I remember the first time that I was travelling in terms of mission and I found myself in Senegal, and from the first moment of stepping off that plane into what felt like a wall of heat, to every conversation and moment – it was the realisation that there was so much I wanted to say and understand, and so much I could not even begin to say and understand because we where in a different place, with different way’s, language, and culture. Yet, in the few weeks that we where there we began to learn how to speak, understand and communicate – even though it was through the most simple gestures: we learned how to say hello in the local language, we learn the importance of stopping to talk to anyone and everyone even if you where in a rush because that was the local custom, we learned the importance of touch, and the importance of avoiding using your left hand in a world where it was considered unclean. We learned something about the culture around us in that moment and what it would mean for us to communicate the love of God by deed in the simplest of ways.

I remember on the last days of that trip finding myself sitting talking to someone whom I had only known for a few days, but suddenly sitting with them and trying to speak through broken English and different languages about the love that God had for them – it was the most painful of thigns and yet the most beautiful of moments. As with broken English and poor vocabulary, then with a made-up sign language and drawing in the dirt beneath us, we found a way to ask questions and to answer them. We found a way to speak hope to someone who was searching for it.

2 Beginning to Speak (22)

We join Paul this morning as his missionary journeys have long begun, and he has found himself in the middle of a culture and place that he knows little about. In the “Areopagus”, also known as the hill of Ares, or Mars Hill. It was a place where the Elite of that world and culture met to debate and discuss matters of all things: culture, philosophy, and religion. It was the place of premier thinking for its day when the world’s leading minds would come together to learn and think about the issues of their day. For us, it was like a meeting of the world’s leading minds, but, as for Paul in that moment, it was simply another opportunity to share about the God of the universe who loved the world so much that he sent his son into it so that the world might know him. Thus, Paul rises up not simply to debate religion or truth but to speak hope to a people who are in desperate need of it, and as he speaks, he shows us ways to both understand the culture and then to speak it the very thing that it has been looking for. Do you know what I love about the moment this passage begins? It is so simple sometimes I think we lose sight of it – the fact that Paul is there. That right at the beginning of the story of the church, a story that we are writing today in our place we are able to read of Paul in a culture that he knew so little about and they knew so little about him and the God he served and yet the Holy Spirit has moved him not to the edge of it, but right to the middle of it where minds and hears and being shaped.

The Spirit of God has moved him right to where God has wanted him to be for this very moment and purpose, thus in the simple words of Paul standing up to speak we are reminded of the missionary heart of God, and the missionary call of everyone of us who claim to follow Jesus; becuase the same God who was at work in Paul and though Paul is at work in each of us today and through us as a collective today – he is moving us to where he wants us to be and the places that he is calling us to “stand up” for him, and then begin to speak about him. He is calling us to the places where our culture is formed, where lives in our community are being shaped, not just to stand outside and pray, but to enter into and understand, and speak for the truth we know, and the joy we have received. I wonder where our Mars Hill might be in the streets around us today? Ulster University? The Flute bands that practice? The Order Lodge Meetings? The Community Centre? The Times Bar? The Mount? The Boxing Club? Grove? Duncairn Community Centre? Where are the places that God is moving us into the middle of so that we can begin to speak of his love for those who are there?

Secondly, I wonder if we notice how Paul speaks as he finds himself in a culture that would appear to be not simple to know nothing about Yahweh, but almost hostile to Him? Paul speaks positively: “People of Athens! I see that in every way, you are very religious.” Before he begins to speak about the love of God or the power of the Cross, he first speaks by showing that he understands something of the place that God has called him to, and that there are some good things about it. Too often, we think that speaking about God’s love in a prophetic way means taking on the stance of Jonah and beginning to speak against the city that we are in and the many sins that mark it and its culture. Indeed, we have seen much of what is evil about our moment in the news this week as Pastor Clive Johnston was found guilty of breaching safety zones for simply having a service of worship in the wrong place. Indeed, we must speak against things like and pray for those who take a stand. Yet, there are equally times when we can find what is Good around us and near us and then use it to point to the goodness of God. Paul understands that the Athenians are a deeply religious people, and this is not a negative, but rather a platform to point them to what their religion should be about – a relationship with the God who made them by the Son who died and rose again for them, through the Spirit who will sustain them. Thus, Paul begins not with condemnation, but with an invitation to positivity about the culture they are swimming in. We might call it “Common Grace” those things that are not bad, but act almost as a reflection of the goodness of God around us.

Those thigns in the world around us that point to God and his goodness to us through creation. Paul uses the religious element of life in Athens and then from it points to the God of the universe and the work of Christ on the Cross. I wonder as we gather to worship in this place and think about the streets around us and the places where lives are being shaped and formed for better or worse, what are some of the thigns that we might use to say: “this is good, but let me tell you about something a lot better.” In rising to speak and how he speaks, the Spirit of God is showing us a model of ministry and mission in our place and time: that we can only truly speak hope to a city desperately searching for it by first understanding it – not by affirming or compromising, but by understanding, and then from understanding speaking. Not only does Paul launch into hope by using common Grace, but he also takes something that expresses that religious culture and then uses it to speak openly about the God they are searching for.

