God's Offspring

Acts 17:22-31 Common English Bible (CEB)

22 Paul stood up in the middle of the council on Mars Hill and said, “People of Athens, I see that you are very religious in every way. 23 As I was walking through town and carefully observing your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: ‘To an unknown God.’ What you worship as unknown, I now proclaim to you. 24 God, who made the world and everything in it, is Lord of heaven and earth. He doesn’t live in temples made with human hands. 25 Nor is God served by human hands, as though he needed something, since he is the one who gives life, breath, and everything else. 26 From one person God created every human nation to live on the whole earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their lands. 27 God made the nations so they would seek him, perhaps even reach out to him and find him. In fact, God isn’t far away from any of us. 28 In God we live, move, and exist. As some of your own poets said, ‘We are his offspring.’

29 “Therefore, as God’s offspring, we have no need to imagine that the divine being is like a gold, silver, or stone image made by human skill and thought. 30 God overlooks ignorance of these things in times past, but now directs everyone everywhere to change their hearts and lives. 31 This is because God has set a day when he intends to judge the world justly by a man he has appointed. God has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead.

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Message:  God’s Offspring

Paul was in Athens.  Gods were a pretty big deal in Athens.  It was a city positively filled with temples to the twelve main gods and dozens of lesser gods whom the Greeks worshipped, but especially Athena, because Athens was her city.  Ancient writers tell us that in addition to all of those, there was also a temple  specifically dedicated to An Unknown God, and very often Athenians would swear "in the name of the Unknown God.”  Altars to an unknown god were found in Temples dedicated to other Greek gods even in Rome.  If we were in the sanctuary right now, there would be a photograph on the screen of  an altar found in Rome dedicated to the unknown god. 

There’s not a lot written about this Unknown God except that altars dedicated to the Unknown God were common.  There is no real description of this god.  It could be that they were a bit concerned that they might have missed a god and chose this way to avoid possibly offending a god they didn’t know.  Because gods, as it turns out, were rather easily offended.  Each of the Greek gods had a particular aspect of nature or human life that they were in charge of.  Athena was, among other things, goddess of wisdom.  Ares was god of war.  Aphrodite, goddess of love and fertility.  In return for devotion and sacrifices from their worshippers, they might grant prayers.  Or they might not.  They were kind of fickle, and judgmental, and conniving, and greedy, and lustful, and jealous.  They were quick to anger, severe in their punishments.  They played favorites with humans, and they squabbled like children.  They were, in short, reflections of humans in pretty much every way.  It’s no accident that the statues in their temples looked like humans.  

That unknown god attracted Paul’s attention for a number of reasons.  It wasn’t represented by a statue of a human or animal.  There was a minor temple with a simple altar dedicated “To an unknown god.”  So Paul, a classically educated man, could persuasively quote Greek poets and philosophers in his presentation to the Athenians of the unknown god as simply the way in which the Greeks had been searching for the God he could now proclaim to them.  Kind of like, “You all have been worshipping the God of Abraham all along, you just didn’t know who you were worshipping.  And that’s ok.  You didn’t know any better. You are God’s offspring. And,” he said, “God overlooks ignorance of these things in times past, but now directs everyone everywhere to change their hearts and lives.”

He speaks from experience.  I am always blown away by Paul’s complete turn-around from his life before Christ met him on the road to Damascus.  Paul, who was once almost rabid in his insistence upon adherence to the Law, who chased down followers of Jesus for their blasphemy so they could be imprisoned and even executed, who is still mistrusted by the Christ followers in Jerusalem because of that, now tells the Greeks in Athens that they, too, are God’s children.  And beloved.  Greeks, Gentiles, with whom Saul wouldn’t even have sat at the table with for a meal. Wouldn’t even walk inside their home because they were not Jews, because they were outsiders, unclean even.   And now, he says, in Christ they are also God’s offspring.  They are also worthy.  Forgiveness and salvation are offered to them, too.  Just as forgiveness was extended to him, the persecutor, by the God of grace.  

The Unknown God.  When I first started attending 12-Step meetings, I did not recognize the God they were talking about.  That God was nothing at all like the God I had been taught about my whole life.  My God, the one I had worshipped, was judgmental and vengeful and jealous, a little bit fickle, definitely played favorites, hated lots of people and groups of people, was easily offended, quick to anger and severe in his punishments.  A lot like people, actually.  . . . 

I could never quite reconcile that God with my understanding of Jesus . . .  

I rejected that God, and therefore believed I was going to hell.

But then I started learning about this Unknown God they talked about in my meetings.  That God - or Higher Power, since I didn’t want to use the God word - was compassionate, merciful, understanding, forgiving, loving.  Did not expect perfect adherence to some impossible standard.  Firm but fair.  Gave second chances - and third, and fourth, or 70x7 or as many as it took.  Did I say forgiving?  Cared about what happened to me. Only wanted the best for all of us, and was sad when we did things to hurt ourselves or others.  Loved everyone.  Could take my burdens from me if I only asked. They told me things like, “God loves you and there is nothing you can do about it”.  This God I did not know or understand loved me.  Me. 

As I came to believe in that God, that previously Unknown God, I began to understand that what I had been taught to believe about God was wrong.      

So Paul, who had been preaching in Athens and had been brought before the city council to explain himself, was happy to tell them about Jesus.  He understood Greek culture and religion, he had studied the philosophers and the art of rhetoric, was doing pretty well when saying the Unknown God is actually the God he is proclaiming.  Things may have gotten a little uncomfortable when he told them that “You are God’s offspring. And God forgives your previous ignorance, but expects you to change your hearts and lives now.” because Athenians pride themselves on their intelligence and education.  Being told they were ignorant may not have been well received, especially when Paul got to the part about Jesus being resurrected.  Some ridiculed him at that point.  And. . .did I mention that gods were a pretty big deal in Athens?  A significant industry in Athens was making statues of gold, silver and stone representing the gods, especially Athena.  So there was an issue with Paul saying, “we have no need to imagine  that the divine being is like a gold, silver, or stone image made by human skill and thought.”  This was upsetting to some people, especially the artisans.  

Having heard all of these things that Paul said, some of these well educated, rational people in the council ridiculed him, and some said they wanted to learn more.  Truly, that’s all any teacher wants, is for listeners to want to learn more.  

When we teach people about God - and we all teach people about God - it’s kind of important for us to know what God we are talking about.  The judgmental God I grew up with, or the loving God who had previously been unknown to me.  The God who only accepts certain people - the people of Israel, for example - or the God who welcomes even the Greeks, the Samaritans, the Romans, male, female, slave, free, all persons.   Because I can tell you that many of the people who learn about God learn about that first one, as I did, and reject that first one, as I did, but don’t have anyone to teach them about the one who had been unknown to me, the loving, forgiving, compassionate, merciful God.    The one who seems to fit better with Jesus, who is much more likely to have sent Jesus to tell us about God’s love and forgiveness and to offer salvation to the entire world   Not just to some people or perfect people.  But to all people.  All the nations.   

And all that God, our God, Creator and sustainer of everything, all that God wants is for us to believe, and accept his love, and change our hearts and lives, so that everyone can see for themselves how great is our God.  Amen.