Homily for Wednesday, 6th Week of Easter

Homily for Wednesday
6th Week of Easter

May 9, 2018                                      

Acts 17: 15, 22—18: 1

I didn’t actually preach this homily, which I prepared after misreading our liturgical assignments for this week.

In Acts 17 we read of St. Paul’s brief mission in Athens.  This most sophisticated Greek city makes a startling contrast with Corinth, Paul’s next destination (18:1-11).  Corinth was a moral sewer, yet Paul was welcomed there and stayed 18 months, whereas he made only a handful of converts and stayed a very short time in “wise” Athens.

St. Paul Preaching at Athens (Raphael)

In Athens Paul uses a different approach than his usual one.  We don’t hear that he began by presenting Jesus in the synagog but among the cultural elite, the philosophers.  He uses a tactic that today we call “see, judge, act.”  That is, he observes the religious practices of the Athenians, evaluates what he observes, and preaches according to his assessment of their religiosity.

The Athenians are pagans, not Jews.  But Paul thinks he finds in them an openness to the truth of a single Creator God (17:23-27); he doesn’t think those intellectual sophisticates really believe the foolishness of Greek mythology.  He even quotes some of their own cultural heritage (17:28), as among the Jews he quotes the Scriptures.

Unfortunately, Paul misreads what the Greek sophisticates are open to.  With very few exceptions (17:34), they reject out of hand the idea that someone has been raised from the dead (17:32).  They’re amused at such silliness.  They can’t imagine that God really cares so much about people.  Maybe they can’t even accept the idea of personal sin, for Paul has also spoken of judgment (17:30-31).  Paul’s Athens experience, especially in contrast to what will come in Corinth, evidences the truth of Jesus’ words:  “I praise you, Father, … for altho you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to the childlike” (Matt 11:25).

Paul models evangelization for us, however.  He attempts to lead people from their own experience toward the Gospel, and he speaks plainly the truth of the Gospel—in this case, that God created us, that we are morally responsible creatures, and that Jesus Christ, risen, is the Savior.

This is the mystery mentioned in our Collect this morning, the mystery in which we participate at this altar, the mystery we pray to be worthy of when Jesus comes in judgment.