Telling stories

Acts 17:22-31; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

You must have figured out by now that I love telling stories. Telling stories helps me make sense of what is happening, as well as what has happened in the past. Stories help us connect to each other, because my story has elements that are similar to elements of your story, which all connect us to God’s story. I hope that by telling you my stories, you will develop the ability of telling your God stories, first to yourself and ultimately, to others.

To be a good storyteller, we need to consider the audience. For example, some congregations never laugh. Sometimes they smile as loudly as they can, but they believe that laughing out loud is not permitted in worship. I am so grateful for your ready laughter! And I prepare the sermon in other words, tell the story, with a lighter touch than I have in some other places.

… Today, I want to talk about the story of Paul in Athens, and I want to begin by talking about his name. Some people think that when he became a believer in Jesus, he changed his name. But I believe that when he is among Jews, he is Saul; and when he is among Gentiles, he is Paulos, a Greek name, Paul in English. The name he uses gives him credibility, so people (Jew or Gentile) will listen to his stories.

I suspect some of you have been in Athens and walked among the ruins of ancient temples. I found an image of how it may have looked before the temples crumbled. Here we would call it Church Street. In ancient Athens, let’s call it Temple Avenue.

These gods reflect human traits, with specific superpowers. People pray to whichever god can has the power to help them. There’s Zeus, the chief deity, who battled Cronus to become the chief deity; Poseidon, god of the sea, horses, and earthquakes; and Hermes, god of livestock, fertility and music. Dionysus was the son of Zeus born to a human mother, so … the son of god. (Doesn’t THAT sound familiar!) And let’s not forget Aphrodite, with or without her nighty.

In ancient Athens, as long as the Jewish God is considered one of the many Greek gods, the Jewish people get along fine with everyone else in town. They get in trouble when they claim their God is the chief, and ONLY, god. So, as a storyteller, Paul has a dilemma. He clearly can’t start telling the Athenians about Jesus by talking about the Messiah, and how Jesus is the fulfillment of the ancient Hebrew / Jewish promises. It will make no sense to them, and they will resent his claim that his God is the only God, and they will not understand that Jesus is the human representation of his God.  

So Paul spends time, perhaps weeks, considering the context of his storytelling. Where can he start? How can the story of Jesus make sense to people with such a different background? So, he gets to know the people. He reads their literature, learns about their religion and traditions. As he wanders Temple Avenue, he spots an altar to an unknown god. There were several of these altars in ancient Greece, intended as a “just in case I should be praying to you, too” altar.

Now, Paul knows where to begin. First, he praises the Athenians. “I see you are extremely religious.” Then, he uses the altar to the unknown god as the opening to his story. “I can tell you who this unknown god is.”

In contrast to the conflict stories among the Greek gods, Paul tells the origin story of the Jewish people. One God, maker of heaven and earth and everything in it; one people, from one human couple. All people on earth are connected to this one pair of ancestors, and all nations are the result of this one God’s creativity.

This God’s hope is that all people will seek and find God, in whom we “live and move and have our being.” Paul quotes local poetry to keep the people connected and listening. He goes on. “We are offspring of this God, so we should not think of God as a statue or image, or human, like us. And God commands all people to repent of thinking of God as a statue made of metal or stone.”

“Indeed,” Paul continues, “God has sent a human, a man, to bring the message of a coming time of judgment and justice. God assures us this is true by raising this man from the dead.” The story of Paul’s time at the Areopagus ends with a few people wanting to know more, and most of them walking away.

Note that Paul doesn’t talk about Jesus born of Mary and God’s Spirit. He only talks about the resurrection of the man sent by God, and the response the people should make, repentance. He doesn’t even say the name “Jesus”! Paul tells the parts of the story that his listeners will understand, the parts they can relate to.

… The same is true for Jesus and Peter. Jesus tells the disciples what they can understand, sometimes pushing them to understand more than they think they can. In today’s reading, Jesus promises that after his death, he will send an Advocate, the Spirit. Since they have no context for this, they have to wait to understand what Jesus means. If I were in the room that night, I would still be reeling from Jesus’ plan to allow himself to be executed, much less comprehend further spiritual concepts. I get that we are to love as he loves. Beyond that, I am mystified.

Peter has so many thoughts jumbled into these two paragraphs, I struggle to follow what he is saying. Here’s what I get out of it: stay faithful to Jesus despite the suffering you are experiencing because of your faith. Remember you are baptized and part of God’s family as much as Noah and his family were at the time of the Flood.

… If I asked you to tell me a story connected to one of these texts today, what story would you tell? Have you or someone you know been persecuted for your/their faith? How do you respond when Jesus tells you he is sending an Advocate? How would you explain your faith in Jesus to a Jewish person? To a Muslim? To a person who doesn’t believe in God? To a person who believes in God, but thinks all church-goers are hypocrites?

Here is one story I would tell in response to Peter’s mention of persecution. I was in East Germany in 1987, 2 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Our group of Lutheran women were having lunch in a Lutheran Convent, connected to a hospital.

The server for my table said she was studying to be a pharmacist. She really wanted to be a doctor, but the rules in East Germany were that people who belonged to a religious group had limited career paths available to them. Her faith was more important to her than her ability to be a doctor. It’s 35 years ago, and I still remember and admire the choices she made. Hopefully, after the end of communist rule, she was able to continue her studies and became a wonderful doctor.

… So, what stories in your life are brought to mind from these stories from Scripture? Maybe you’ll tell them to your gathered family or friends this week. Or to me, because I love a good story! Amen