2 Just Walking Through (23)

Paul has not just made his way straight to this place for this moment to speak about God; rather, he has taken his time to take in the city and all its culture. He has walked the streets, and as he has walked the streets, he has sought to understand what shapes life in the streets of Athens, and what communicates what their culture values. Thus, as he has wandered the streets, he has seen something that shows just how religious they are; for among their many shrines to the many Gods they can think of, they even have an Altar to the unknown God they can not be sure of, but still needs to worship to please and cover all their basis.

Thus, we have this image of Paul walking the streets of a city that worships many Gods, and praying that the Spirit might both protect him and then help him to find a way to speak about the only God of the universe. Then, as he is in this square and beginning to speak, an image comes to his mind, and from the altar to the unknown God, Paul begins to speak of the only God who not only wants to be known, but knows each of us and loves us. Paul tells them of the God that they have been searching for, and he does so not in that moment because he is smarter than any of us, but because he was willing to be used and brought to a place of culture, and in that moment, trusts that the Holy Spirit would give him the words to say and the images to use. In the year ahead, as we move out in mission and God brings us to those places where lives are being shaped and formed to speak of his love, we can also trust him to give us the words and images to make him known.

3 Making God Known (24-26)

Paul has been positive about the culture he has found himself in as he praises their religious culture and fervour, and then uses something from that culture to begin to speak about God. But he soon leaves being all that culture represents and thinks about the gods of the universe. Let’s be clear in this missional endeavour, being positive about the place or culture we find ourselves in does not mean ignoring or compromising our view of God. In a city that thought there were many Gods and many ways to truth, and had a confused creation story about how the world came into existence and humanity with it, Paul is clear about just how awesome and powerful this unknown God he is making known is, and what those implications are for all who hear about him. Paul might understand the culture that he is in, and he might see the bits that are shadows of God’s goodness through creation in terms of common Grace, but he does not stay there. He does not simply affirm the culture and then tell them they are okay, he understands it, speaks to it and then from it lifts their eyes to the only God. He tells them the world they are in has not been made as the result of some cosmic conflict but because of this unknown God who has made the world and everything in it – including them. Thus, he is the Lord of heaven and earth; he is the only God, all-powerful, all-knowing, and all good: he is all! Thus, in from his introduction where he praisd parts of the city that he found himself in, as Paul has begun to tell about the wonder of this God, he has systematically begun to expose the errors and lies of the world around them – there is only one God who made heaven and earth, not many and he cannot be contained in temples or places and has no need to be meet. You see, Athens was a religious culture, but it was an enslaved culture to its religious worldview. It was a place that not only thought there were many god’s, but that those god’s had many needs and thus by being religious and serving, worshipping at the temple, the people thought they might be able to please the god they were choosing to worship on that day. In one sentence, Paul had not only pointed to Yahweh, but pointed out how all the altars were pointless because God was not there, and how their own understanding of religion was wrong because this known God had no needs to meet. We speak to culture the truth of the Gospel, and as we speak it, we expose its sins and how it enslaves people. Yet, I wonder how we find ourselves living in a very similar way as we come to church and go through the week, not primarily from a place of relationship by faith, but through the lens of religion that tells us God must be approached a certain way, and we must do certain things in order to please him and serve him.

As Paul speaks in a way that critiques Athenian religious culture, and gives us the means of mission in our city, the Spirit might also be critiquing our own religious culture and how we end up telling people what it means to love God and worship him. As Paul goes on to make clear who this God is as the Lord of life and the giver of life, and the one who satisfies every need, and the one who is over every affair of nations and kings in his exposing of the lies of the Culture of Athens, he does so in a way that leads them out of their confusion into true life and purpose. Thus, as Paul invites the Athenians on Mars Hill out of religion and into relationship, and he invites us to the same missionary movement, heart, and culture, might he also be critiquing our own religious culture and heart as the spirit moves us to Grace in order to make known Grace. What Paul makes clear here is how Grace is not our means of relationship; it is our way of living and purpose.

