Where Shall We Start?

Acts 17:22-31

Easter 6, May 10, 2026

Holy Trinity Cathedral

“Where Shall We Start?”

I was perhaps a strange little girl to others.  Growing up in a Christian family (my grandfather was an Anglican priest), I took for granted that what I did was normal for everyone.  I attended church every Sunday and most of my activities centred around the regular events there.  Girl Guides, potluck suppers, youth nights, special holy days.  I heard stories from the Scriptures in Sunday School.  I was given my first Bible when I was packed off to camp.  It was “The Way: written in modern English”.  Being an avid reader, I began at the beginning.  Genesis seemed somewhat familiar in places and the second book didn’t start out too bad.  But then I got into the rest of what I now know as the Pentateuch.  All those holiness laws and genealogies and tirades about a jealous God!  Maybe that wasn’t the best place to start.

Coming home again, I decided to put what I had experienced at Camp Artaban into practice.  I loved the daily chapel services in the outdoors. There was singing and birdsong and wildflowers on the altar.   From a couple of off-cuts of wood and a hammer borrowed from my dad, I made a rough platform with a cross.  In the backyard was a hidden green space among the ferns.  I used to pick flowers from the garden without my Mom noticing, and offer them to God in my special shrine.  This went on for the rest of the summer until some rough neighbourhood kid came upon it and smashed the wood to bits.  I was very upset.  It took me a while to realize that God didn’t need to be confined that place of devotion, and that I could look for God’s presence anywhere in the world around me.  I just had to start with what I knew.  I was already experiencing the love of God in my connections with family, friends, and my community.  Through those, I learned to trust and grow in relationship with Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. 

We live in the midst of a time and place that tend to identify as spiritual but not religious.  Not everyone has the same upbringing or experiences.  Most of the campers at Artaban with me did not come from church backgrounds.  But in the beauty of creation there, many found a caring and supportive community that encouraged them to put a name to the love they encountered.  What is common to humans is that we yearn for meaning and connection in our lives.  We want to ask and engage the big questions.  Why am I here?  What am I meant to be?  Who is for me? Just because many in our society have discounted organized religion as the source of answers doesn’t mean the questions stop being asked.  How do we start to speak of the faith that is in us in a way that doesn’t send the other person running or instantly start a debate?

Saint Paul found a way when he spoke to the people of Athens.  At first, he was appalled at the variety of idols and practices he saw, things that offended the very core of his Jewish being.  He could have lectured them from his training as a Pharisee skilled in the Jewish laws of holiness.  Or he could have asserted his apostolic authority and personal status as one who had met the risen Christ. But instead, he looked beyond what people were doing to the reason they were building shrines and making sacrifices.  His heart went out to those who were yearning for something beyond themselves: a transcendent god.  Not the Greek or Roman or pagan deities that had recognizable images and assigned duties.  Not a group of divine beings that demanded sacrifices and offerings in return for the hope of status, wealth, and security.  But a true God who is Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer. 

When he sees an example of a shrine “to an unknown god” Paul uses it as an entry into speaking of their connection to the Divine.  He calls his listeners religious in the positive sense of seeking meaning.  His audience has gathered in front the Areopagus.  This was the site of the judicial council of Athens, and the public plaza was the location of many philosophical, legal, and moral debates.  Whether there were members of the ruling council present or whether Paul was speaking more informally to the gathered crowd, they are likely the intelligentsia of Athens.  Intelligent, informed, and involved citizens who cared deeply about their community.  In his proclamation, however, Paul does not engage them in debate.  Instead, he invites his listeners to connect what they know in creation with the larger meaning of the Creator. 

Rather than logic, Paul moves to poetry.  From a popular Greek poet, he quotes a phrase of wonder: “in him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).  The God that is able to give vitality of existence to humans is worthy to be sought and praised.  This Creator God not only gives us breath, but the means to connect.  “For we too are his offspring” points us to a living relationship.  This is not a body of proof as in a classical debate, but an invitation to explore.  The assurance that Paul gives from his own experience is that those who seek will find. As he says, “He made all nations… so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him- though indeed his is not far from each one of us” (Acts 17:26-27).

From there, the question is “how do I get to know this God?” Not as an idol to be revered at a shrine on special days, but in all aspects of daily life. This is where Paul brings the conversation around to the Christian message.  Now, he does not begin by using Jesus’ name.  Rather like John the Baptist and Jesus himself, he begins with a message of repentance.  We human beings aren’t as smart as we think we are.  We don’t know everything.  We reduce the supernatural to an idol if we make our idea of God and love too small.  It takes a very special act on God’s part to bring about right relationship.  And that, says Paul, is why “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” (Acts 17:31). 

And at this point, Paul stops.  He doesn’t beat his listeners over the head with details, or make them recite the creed, or sign a statement of belief.  He waits for them to ask more questions.  “And then what?”  You see, we can’t tell other people what to believe.  We can’t lecture them or argue that their religious practices or politics or opinions are wrong.  At least, that doesn’t seem to work very well.  But what we can do, whether in our family or with our friends and neighbours, is find a point of common ground and build from there.  Where is the deep yearning and need in their hearts?  Where does that meet the love of the gospel?  If that can be a starting point, who knows where Christ may lead?  Amen.