Is this the verse for St. Paul? - by Don Neuendorf
I'm back after a week of vacation - during which I had hoped to be able to keep blogging, but our hotel internet was broken. So... I hope some of you are still checking in now and then. And I pray that I can now get back to a regular blogging routine.
Acts 17:16-31 is the first reading for this coming Sunday. I'll be preaching on it - but it's a bit difficult for me. It's not a hard text, but it seems to offer the members of St. Paul a unique challenge. Do these verses portray the ministry to which God has called us at this time and place?...
I am not a prophet. I don't believe that I can definitively proclaim, by myself, God's will for St. Paul. When I first came in 2001 a reporter from the Ann Arbor News interviewed me and asked me what my plans were for St. Paul. I didn't have plans - not in that sense. I thought it was presumptuous for anyone to walk in to a congregation they did not know, which had many people of differing needs and skills, which had a long history, and complex opportunities, and to dare to announce "The Grand Plan" for the entire operation.
I can't do that on my own. But I DO believe that God can and does call us, as a group, to grow toward an understanding of our calling. We are to seek what his will is for us as a congregation and commit ourselves to following his plan. If we choose wrongly, then we trust that God will correct us. But we are called to strive in serving him.
So... that being said... I have felt a growing conviction about these verses in the history of our congregation. The apostle Paul speaks to the pagan philosophers on Mars Hill in Athens. Surrounded by pagan intellectuals, Paul preaches the resurrection. He makes some references to their own authors and philosophies, but he doesn't attempt to debate the merits of Stoicism versus Epicureanism. He presents to them the Gospel of the resurrection, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the gentiles.
Here we are, in a congregation named for this same apostle, sitting in the middle of a university community that likes to think of itself as "the Athens of the West." (A title also claimed by UC Berkely and Lexington, Kentucky, among others) Here we are, a congregation historically dedicated to Christian learning and with close ties to a Lutheran Christian university. Is this our calling - to reach the pagan intellectuals of Ann Arbor?
St. Paul was not established with that in mind. Although the first 3 worshipers were U of M students, the congregation grew first among the German immigrants of the west side and then continued to grow among the young families around Ann Arbor who desired Christian education. Who are we now? Who does God call us to be?
We are living in a uniquely pagan time in America. When Oprah Winfrey promotes an anti-Christian religion, and public schools exclude public expressions of faith, and witchcraft and neopaganism flourish, we are forcefully reminded of Athens - and even Corinth. If we are to take up this challenge, instead of merely reaching out to the familiar families of Christian values like our own, then we will have much to do to prepare. As a congregation we must be prepared to engage our pagan world not combatively but confidently.
I'd like to know what you think? Is this God's calling for us?