I don’t follow sports as closely as Jeff does, but I do enjoy watching sporting events. As a child, I played soccer and softball, I watched hockey and football with my dad, and I watched the Olympics any chance I could. I can watch most major sporting events and understand what’s going on because I know many of the basic rules of the games. I don’t follow any one team closely enough to tell you every player’s pre-game routine, but I do know that some players are very superstitious. Some baseball players won’t wear the form-fitted pants for the uniforms. Some insist on wearing the pants with the stirrups, even though many other players have moved away from those. A few baseball players have well-known warm up routines. Professional tennis player Serena Williams always had to bounce her ball five times before her first serve. Some athletes will wear the same pair of socks through a lengthy tournament. I even remember a few hockey teams refusing to shave their beards until after the playoffs were over. For some reason these players thought certain clothing choices or behaviors were lucky, and they continue to do these things thinking they would be less likely to win without them,

Maybe some of us here have similar superstitious ideas, or maybe we think these superstitions are ridiculous and don’t accomplish anything. But, whether we think we’re superstitious or not, I suspect this kind of fear-based rule following is closer to us than we would like to admit. Remember the Pharisees in the New Testament? What do you think of when you hear the word Pharisee? Go ahead…share some of them out loud. We often think of the Pharisees are being legalistic. We view them as nitpicky rule followers. They are quick to judge others for not doing enough. Jesus calls this out in Luke 11 when he says, “But woe to you, Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and herbs of all kinds, and neglect justice and the love of God. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others.” The more I think about legalism–about strict following of the letter of the law, rather than the spirit of the law–the more I realize it is based in fear. These religious experts were so afraid that they would slip up and neglect a rule and lose God’s favor. They think they can earn a guarantee of God’s love and favor by keeping even the smallest of rules.

Paul was very much like this too. In Philippians 3, he is explaining to the church how righteous he had been. He writes, “If anyone has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.” Paul knew what it meant to cover his bases so he wouldn’t miss anything. He knew all about what religious legalism and superstition looked like. So, it is no wonder he quickly recognized it in the people of Athens.

Just prior to our passage for this morning, Paul noticed all of the idols in Athens, and verse 16 tells us that he was “deeply distressed” by them. He argued with the people in the synagogue and in the marketplace, and he debated philosophers. Verse 21 gives us this interesting look at the people of Athens: “Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new.” Paul was presenting something brand new to them–this idea that Jesus had been crucified and raised from the dead by God–and so he was invited to come and teach this new teaching. Paul does this, and what follows has been the subject matter of many sermons on evangelism and mission. We see Paul speaking to people using language they understand. He became familiar with their culture, noticed their altar to an unknown God, and he showed them how what they were already doing connected with the work GOd was doing in the world through Jesus.

These sermons aren’t bad or wrong. They are onto something, for certain. When we talk to others about Jesus, we need to understand their world that we are speaking into. We need to connect what people have already experienced with what God is doing in the world. But, I also wonder if our quickness to identify with Paul the evangelist helps us hide from something about ourselves. Let’s back up to the very first verse in this passage: “Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, ‘Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.’” The Greek here for “extremely religious” often means “superstitious,” or it can indicate behaving in certain ways because you are afraid to offend the gods. Paul knew a little something about that as someone who had spent his whole life trying to keep all of the law. He sees all of the gods in Athens, and he sees that they even have an altar to an unknown god. It’s almost as though the people are so afraid they may have missed a god, that they make an extra one just in case.

Paul sees this altar to an unknown God and sees an opportunity to share the good news with them. This unknown God that may have been set up “just in case” pointed to the reality that there is one true God who was not created by human hands. Holding everything together is the God who created everything we see. This God is the one who created human beings, and because we all come from the first human beings God created, all of us are longing to find God. Pauls says that God designed it this way “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.’” Jesus expressed something very similar when he told the scribe in Mark 12, “You are not far from the kingdom.”

