FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA

Sermon by Dr. George Bryant Wirth

Christ the King Sunday

November 25, 2007

GOOGLING GOD

Scripture: Acts 17:16-34

INTRODUCTION

The September 4^th edition of the Christian Century magazine featured one article in particular that caught my attention. The headline read: “Blackberry-Dependent at Home and in Church,” and in part, this is what it said:

“Users in Washington, D.C. are the most addicted, but more Atlantans do it in church. A new 20-city survey on ‘e-mail addiction’ released by America Online, said the nation’s capital is the most afflicted…but Atlantans led the way in checking e-mails in church, with 22 percent confessing to peeking at their Blackberries during worship services…

Responses were collected June 7 – 19… and Houston and Denver tied for second in the checking-e-mail-in-church category, with 19 percent in both of those cities confessing to the deed. Washington D.C. placed third (18%), followed closely by Los Angeles (17%), Sacramento and Phoenix (15%) and Tampa (13%). But no survey respondent in Minneapolis reported checking e-mail in church.” (From the Christian Century magazine, September 4, 2007, page 16).

Now let me tell you something that only those of us who wear these grey robes and our broadcast ministry team know: Blackberries, as well as other electronic gizmos and cell phones, wreak havoc with our sound system, so we’ve all been forbidden to have them in our possession when we come to the pulpit.

However, that is not true for all of you. Our ushers don’t ask members or visitors when you enter the sanctuary for worship, “Are you carrying any kind of electronic device or cell phone?” But for survey reasons as we begin this sermon, I am going to ask you that question today – so if you have such a device, would you please hold it up at this time? “Yes, I see that hand! Yes, thank you – I see that hand! God bless you – I see that hand too!” (That’s what Billy Graham used to say during his early crusades.)

I

Now having just offered up our second prayer of confession this morning, let me get right down to the point. The information technology available to us today is being used by people of faith in a myriad of ways. “Almost two-thirds of internet users, 64 percent, have done things online that relate to religious or spiritual matters,” reports Lee Rainie, director of The Pew Internet and American Life project. “That percentage adds up to 82 million people who read religious news online, look for answers to life’s problems, search for a place of worship, ask for prayers, research other religions and seek information about the Bible. (From an article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, August 12, 2007 by Christopher Quinn entitled “Thou Shalt Use the Internet to Spread Thy Word”).

And if anyone wants to set out on the information highway for spiritual reasons, you can subscribe to the Logos Productions Inc. newsletter called “Get Me to the Church Online,” a step by step guide for people in congregations who want to get the most out of the internet services information (call 1-800-328-0200).

Dr. John Buchanan, pastor of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago who will preach here next January for our Urban Ministry Conference, touched on all of this in one of his sermons, quoting from an e-mail he received with the headline: “God, Googled, Exists – 59,000,000 Search Results Evidence of Deity, Experts Agree.” The report announces that “In the most conclusive evidence of a supreme being ever discovered, a Google search of God has proved once and for all that He exists” …Apparently, a twenty-two year old video store clerk made the discovery when he accidentally typed in “God” on his computer, and discovered 59 million sites, a discovery he believed would wipe out atheism worldwide” (From a sermon entitled “Reasons of the Heart,” by Dr. John Buchanan, Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, September 12, 2004).

That sermon was preached by Dr. Buchanan three years ago, so Martha Olson and I decided to update the information this past week. Martha has worked alongside me for the past 17 years and when she applies for sainthood, I am confident that she will be approved without hesitation!

Because I am technologically declined and don’t go online for personal reasons, I asked Martha to Google God on Wednesday, and what do you think came back on the computer screen? 607,000,000 sites – that’s what the number is up to now, beginning with www.God.com, which says: “There are over six billion people in this world, and each person has his or her own thoughts about God. (So) how can a person know who God is…and what He is really like?”

II

Those questions, my friends, are not only the questions we modern day people are seeking to answer in our time and place. They are also the same questions that the people of Athens were asking nearly 2000 years ago. And that was the environment of intellectual curiosity and theological debate which Paul engaged as he entered the city bearing witness to his Christian faith.

In the summer of 2005 when some of us from this congregation took a First Century Voyage of Turkey and Greece, re-tracing the missionary journeys of the Apostle Paul, one of the highlight moments for me was our visit to Athens.

Standing by the Areopagus where Paul preached his famous sermon, recorded by Luke in our text today from Acts, Chapter 17, we looked up toward the massive Parthenon – the Temple of Athena, Goddess of Wisdom – perched atop the Acropolis, and we could view other sections of the city where some of the most spectacular ruins of ancient Greece can still be seen.

After I read the words from Paul’s sermon and offered a brief reflection of my own, a young man who had gathered there with our group approached me and said how meaningful that moment had been for him. I was somewhat flattered but mostly grateful, thinking that perhaps we had advanced the cause of the gospel…but then he opened his backpack and proceeded to sell me one of his tourist guide books about Athens, a financial transaction I am sure he had repeated many times before with unsuspecting preachers from all over the world.

