Wednesday 6th Week of Easter
Reading: Acts 17:15, 22-18:1
Good day today is Wednesday of the 6th week of Easter. We must be getting close to the Ascension and Pentecost.
The reading I want to focus on today is form the 17th Chapter of Acts of the Apostles. At this point in Acts the letter is focused on the preaching of Paul and his companions. AS we continue, we find Paul in the city of Athens. AS we read through Acts we tend to get out of synch with the timetable. It seems as if Paul is jetting around. On Monday he was in Troas, Macedonia On Tuesday in a jail in Phillipi and today we find him in Athens.
More days than you might think
This in real life did not occur over 3 days… We could probably make this trip today in three days (well assuming no travel restrictions from the virus, but Paul had ships, riding animals and his feet not jet air travel. in fact, the Book of acts probably covers about 20 years of early Church history. We see Paul and his companions, Silas andTimothy Having success after success. The Holy Spirit was with them and they could do no wrong. Everything they touched allowed for the conversion of the Gentiles and Jewish people to the Way. I can almost see them walking with a bit of a strut. Oh yeah… I got this … Thank you God, I am doing pretty good… let’s go to Athens…
There is no question Paul was a great Evangelist and an outgoing speaker explaining Christ and all that this meant for mankind. We read in his letters his teachings and some of his preaching. We read about it in our catechism today. Great teaching and excellent dogmatic and theological foundations are set. This is how we tend to think of him. Conversion after conversion, Success after success.
Woohoo Success
If I were in that spot, boy I would be feeling real good about myself…
SO today we see Paul in Athens walking through Athens, seeing their Shrines to the pagan gods. They had tons of gods so many that just about every possible element was touched upon. The Heavenly Bodies, the Natural elements, the various place names… and just to be sure they covered everything… there was an altar to an unknown God.
Now Athens was the central place in philosophy, the pinnacle of talking about your ideas and presenting them with open ears and minds. And Paul zeroed in on this unknown god and began to speak.
Let’s speak to all in Greek
They are all gathered at the Aeropagus. Now I always thought of this as a building with pillars and sort of that classic Greek look… Well it is an outcropping of rock, which they gathered on top. It was originally set up almost as a court for specific type of crimes Ares was supposed to have been tried there by the gods for the murder of Poseidon‘s son Halirrhothius. Over time it continued being used as a place for exchange of ideas and fining of truth. Which is really the purpose of a court anyway…
Getting back to Paul, he tells the Greek about who this “Unknown” god is… He is the God of the Universe, who created all He spoke of mankind and how the human race came to be, how God sustains and loves each of us. And he spoke of Jesus He went through pretty much the whole catechism with them…
Things are looking good!
At this point I am sure the Greeks were quite impressed. They certainly would have known of the Jewish religion and its teachings. They were philosophers after all. So things were going well in the Aeropagus
Remember this line from 1st Corinthians?
but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles
It is at this point Paul probably came up with this line and at the same assuming he was feeling a little smug…point recognized a little humility. You see Paul explained to them that Christ Jesus was raised from the dead by God. Now up until this point his catechesis was going well… He was explaining ideas they had heard of and were probably being expounded on. Paul was taught by the best Rabbi around. But this talk of raising from the dead?
It says some began to scoff, but others said we should like to hear you on this some other time.
WHne you Bomb at the Aeropagus.. you really bomb at the Aeropagus!
You read through the reaction of those and you realize… Paul just bombed they laughed, the patted him on the head and placated him saying thank you little boy here take your candy and run along… We will speak later (right!)
Now to be fair yes there were conversions that day no question… it says “some did join them” but something tells me that Paul learned quite a bit that day… about himself and how to approach the message of Jesus Christ. And it is something which we should learn as well… humility. After we have a number of successes we can start being proud of our accomplishments… of the things WE have done…
Let us not forget it is for the Greater Glory of God that we have what we have and that we do nothing without his help and guidance. When we start going off on our own we tend to learn this lesson… we have a choice… we can listen to the message or we can continue on thinking how good we are… I have seen a lot of people crash and burn just as Paul did in Athens…
So We learn and continue on
Paul adjusted his message and learned a few things along the way … about himself and about others. He went on to Corinth… things went a bit better there….
Tomorrow is the ascension of our Lord/ We shall celebrate this with great joy ! Enjoy your day and your feast !
Be good Play Nice Think God !
Please see today’s readings at https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/052020.cfm