What I see in Paul’s words to the people in Athens, and what I hear him saying to us, is that our faith doesn’t need to be about covering our bases. We don’t need to try and fulfill a list of things in order to prove we are good enough. We can’t guarantee we will find God because we are doing enough holy things. Paul had tried this. He had lived a life of extreme religiosity, he sees the people in Athens doing the same thing, and behind all of it was a struggle to find God, a struggle to please God, and a fear of not doing enough. This struggle is normal. As people created to be in relationship with God, we seek for God, and we struggle as we try to find God. But, Paul tells the people of Athens–and it is true even today–that God is not far from each one of us. Just as Paul had been so passionate about legalism before he met Christ, he was passionate about grace once he encountered the Lord. He came to realize that though our struggle to find God is important, we cannot earn God’s favor by covering our bases. Even as we seek for God, God is pursuing a relationship with each one of us.

Paul’s words to the people of Athens demonstrate three important things to us: 1) We need to find common ground with the people we encounter, 2) we need to hold fast to what we believe, and 3) even when we make mistakes, God still wants to be near to us. Matt Skinner, associate professor of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN, notes (as do many other scholars) that “this passage commends preaching that seeks to establish a foundation of common ground with an audience.” It’s not our job to ridicule the customs or beliefs of the people around us. We seek to find common ground. One important way we do this is by seeing ourselves in those around us. Paul sees the devotion and religiosity of the people of Athens, and he relates to it. He seems himself in it. As we live in this diverse world, it can be helpful for us to consider how we might be a whole lot like the people we are talking to. It’s not us versus them. It is us with them, We are all in this together as human beings created by God.

But, even as Paul identifies with those around him, he does not water down his message. He knows that the resurrection would be controversial–he had been beaten and thrown out of cities for making this claim in the past. He knew that saying there was only one God would be a possible point of conflict. He saw how many gods were worshiped in Athens, and he still spoke the truth about Jesus. Paul sees himself in the people he met, he got to know them, and he still spoke the truth. And that can be terribly scary. When I was in high school, I had a friend who belonged to a different religion than I did. Her parents insisted I meet their religious leaders, which I did because I wanted to be able to spend time with my friend. But, when I arrived, I found myself outnumbered. There were 12 people there to share their faith with me, and only one me, and a boy from school who was Catholic. It was scary, and I knew that what I believed was going to be unpopular. There are times when being true to our faith will be scary, but Paul demonstrates the importance of doing this even when we are afraid.

Paul identified with the people, he shared respectfully with them without watering down his own beliefs, and then he shares the amazing truth about grace: even when we make mistakes or don’t get all the rules right, God still wants to be near to us. We seek God, but God is also seeking us. We grope and struggle and try to do all the right things, and God is not far from us the whole time. Perhaps many of you are familiar with Martin Luther–the father of the reformed tradition. Martin Luther is well known for translating the Bible into German so that everyday people could read it, and for insisting on God’s grace. But, he did not always feel so confident about God’s grace. In his younger years, Luther was very afraid of God’s wrath. He knew he was an imperfect person, and he worried about whether God would save him. He decided to enter the monastery, and even as a monk he was terribly afraid he hadn’t done enough for God. He spent his whole life trying to be devoted enough, holy enough, and he was still terribly afraid. 

As Luther began to study the letters of Paul, he suddenly realized he was saved by God’s grace. He cherished verses like these from Ephesians 2:8-9: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God–not the result of works, so that no one may boast.” As Luther discovered these things, he began to have a reformation of his own faith. This eventually led to the movement that gave birth to the Protestant church. Luther’s fear and striving led him to realize it is all about grace. He would never be able to cover all his bases.. He would never be able to be good enough. Everything we have is possible because Jesus is enough for all of us.

Thanks be to God that GOd meets us where we are. That despite our sin, God sent his Son Jesus out of love for us. In our failings and as we seek God, may we be comforted in knowing that God is not far from any of us. Amen.