Sermon from November 20, 2011
"A Public Square and Its Chaos"
Acts 17:15-30

Steve Jobs, the genius behind Apple Computers, died last month. I have a feeling that he and Bill Gates will be to the 21^st century what Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell were to the 20^th. They have transformed the way we go about our daily lives. In 2005 Jobs was the commencement speaker at Stanford University. I have read his speech. It was brief, personal, winsomely dismissive of a college education, and serious enough to merit attention. I want you to hear a short excerpt from the speech. He said the following:

“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.” (http://articles.businessinsider.com/2011-10-06/tech/30249828_1_college-tuition-calligraphy-adoption/3#ixzz1cSSVkpaF accessed on October 29, 2011)

I wanted you to hear that, because it is how the secular world that has forgotten God thinks about death. “Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” I also wanted you to hear that, so that I could ask you this question: How would you feel, if that was my message for you by the graveside of your child or your spouse or your best friend tragically killed in a car accident? Would you think of your sadness as no more than a way of “clearing out the old to make way for the new?” You would probably feel better, if I poured a tub of ice cubes down your shirt on a winter day.

We live in an American culture where memories of Christian beliefs and morality are fading, and not just on the Stanford campus. But the Church offers a real alternative to the cold despair meted out by Steve Jobs to very privileged, young men and women on a beautiful, California spring day. We believe that our Christian faith and moral convictions sustain people in a right relationship with God and contribute to their flourishing as human beings. We want to be a congregation that takes this good news outward to the Brandywine Valley.

If we are serious about that, Steve Jobs reminds us what we are turning to. Turning outward is going to bring us headlong into situations we’ve never encountered before. The Bible reports unexpected encounters like that, and they offer wisdom and encouragement for the outward turn we propose to make and have begun to make. Acts 17 is a case in point. Please join me in Acts 17:15.

Same Gospel, New Situation
Paul the apostle had been kicked out of another city, and verse 15 says: The men who escorted Paul out of the former city brought him to Athens and then left with instructions for Silas and Timothy to join him as soon as possible.

The next two verses summarize how Paul spent his time there. While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he reasoned in the synagogue with the Jews and the God-fearing Greeks, as well as in the marketplace day by day with those who happened to be there.

His marketplace disputes embroiled him in a brouhaha that brought him before the Areopagus, a city council that seems to have been a court of public opinion and may also have been a court of law. Its request of Paul in verses 19-20 gives us a feel for its social function. “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting. You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean.”

Verse 21 gives an example of Luke’s wry restraint, as he allows his disapproval of the Areopagus to peep out and put a finger on their colossal waste of time. All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas. It was a kind of cross between Facebook and Fox News.

Whatever it was, it gave the apostle a platform for putting the gospel before Athenian leaders. Luke’s version of what Paul said to them is brief. I can read it with feeling in less than three minutes. What strikes a reader, who is familiar with the Bible, is what he didn’t say. If you compare it with Stephen’s speech in Acts seven and Paul’s own speech in Acts 14, you see the omissions.

He said nothing about Abraham, Moses, and David. He made no reference to or allusion to the Law of Moses. No word about his own impeccable Jewish credentials crossed his lips. The nation Israel is buried in the phrase in verse 26: every nation of men. Perhaps most striking here, Paul said nothing about the death of Christ; in fact, you will listen in vain for the name Jesus or the name Christ.

Here’s what I think was going on there. We pay lip service to the idea of walking a mile in another man’s moccasins. We pay lip service to the importance of getting inside another person’s head. Paul did it. He started with the startling Athenian inscription: to the unknown God and went on to quote their pagan poets to make a point that pointed beyond their idols and temples and tepid religious observance. Paul was able to clothe Israel’s ancient understanding of God in Athenian thought so well that he began to subvert ancient Athenian thought and to convert ancient Athenian thought.

The Athenians were so thoroughly enthralled by the thread of his thought that their defenses were down when Paul said this in verses 30-31: “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.”

Verse 32 says that when they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.” Verse 34: A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others. That’s how the shocking success of the Church proceeded in that universally non-Christian world. That’s how it can proceed in our “Christ-haunted” culture.

We talk about turning BVBC outward to the world around us, and we half-heartedly mean it. I wonder just how often and how well we clothe our understanding of Christ in the thoughts of our contemporaries, so that we begin to subvert their unchristian, non-Christian, anti-Christian ideas and prejudices.

As we learn to do that, I’ll tell you that in our culture of death the resurrection from the dead will garner sneers and snide remarks. But it will also be a language that anyone can understand, and for many it will be a bridge to Christ and the power of God and to the wider understanding and experience of the Church. I would encourage you to read and reread Acts 17 with your friends. It is a masterpiece of subversion.

Invitational Events
So, the central strategy in our vision for the future of this church is to turn BVBC outward to the world around us. We have taken steps in that direction in the past, such as reading the book, Just Walk Across the Room. People in the congregation consistently tell me stories of how they “just walked across the room” to engage someone in a conversation about God. We want to build on that foundation.

