Bible Tuesday for Easter 6, 2017

Acts 17:22-31

Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, 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.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”

Areopagus- is a rock formation in the city of Athens. Areopagus is also the name of the judicial body which heard cases of homicide and corruption. The book of Acts presents this body additionally as a council for religious and philosophical debate.

Paul is in Athens alone. He had been on a missionary journey with Silas and Timothy but

they got into trouble in Thessalonica, where some synagogue officials took offense at the gospel and chased after them even as they snuck away to Boroea. As Paul had already been stoned (and survived) by an angry mob, Timothy and Silas sent him to Athens for his protection, where they would rendezvous with him later. While in Athens, Paul continued to preach and teach, “Christ, and him crucified.” Paul found the city of Athens to be chocked full of shrines to deities of every stripe, a sight which distressed him. Paul found himself debating the merits of Christ with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, marketplace buyers and sellers, and the Athenian synagogue communities, but all considered Paul’s words to be just one more religious with one more god.

When Paul finally was invited to speak to the Areopagus, he used their flighty paganism as an opening for the truth. “Why worship what is made with your own minds and your own hands? Why not seek the one who made you and all things, and his son who lived among us to guide us to God?” Paul deftly quoted Greek poets as he presented the case of the One True God. Unfortunately, Paul’s sermon was received as merely one more religion.

Psalm 66:8-20

Bless our God, O peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard,

who has kept us among the living, and has not let our feet slip.

For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried.

You brought us into the net; you laid burdens on our backs;

you let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a spacious place.

The previous lines refer to the exodus story, from slavery to arriving in Canaan.

I will come into your house with burnt offerings; I will pay you my vows,

those that my lips uttered and my mouth promised when I was in trouble.

I will offer to you burnt offerings of fatlings, with the smoke of the sacrifice of rams; I will make an offering of bulls and goats. Selah

Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for me.

I cried aloud to him, and he was extolled with my tongue.

If I had cherished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.

But truly God has listened; he has given heed to the words of my prayer.

Blessed be God, because he has not rejected my prayer or removed his steadfast love from me.

The Jewish Study Bible says that Psalm 68 is, “A hymn describing God’s victory over his foes and his choice of Jerusalem as the place of His dominion. It draws on an ancient tradition, found also in the very old poem in Judges 5 about the southern origins (Sinai) of Israel’s God. It invokes themes from the exodus and the conquest. Because the psalm appears disjointed, some scholars see it as a combination of numerous psalms or a list of their opening lines. Its vocabulary includes fifteen words found nowhere else in the Bible, plus other rare words, adding to the difficulty of interpreting it. Indeed, much of it remains obscure, and many consider it to be the most difficult psalm in the psalter.

1 Peter 4:12-14, 5:6-11

Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that is taking place among you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you are sharing Christ’s sufferings, so that you may also be glad and shout for joy when his glory is revealed. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.

Discipline yourselves, keep alert. Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour. Resist him, steadfast in your faith, for you know that your brothers and sisters in all the world are undergoing the same kinds of suffering.

And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you. To him be the power forever and ever. Amen.

Here is the author’s heartfelt answer to his faith community’s unspoken question, “If God loves us, why do we suffer? Why does God not protect us from disease and persecution?” The author’s answer is that suffering and persecution are God’s tests for the faithful. The author teaches that instead of griping at the tests, the faithful should rejoice that God sees them as worthy of testing. Instead of worrying about how and why God is testing them, they should give their anxieties over to Jesus and keep trying to live the gospel.

Liberation theologians would argue with the writer of Peter. They would say that suffering, particularly oppression, is a product of sin, not a test God is using. Liberation Theologians teach that God is not the cause of suffering, but rather the advocate for those who suffer. “The spirit intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words to express,” as St. Paul writes.

John 14:15-21

”If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”

It is easy to read this passage of teachings of Jesus as conditional: if you do this, then I will do thus and such. However, when reading the gospel of John as a whole, the passage is not so much conditional as mere truth telling.

In the gospel of John, believers abide in Jesus, which Jesus describes as believers being branches sprouting from the vine who is Jesus. Chapter 14 of John can be understood as a description of the life of those who abide in Jesus rather than a conditional relationship.

Abiding in Jesus means keeping Jesus’ commandments which are: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength and love your neighbor as you love yourself. Abide in me. Believe in God. Also believe in me.” As we “live and move and have our existence” in Jesus, the Holy Spirit also is with us forever. Our orientation shifts away from ourselves, the pursuit of stuff, or living vicariously through others, and focuses on Jesus. Believers pursue a different truth than those who ignore Jesus.

This all occurs within the life of us, fallen people, who are simul justis et pecator, simultaneously justified/sainted and sinner. The news that Jesus does not leave us orphaned or desolate is marvelous, since even with the constant companionship of the Holy Spirit, we struggle to leaf out on Jesus vine, and believe in anything as gracious and altruistic as Jesus.