This Week's Light Service Sermon

Light Service Sermons for the Month
What does Christianity teach about.
Other Religions
DATE: April 29, 2001
TEXT: Acts 17:16-23

The other day I read a small article about Madonna--as in the singer. A couple of years ago she had her daughter baptized in the Roman Catholic Church even though she's renounced the Catholic faith herself. On 60 Minutes she said, "I can disagree with doctrines and dogmas and still celebrate them." She then went on to say that she picks and chooses her religion, "I go to the synagogue; I study Hinduism. In the end, all paths lead to God."
Like it or not, Madonna represents well the vibe in our country today. And please don't think that this just represents the young. It began with many mothers and fathers saying, "At least my child goes to church even if its not a Lutheran church" to now saying "At least my child is religious even if she is not Christian."
Our country, and even much of the world, is experiencing the biggest spiritual awakening the world has ever seen. Who would have thought that in a span of 40 years we would go from "God is Dead" to "Touched by an Angel?" Who would have thought even five years ago that the top selling books, songs, movies, and TV shows would center on spiritual themes like angels, the soul, finding meaning in life, and so on. Spirituality is hot.
But today this spirituality is not being fueled by one particular faith expression like other great awakenings in our country's history. This new spiritual awakening is extremely personal. It's a journey fueled by our heart's desire to make sense out of life, to get in touch with our creator, to find some answers to the eternal questions of life.
I would dare say that all of us here today are on some kind of a spiritual journey. Some of us have found what we're looking for in Christianity. Others of us may be here today to see what Christianity has to offer. Others of us may not be sure what it is we're looking for, we just know that there's restlessness inside and we need some answers.
And like Madonna, many of us on this spiritual journey are tasting and experiencing many different spiritual options. We're picking and choosing spiritual expressions that seem to feel right for us because many of us, like Madonna, believe that ultimately all paths lead to God.
The questions, for those of us serious about our spiritual journey, is "Do all paths lead to God?" Will any path get us to where we want to go? Or are all roads to the Emerald City ultimately only detours from the one and only Yellow Brick road?
It is true that there are a lot of options out there today for the spiritual traveler. Is Christianity just another option? Is it simply another path to the same God? Is it better or inferior to other options? Can Christianity meet the deepest longings in our hearts for meaning, hope, and significance or is it an archaic, dead, institutional religion in capable of reaching the postmodern world? What does Christianity have to say about other faiths?
In our Bible reading for today we catch some insights into those questions. A man by the name of Paul, one of the first leaders of the Christian movement, was in the city of Athens and found himself surrounded by a myriad of spiritual options. The city was loaded with statues of gods from all kinds of religions. In fact, one Greek individual of that day said it was easier to find a god than a person in Athens.
In that highly religious setting Paul was invited to talk about Christianity, and why he had embraced it over other spiritual options.
Let me read that story again.
Some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, "What does this babbler want to say?" Others said, "He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities." (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, "May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means." Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.
22 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.'
Athens of 2000 years ago was much like the United States of today in that the people of Athens were highly spiritual. As Paul stood on Mars Hill looking down on the city he could see an ocean of gods. And that's because the people of Athens, like the people of today, were interested in any spiritual idea that came along. They, like Madonna and others like here, picked and chose that which felt best to them in their faith journey. And, like today, the Athenians had a high tolerance for many truths. They, too, believed that ultimately all paths lead to God. And just to make sure they didn't leave any belief system out, the Athenians even had statue to "the Unknown God.'
As Paul looked over the sea of gods he had mixed emotions. On the one hand, he was deeply disturbed by all of the idols because of his discovery of one God. On the other hand, he felt deep love for the Athenians and wanted to share with them what he had discovered. And the Athenians were more interested to listen. Again, they were anxious to hear about any new faith expression because they didn't want to miss out on something that might enhance their spiritual life.
So at their invitation, Paul told them a story. He began his story by congratulating them on their spiritual journey. He affirmed the fact that they were vitally interested in spiritual matters. But rather than condemning them, putting them down for all of their various idols, he patted them on the back and told them they were so religious--that that desire for spiritual connectedness is created in us by God.
He then moved over to their statue of the unknown God and told them that he could make that God know to them. Now he had their attention.
He told them about the God of gods, the one true creator of the universe--the one who gives life and breath to all that exists. He said that this God's deepest desire is to be found by us. This God delights in the fact that we're interested in finding him so he's made himself accessible to us in a way that goes beyond our imagination. Rather than forcing us to make guesses about him, rather than allowing us to stumble down path after path to find him, God made a clear path to us through a person--and that person is Jesus.
Jesus came to show us exactly what God is like. He takes the guesswork out of our spiritual journey. In Jesus we see that God is loving, patient, kind, and forgiving. We see that God makes us his priority, that God will do whatever it takes to win us over. For Paul nothing demonstrated that more vividly than Jesus' death on the cross. In other words, the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus shows us that God finds us worth dying for.
Ultimately, says Paul, it's through a relationship with Jesus that we can know God personally, that we can find our spiritual center, that we can find our way home. For Jesus is the answer to all of our spiritual questions. He is God's Yellow Brink Road home to him.
A family had just finished moving the boxes from heir car into their new home. As they looked at the mess, they realized that their little poodle was missing. They quickly jumped into the car and headed back to their old neighborhood to find their dog.
They spent several minutes driving up and down their old neighborhood with no luck. Finally, they asked a man sitting out on his front porch if he had seen their dog. He replied, "Yes. She's been chasing your car for the last 10 minutes."
As Paul talks to the Athenians and to us about our spiritual journey he turns that whole journey upside down. He tells us that the God we've been looking for all this time has ultimately been looking for us. This God we've been trying to find down various paths has made a clear, straight path to us through Jesus. This God we've been trying to get to know wants to know us and has made it possible for us to enjoy a relationship with him through Jesus. Everything we long for, everything we're hoping for on our spiritual quest is found and fulfilled in Jesus, the crucified and Risen savior.
Of all the spiritual options and religions out there today, Paul has discovered from personal experience that Jesus rises above them all for Jesus takes all the guess work out of finding God. Jesus and Jesus only went to the cross to assure each of us hope, joy, peace, forgiveness, eternal life, and a personal relationship with God.
Today, my friends, Jesus can be your Yellow Brick Road home to God. So if you're on a spiritual journey, I along with Paul, congratulate you. You're on the most important journey of your life. And I encourage you on that journey to consider Jesus--God's ultimate expression of himself. For I believe that he is all your heart longs for--he is the beginning, the middle, and the end of your spiritual quest.
AMEN