In the months ahead, we will build with what we are calling Invitational Events that people will want to bring their friends to experience. Inviting a friend to such an event gives us a chance to develop relationships with a few people in our lives. Family and our closest friendships are the people most likely to accept your invitation.

Let me talk about these Invitational Events. Our promise to you is that we will do them with excellence. We will do them in a way that will not embarrass you or the friends you bring to them. And we will present Jesus Christ in those events in a winsome and persuasive way.

We have two such events planned for December. We have our BVBC Christmas musical event on December 14-16. We did it two years at the Grand Opera House, and we have done it in our new sanctuary in 2009 and 2010. I hope we’ll go back to the Grand Opera House some day. It is a non-religious venue that unchurched people feel less threatened by. But that costs money we don’t have right now.

The second Invitational Event will be Christmas Eve. So, what’s different about Christmas Eve this year? What’s different is that Christmas Day falls on Sunday. We are planning only one service that day at 10:30 a.m. So, we thought, “Why not use an already popular BVBC event, four Christmas Eve services, as an occasion to encourage the congregation to invite unchurched people to attend?” Christmas Eve services really stand out now in contrast to the secularized Christmas we endure in public life. It is beautiful, quiet, and we will present the gospel in a clear and winsome way.

Here’s another idea for an Invitational Event. My colleague in ministry, Lin Winters, the Senior Pastor at Cornerstone Community Church in Chandler, AZ, had an Invitational Event one Sunday that featured Kurt Warner, the quarterback at the time of the Arizona Cardinals. Lin interviewed Warner about his career, successes, and failures. They took the whole service. At one point Lin asked Warner, “You’ve got it made: money, fame, success. Why do you need Jesus Christ in your life?” And Warner told his faith story. Everybody was listening. There are many less well known people who would make an event very successful.

Something Small, Something Distant
We have another modest way to reach out to the world around us. We will work Invitations to believe in Jesus into Sunday Worship Services. I have not always done that. I want you to be able to count on that when you bring family and friends to BVBC for any occasion. The invitations to believe in Christ will always be clear, pointed, and kind.

And there is something else. We are not ready for this yet; but I believe we need to be dreaming about it now. This is the most visionary part of our strategy of turning outward. I mentioned Pastor Lin Winters a moment ago. His church, Cornerstone Community Church, which is now 6000 is size, was a church plant about 15 years ago. It has joined the consortium of churches called Vision Arizona that is committed to planting churches, and which planted Cornerstone.

Why can’t we start dreaming about the day when BVBC plants a church or a satellite campus? That’s why I invited Tom Nebel, a seasoned church planter, to help us catch the vision for doing that. He spoke to us at the end of October.

An Invitation
So, what do we do about the five sermons we have heard since October 23? How can we keep in step with the Spirit and with each other, as we prepare ourselves for the world we will face in the next five to ten years?

First, make our vision for the future your vision for the future of BVBC. Download podcasts of the five sermons to your i-pad, smart phone, or computer and listen to them again. Buy CDs of the five sermons and play them in your car. Talk about the ideas with your friends. Make the vision for BVBC’s future your vision.

Second, make the most of the Invitational Events we plan. Plan to be at the Christmas concert on December 14, 15, or 16, and bring a friend. Be at one of the Christmas Eve services, and bring a friend. Plan to be at the Ignite Conference on Saturday, February 4, with Pastor Matthew McNutt, and bring a family with teenagers and pre-teens.

Third, let the generosity of your heart spill over this year, and make a gift to pay off the remaining $600,000 of debt that we can pay off without penalty. That frees up money for ministry. Be generous.

Fourth, pray for this vision and these plans. Prayer is the way we acknowledge our dependence on God. Only God’s work in our efforts will make our efforts successful, as God defines success.

Fifth, it is possible that what I’ve said doesn’t make sense, because Christianity doesn’t make sense to you. Remember what Paul said in Athens. God now commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” To repent is to turn back to God. If you have not made that decisive turn, why not do it right here, right now? Don’t worry about saying the right words. Just tell God that you believe He raised Jesus from the dead, and if you do that, be sure you say so publicly. It will change your life. Don’t be a secret believer.

I’d like to go back on more time to Steve Job’s commencement speech at Stanford. The Church and the secularism Jobs represented “offer the world two radically different visions of human nature, human community, human origins, and human destiny.” (George Weigel) Mainstream academia, entertainment, and editorial policy embody and advocate the secular vision. Many in those circles despise and fear the Church’s vision of reality.

As we turn outward to the world around us, we may discover how paper thin is their tolerance of our vision. As we turn outward, I say to you what Jesus said to His disciples: “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be shrewd as snakes and innocent as doves” – Matthew 10:16. The shrewdness of snakes lies in their stealth; the innocence of doves lies in their inability to hurt anything. Jesus also said: “Not a sparrow will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father. So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows” – Matthew 10:29, 31.