A Sermon on Acts 17:22-34
By Donald M. Tuttle
First Christian Church, Corpus Christi, Texas
Preached May 5, 2002
Hugh Hewitt is a lawyer, social commentator and university professor. But he first came to peoples’ attention several years ago when he produced a series for public television. It was called "Searching for God in America." The series consisted of seven half-hour interviews with leaders of various religious traditions. Among them were Christian, Mormon, Muslim and Jewish. The idea was to capture a sense of the options people in the United States have when it comes to searching for God.
What I find ironic about this series, and the book that has followed, is the title--"Searching for God in America." By every account, the United States is one of the world’s most religious countries. Researcher George Barna released a study earlier this year that said 85 percent of the people in the United States identify themselves with the Christian tradition. Another 7 percent say they are adherents of non-Christian faiths, such as Judaism, Islam or Buddhism. That is a full 92 percent who identify themselves as religious.
Another study puts the figure even higher. It found that people who identified themselves as Christians made up 90 percent of the American population and devotees to non-Christian traditions another 5 percent. In this study only 5 percent of the people said they were agnostics or atheists.
Clearly we are a very religious people.
Yet for all our religiosity, the title of Hewitt’s series is true. People are "searching for God in America." Millions upon millions of people are seeking something more. In fact, Barna identified two groups of Christians--those who fit the born again category and those that don’t. Among the latter 90 million Christians, 30 millions said they were seeking something more in life. A third also said they were not absolutely committed to the Christian faith. They are searching.
But they are not alone. How else do we understand the proliferation of spirituality related materials over the last decade or so? Today we have a display on how to read Tarot Cards at Barnes and Noble. It sits atop one of the stacks offering books on alternative spiritualities.
And did you know that neo-paganism is on the rise? Two professors at the University of South Florida say so. Their study found at least 200,000 adherents and maybe as many of 400,000 embracing a tradition of polytheistic, earth-centered spirituality. They even have a website on Parenting for Pagans.
Or how about the emergence of new-age spirituality? Today we see people virtual worshiping angels and subscribing miraculous powers to crystals and pyramids. Folks rush to read their horoscopes, practice transcendental meditation, and embrace what William Willimon calls "happy hearted humanism."
People are searching for God in America.
It is tempting to look upon this search with scorn, to see it as mere foolishness. Or we might be tempted to embrace it as sign of religious tolerance, to accept the search with the assumption that all religions are the same and that all faiths lead to God. But a truly biblical Christian faith sees this as an opportunity. The fact that people are searching, that they want something more in their lives, that they have a yearning for the divine gives us the opportunity to introduce them to Jesus Christ. It gives us the opportunity to point them beyond religion to the ultimate revelation of God.
This is exactly what we see in the Apostle Paul. Paul was in Athens, the center of Greek culture. He was there waiting for the arrival of Silas and Timothy. As he waited he began to explore the city. Everywhere he went there were statues, idols representing the host of Greek gods. For Paul, a monotheistic Jew, the scene was almost more than he could bear. But rather than condemn their idol worship or tolerate it in good liberal fashion, Paul saw it as an opportunity to introduce them to the one true God revealed in Jesus.
That is the point of his speech to the philosophers and religious leaders at the Areopagas. When invited to speak, he compliments them on their religiosity. He says it is clear they long for God. So religious are they that they have an altar to "the unknown god," sort of a "just in case we missed one" approach. But what Paul says is that their searching, their groping after God, is good because it came from their creator.
Their desire for God, their searching, their groping, all comes from God. But no longer do people have to be ignorant of God and his intentions for us. No longer do people have to guess at God’s intention. This same God, Paul tells them, has revealed himself in Jesus. In fact, he has even confirmed the appointment of Jesus as the one by which the world be judged by raising him from the dead. All are now called to repent, to turn from other idols, and follow Jesus as Lord and Savior of the world.
What Paul does is point the people to the one person that can fulfill their deepest longing, the one for whom they have been searching, Jesus Christ. And although some rejected his plea, although some said they would hear more later, some believed, some found the answer for which they were searching.
Our calling today as Christians and as the church is to follow Paul’s example and point those searching for God in America not to the church, not to an obscure God, but to Jesus Christ.
In his book Inside the Mind of Unchurched Harry and Mary, Lee Strobel tells the story of one of our nation’s seekers. Mary lived in Michigan and grew up attending Sunday school and worship, even youth group as a teen. After high school graduation she attended off and on--more off than on--but still enough to keep her name on the role and be asked to serve on committees. Then at 31, as a mother of two, a friend invited her to a crusade at her church. Mary wasn’t completely sure why she said yes. But clearly there was a yearning within her for something more than she had known to that time. She was searching for something more of God than she had discovered. And in the crusade she found it. Through the simple proclamation of the Gospel, through the simple declaration of Jesus as God’s Son, as the one sent to save us, she found God. She found the grace and peace, hope and purpose for which she had longed.
Today we live among people, both inside the church and out, who are searching for God. Unfortunately, it has become popular among mainline churches and mainline Christians to endorse the search as if the search itself were the purpose. But to do so is misguided. It is the equivalent of saying that the purpose of going to the doctor is to go to the doctor rather than to be healed. It is the equivalent of saying that the purpose of going to dinner is the trip from home to Crystals rather than to eat and be filled.
The point of a search is to find. And those searching among the bookshelves and Internet, among the do-it-yourself religions and ancient rituals,
need the church of Jesus Christ to act like. They need you and me to point them beyond the search and to the God revealed fully and finally in Jesus Christ.