4 Making His Purposes Known (27-29)

What is life for? That is primarily the purpose of the debates and discussions on Mars Hill, as the scholars and thinkers of their day gathered to think about the gods and life in the city, they were trying to figure out the purpose of life for the individual and all. Thus, Paul moves to simply debating about truths by pointing to the truth, to begin by calling people to consider their own lives and living and standing before God. And, how beautifully he does it as he moves from Grand ideas about truth to the wonder of relationship. As Paul speaks about this sovereign God, he moves to help the Athenians to understand that God did not simply make the world, he had a purpose in it – that all in the world might “seek after God and perhaps feel their way towards him and find him.” Yet, this was not going to be some impossible task that humankind was called to because this God who had made the world “is not far from any one of us.” In a religious culture that was seeking purpose and to please God, yet viewed it almost as an impossible challenge, Paul is making clear that in Yahweh, they have found the end of their searching and the beginning of their purpose. Yet, Paul might be speaking to a city some two thousand years ago, but how many of us need to be reminded of that today? God is not far off, and our purpose and joy are found in finding him. Not by the doing of things, or the religious movements of our cultures: not by going to church a certain number of times, or putting something into the church envelope weekly or wearing the right outfit to church, not even by serving in church – but in Him who made us, found us, and sustains us because “in him we live and move and exist.” As Paul shows us the truth to speak about God in mission, the Spirit might also be reminding us of the truth of how we live with God, by Grace through faith and not by religion or culture. Reverence before God is not the doing of things a certain way or the maintaining of a certain standard: It is a heart captured by Grace and humbled as it walks in Grace towards the purposes that God has given us, and a place where that Grace is made known in our love of one another.

Paul again beautifully and missionlly uses the culture of the place to affirm the truth that they have not seen as he quotes one of their own poets to help them see that they are created by an all-knowing and creating God: some of your own poets have endorsed this in the words, ‘For we are indeed his children’. As he moves to his conclusion, because if indeed we as humans are children of God, as in God is the Craftsman, the maker of thigns, then it should be impossible to think of God only in terms of God or Silver. The maker of all things cannot be made; rather, he has made known his purposes in the thigns he has made – you and me, and the world around us.

4 |Conclusion Being Certain of Hope (30-31)

As Paul begins to conclude, he answers a question that must have lived in the mind of those listening: if there is this all-powerful God, then why is the world in the state that it is in? Why are people living in such ways that go against him? Thus, in his answer Paul shows three layers to this truth: first, God has given grace in time by overlooking this in the past; but now he is calling the world to reptennce and to turn form their sins and look to him – There has been grace given in the past, but now God is revealing himself to all people, and in that revelation calling them to make a choice between trusting in him or their own ways. Why? because “he has set a day for judging the world with justice” by the man he has appointed.” Paul must speak of the things of God, because the season has changed, and now God is moving all of creation towards its final moment of this chapter for the beginning of the next, that day when sin shall be no more and suffering shall end. Whom will this judge be? The one who has been proved “to everyone” by raising him from the dead. The Lord who gives life has proved his power over life by raising the Son of Man from the dead and appointing him as judge over all. In other words, God will not tolerate the sinful state of the world forever, because he is just.

Yet, as Paul speaks of resurrection and judgement, as he speaks of the God who made all things and the Christ who will judge all things, we see that the gospel never leaves people neutral, because when the dead are raised, and Jesus is proclaimed as Lord, people must respond. Some sneered because resurrection sounded foolish to them, and the idea that God had acted in history through one man, one cross, one empty tomb, was too much for their proud minds to receive. Others said, “We want to hear you again on this thing you have been teaching us!” Why? because something had stirred in them, perhaps curiosity, perhaps conviction, perhaps the first movements of grace as the Spirit began to unsettle their settled world. Then others believed, and among them were Dionysius, Damaris, and a number of others, and I love that Luke names them because it reminds us that mission is never simply about winning arguments, changing culture, or having a clever answer in the public square, but about men and women, real people, with real names, real lives, real stories, and real souls being brought from searching to finding, from darkness to light, from idols to the living God, from vague religion to saving faith in the risen Jesus. That is what happens when the gospel is spoken boldly with Grace, by the Spirit and in a way the culture around it can understand. Some will laugh, some will linger, and some will believe! Our prayer is that all might believe; but we must remember that our call is not to control the reaction: it is to be faithful in the work that God has called us to; it is to be faithful in the loving, faithful in the entering, faithful in the understanding, and faithful in the proclaiming of Christ who knows us, and makes his love known by us.

So as we leave Mars Hill and return to York Street, to North Belfast, to the homes, streets, workplaces, clubs, lodges, campuses, cafés, bars, community spaces, and conversations where God has placed us, this passage calls us to see again that the world around us is searching for hope, even when it does not know the name of the hope it seeks. Paul teaches us that we do not speak that hope by hiding from the world in locked doors and old stone buildings; nor do we shout at the world from a safe distance in a pulpit that no one is listening to. Nor do we show God’s love by affirming everything around us as if all roads lead to God. Then how? By entering the places where people are and sometimes we would rather not go; then looking carefully and being wiling to listen honestly: sometimes even recognising the traces of God’s grace; and then by the power of the Spirit being willing to expose the idols that enslave by speaking clearly of the God who made us, the Christ who died and rose for us, and the day when all things will be made right in him.

As we were reminded of so wonderfully last week, the church does not do mission; it is missional in its heart because our God has a missional heart. This is our missionary calling as a parish and as disciples of Jesus: to stand where God has placed us, to speak hope to a world searching for it, and to trust that the same Spirit who carried Paul into Athens is still carrying ordinary believers into ordinary places, so that through broken words, simple conversations, faithful witness, and the power of the risen Christ, people like Dionysius and Damaris in our own streets may yet hear, believe, and find life in him.