Even so, I’m glad I bought this souvenir memento that day, because the well-written words together with the pictures describe the glory of Athens many centuries ago:

“At the assumption of power by Pericles in 461 B.C., Athens had become the undisputed leader of Greece…and enjoyed a fabulous golden age which made it the most beautiful town of antiquity…

The Roman Conquest in 146 B.C. was soon followed by a spiritual (and philosophical) conquest-in-reverse, making Athens the cultural capital of the empire…(and) celebrating the unparalleled galaxy of geniuses in all forms of thought and art – philosophers named Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Epicurus; poets including Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, political and historical authors such as Aristophanes, Herodotus, Thucydides and Plutarch; architects and artists named Callicrates; Mnesicles, Ictinos, Appeles, Polygnotus and Protegenes, (and one warrior and leader among many others named Alexander the Great). (From the book “Athens and the Acropolis” by G. Gouvoussis)

By the time Paul finally arrived in Athens circa 49 or 50 A.D., some of the luster of that old city had worn off and actually been destroyed by enemies. But the apostle found the real remnant of those glory days gone by in the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers whom Luke tells us Spent their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new (Acts 17:21).

I think they were similar to the new atheists we were talking about several Sundays ago, except that these sophisticated and intelligent Athenians actually believed in many gods instead of denying the existence of any one God. In fact, the streets were lined with statues of all the Greek gods, and the temples had been built to worship them. The old saying in those days was that “there were more gods in Athens than people,” which is exactly what Paul observed as he came into the city – all of those idols that had been constructed to pay homage to the pagan deities.

So as Paul began to preach about Jesus and the resurrection, first in the synagogue to his fellow Jews, and then in the marketplace to a gathering crowd, the philosophers finally took hold of him and brought this rabble rouser for a new religion (or so they thought) to the Areopagus, which was both the name for the hill in honor of Ares, the God of War, and for the Council, the Court who sat in judgment on moral matters, somewhat akin to our Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.

This was the very place where Socrates had been condemned to death many centuries before. The Romans called it Mars Hill, it was there that Paul was called onto the carpet by the leaders of Athens, and the questions he addressed back then are the same questions being asked today, including by anyone who googles God and gets www.God.com – “How can we know who God is, and what He is really like?”

III

Now remember that Paul had been trained as a Pharisee with superior legal and theological skills – think of a Christian Perry Mason with the preaching ability of a Barbara Brown Taylor living in the first century, and you’ve got the picture.

Paul began his sermon with a note of affirmation: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way, for as I went through the city and looked at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To An Unknown God.’” So far so good, but then the apostle moved in on them with a three point sermon:

Point #1 – “What you worship as unknown, I proclaim to you as the God who made the world and everything in it, who is Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in shrines made by human hands.” By now they were getting a little restless, as Paul proceeded to

Point #2 – “God made all of the nations to inhabit the earth…so that they would search for Him…and find Him – indeed He is not far from each of one of us…” at which point the Council and crowd around them were becoming upset, so on to

Point #3 – “God now commands all people everywhere to repent, because He has fixed a day of righteous judgment by a Man whom He has appointed, and of this He has given assurance to all by raising Him from the dead.”

Well that was the last straw, and when the Council and crowd had heard enough, Luke says that “Some scoffed…others said ‘We will hear you again about this,’ but some of them became believers, including Dionysius (one of the senators on the Council) and a woman named Damaris, and even more who were not named.

Now, I have heard a few preachers say that Paul’s sermon in the Areopagus on Mars Hill was intellectually sophisticated but theologically deflated because he did not mention the name of Jesus Christ. And a couple of Biblical commentators I have read go on to declare that Paul’s ministry in Athens was a failure because he did not establish a church there.

Regarding the first complaint, Luke has already told us (Acts 17:18) that Paul was preaching Jesus and the resurrection in the marketplace and that was the reason why they hauled him off to the Areopagus – the Athenians had already heard the name of Jesus by then, and Paul wanted to tell them more about Him, if they were willing to listen.

And regarding the second criticism, that Paul did not establish a church in Athens, when our First Century Voyage group visited there two years ago, we walked all around the ruins of those pagan temples dedicated to their gods, and saw the broken statues and reconstructed figures of Greek and Roman rulers who are long since dead and buried. But as we went into some of the churches that are alive and thriving there now, we saw and met people worshiping in those sacred places which were founded and built by the descendents of Paul’s first converts to the faith. Paul did not live to see it with his own eyes, but the seeds that he helped to sow have been blessed to grow, and we recognized and felt the presence of the living Christ in those congregations.

CONCLUSION

Before we close, let me tell you in the words of Paul, the greatest miracle and mystery of all. The God whom we worship is not unknown – nor is He far away from any of us. For when the time had fully come, God sent into this world His only begotten Son named Jesus to show us how to live and how to love and to save us from sin. Tennyson once wrote about Him: “Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet,” and that is true for sure, because He became a human being, and was born to become the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

That is what we celebrate on this Christ the King Sunday. We don’t have to go on line to Google for God…because He has already come, seeking to find us through His Son our Savior Jesus.

And as we turn the corner now toward Advent and Christmas, all we have to do is to open our minds to believe in Him, and open our hearts and homes, our hands and our arms to receive Him.

“Speak to Him Thou,

For He hears, and Spirit with spirit may meet;

Closer is He than our breathing,

Nearer than hands and feet.”

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

His name is Jesus. He is the King, and He is the greatest gift God has ever given to us.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen