Transforming Acts. Bruce G. Epperly
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– this is virtually all they have heard about Christianity in the media. I also point out that when asked to describe Christianity, most young adults use terms like “anti-intellectual,” “intolerant,” “anti-science,” and “punitive.” No wonder many young people avoid our sanctuaries and worship services! No wonder so many young people, baptized and nurtured in the church, are no longer able to see the relevance or value of Christian faith in a world of countless spiritual possibilities and ever-increasing personal demands!5
On any given plane trip I take, I end up having a conversation with someone who describes him or herself as “spiritual but not religious.” When the subject of our conversations turns to science, spirituality, healing, and religious and sexual diversity, they are amazed, first, that I am a Christian and, next, that I am a minister of the gospel for whom Christ is the center of my personal and public life. Often, the last place some seekers look for spirituality and wholeness, much less hospitality and embrace of humankind in all its diversity, is in the church, even though this is – or should be – our primary message.
One-dimensional understandings of Christianity even occur among active Christians. On a recent cross country air flight, my first class seatmate, who attends a congregation pastored by a well-known Christian devotional writer, was astounded when I spoke positively about President Obama, health care reform, and marriage equality. On the other hand, many progressive Christians assume that all evangelical Christians are biblical literalists, social conservatives, and Tea Party members. The wondrous diversity and many “orthodoxies” of Christian history are overlooked by those who define Christianity in terms of one doctrinal or ecclesiastical tradition, assume Christian uniformity, and assert that authentic Christianity can be summarized by the ancient creeds, the four spiritual laws, or a particular view of scripture and planetary history.
What I’ve said may seem like bad news for the church, but it could be an opportunity for us to re-think our mission and renew our commitment to sharing the good news of an open-spirited, spiritually-sound, intellectually-lively, and socially concerned faith. For those who awaken to the surprising experiences described in Acts of the Apostles, we may be on the verge of a Great Awakening, emerging in the interplay of ancient-future-now spirituality and worship and Christian truth and practice with the profound insights of other faith traditions.
We Are All Theophilus
The Gospel of Luke and Acts of the Apostles are both addressed to Theophilus. Unknown apart from these texts, scholars speculate that Theophilus might have been a wealthy patron of the church and a Christian of Greek ethnicity. But, one thing we can be sure of is the meaning of the name, Theophilus: it is “God lover.” Could it be that the author of Luke and Acts has two images in mind with the salutation – a wealthy patron, recently converted to the faith, and everyone who reads his account of the life of Jesus and his first followers? More than that, “Theophilus” may embrace every seeker who comes upon the story of Jesus. Deep down all of us are guided by the sighs too deep for words, subtly moving us from aimlessness to adventure and meaninglessness to purpose.
Perhaps, Luke wants to remind us that we are part of a larger story, a narrative that includes Jesus and his Jewish parents, Jesus’ earthly ministry, and the many-faceted movement that bears his name throughout history. We are apostles, teachers, healers, witnesses, and seekers in our own time, sharing our stories, asking questions, pushing limits, and recreating the faith as our parents and their parents did. We are lovers of God who want to experience greater dimensions of wonder, energy, power, and love to bring life to our churches and healing to our world. Just as Jesus told his own followers that they would do “greater things” than he, Acts reminds us that the days of lively faith are in present and future not just the past (John 14:12). We are the Peters, Pauls, Lydias, Priscillas, and Philips of our time, creating the church’s story as we go along, just as our spiritual parents did. We can experience the same signs and wonders and mediate the same power to heal and transform as our parents in the faith.
Acts as a Pathway to Transformation
When I was a teenager, I recall a commercial sponsored by Kellogg’s Corn Flakes that invited the listener to: “try it again – for the first time!” The commercial implied that in a world of fancy tasting cereals, everyone thinks Corn Flakes is bland and boring; but taste it again and you will discover its good honest flavor.
Today, we need to invite seekers – and ourselves – to try the pathway of Jesus and the wisdom of our faith again – for the first time. I believe that Acts can provide guidance for people who are attempting to chart the church’s mission for the decades ahead, faithful to the good news of Jesus and open to the insights and challenges of a rapidly changing world. Paul’s experience in the marketplace of ideas and spiritual paths can provide wisdom for people seeking to experience God’s good news in our pluralistic and postmodern world.
Faith in the Marketplace of Spiritual Movements
The description of Paul’s message at the Areopagus rings a familiar bell for twenty-first century North Americans. Paul is sauntering through the marketplace of spiritualities – it could be Cambridge, Ann Arbor, Berkeley, Madison, or Washington DC where I live. He is gazing at the seat of intellectual, political, and spiritual power and prestige. Statues are everywhere, not unlike Washington DC, London, Paris, or Beijing – to gods and heroes, sacred and secular, known and unknown – each portraying a certain vision of human life and ultimate reality. Paul is both amazed and scandalized at the panorama of diverse and conflicting spiritualities.
Jewish by upbringing and theology, Paul is overwhelmed by the thought of people worshiping objects that are less alive than themselves. Perhaps, he is amazed that people still worship gods such as Zeus who are not only promiscuous in their dalliances with human beings but also vindictive, angry, and punitive. Why would anyone worship raw power when you can experience God’s love? Why would anyone follow a religion of fear when he or she could experience God’s loving acceptance, grace, and companionship? Why would anyone exalt the gods of violence when the prince of peace welcomed them with open arms?
He engages in conversation with some of the local spiritual leaders and philosophers of the city. They don’t know quite what to make of his vision of a universal God, whose life cannot be contained by statues or institutions, and whose love was manifest in a suffering savior. “Tell us more,” they ask, because like our culture, they lived with gods aplenty – there as many religious options as there are cable or dish television stations.
Paul enters into dialogue, honoring their religiosity, affirming their quest, but suggesting another better alternative, the path of salvation and wholeness pioneered by Jesus of Nazareth who was unjustly crucified, but miraculously resurrected to bring healing and wholeness, transformation, and love to all creation. There is an “unknown God,” whose wisdom is luring us forward even when we are unaware of it, and this is the God Paul has experienced through his encounters with Jesus Christ.
Paul does not attack their spiritual quests in all their wild diversity – nor should we condemn the great religions of the world or the new spiritual movements of our own country. The God in whom we live and move and have our being is inspiring every person’s religious quest, even those we presume to be misguided and immature. Most people who follow these movements are seeking, like us, to experience meaning, healing, growth, and peace of mind in a complicated world.
What Paul does is affirm that the divinity revealed in Jesus Christ is present – albeit in disguise and hidden – in their quests for meaning and that Christ provides a way to the meaningful, affirmative, and healthy spirituality they seek. Christ is the reality beneath the “statue of the unknown God.” What they don’t yet know is the power of God that heals the sick and saves the lost and welcomes everyone to God’s banquet table!
Paul does something unique in scripture: he quotes directly– and this is the only place in the Bible – from another religious tradition and attributes the qualities of another god to the God of Jesus Christ: using a hymn of another faith, he affirms that “the reality in whom we live and move and have our being” is the Parent of Jesus Christ. God is not partial to one people or punitive but seeks the well-being of all of us. God is as near as the breath we take and God wants us – all of us, friend and stranger, Christian and non-Christian