Sharing Jesus

Easter 6

May 14, 2023

Fr. Tim Nunez

May my spoken word be true to God’s written word and bring us all closer to the living word, Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

I’d like to take you on a little trip this morning. We are going to drop in on Times Square in New York City. All around us are bright neon signs, huge screens showing advertisements and all sorts of news 24/7. It never really gets dark. It’s the heart of the “City that Never Sleeps.” There are stores and hotels and Broadway theaters all around us, hot dog stands, too much to take in all at once. It’s the most bustling slice of New York City.

And there are people, so many people, bustling all around you from every walk of life. Wall Street executives, students, aspiring actors, tourists, cab drivers, and they come from all across the country and all around the world.

You are there for a very important purpose. You’ve got a microphone and giant speaker so that you can tell whoever will listen about Jesus. Are you ready?

That would be similar to what Paul is doing in Athens. You will recall that Athens is the cradle of Greek philosophy, a tradition of inquiry and learning that goes back as far as 600 years or more before Jesus. (That would be about the time of the Jews’ exile to Babylon.) Greek philosophers delved into all manner of inquiry, including such areas as ethics, astronomy, politics, economics, mathematics, biology, logic and more. They came to recognize that there was a deep unity in all of it. The Greeks also had complex mythologies with gods and goddesses for everything one could observe and every circumstance. And they developed drama. While the Romans had their empire, their culture was almost entirely based on Greek culture.

Athens was the hub of philosophy, of ideas which would be tested, debated, defended, and shaped in public places. A prominent site was the Areopagus, which means the Hill of Ares, the god of war, or using the Roman name, Mars Hill. Centuries before, it had been where the city council met and by Paul’s time it was a popular place for public debate.

So there he is, in the middle of their Times Square among people of all sorts of cultures and walks of life, publicly engaging them about Jesus. He doesn’t go in there with a big sign saying, “The end is near!” He doesn’t start by scolding the pagans. He meets them where they are and connects the Gospel to what they already know.

People are essentially in one of two modes. Either they are open to the idea of God, or they are not. By open, I mean the full range from the most devout Christian you can imagine to a person who has just an itch that there might be something more to life than this. And some of that is timing. A person’s mind may change over time, so it isn’t just to whom you are speaking, but when they are ready and able to hear what you are saying.

Paul doesn’t talk about the salvation history of Israel, of Moses, David and the rest. Paul uses logic, a Greek mode of inquiry based on exploring the logos, the Greek word for Word, which for them was the unity behind and binding all things. He builds on what some Greek philosophers had already articulated, that there had to be one God above all else.

Imagine again being in Times Square speaking to a crowd. What might one say? “New Yorkers! I see you are a people who strive in every way. You even walk so fast. As I look around your city, I see buildings that reach to the sky. I see your passion for knowledge and the arts of every kind. You are always drawn to bigger and better in business, arts, entertainment and the vibrance of this great city. On your city seal is a single word, ‘Excelsior,’ which means ever upward.”

“Upward is not a physical direction. It is a calling to the highest and best, the very essence of life and goodness that is ever beyond our efforts, beyond our reach. And yet that desire is always within us, calling us upward. And we are ever groping toward him. You aspire to the greatness manifest in all these big buildings and bright lights. And you know none it can save you from the suffering and death we all face, and that you know is rampant in the low and neglected places.

“Your own poets have said, ‘All you need is love’ and ‘Your love keeps lifting me, higher and higher.’ God is love. God’s love came into our world in the person of Jesus, by whom he has overcome all that is wrong and evil in this world and demonstrated his promise of eternal life by raising him from the dead. He did this for you.”

As compelling as that argument may be, or might be improved, even if it were perfectly delivered in a way that most people could hear, we shouldn’t expect any better reception than what Paul had.  “When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.” (Acts 17:32-34, p. 927 in your pew Bibles.)

Some, maybe most, scoffed. But some heard. Why is Dionysius the Aeropagite mentioned by name? He was a judge, a man of position and influence who eventually led the church Paul planted in Athens and became the first bishop of Athens. We don’t know as much about Damaris, but she was clearly known to the early Church and remains a saint in the Catholic and Greek Orthodox Church. She and Dionysius became martyrs to the faith. Martyr literally means witness.

Most people feel hesitant to share their faith. It is deeply personal and we worry about getting asked a question we cannot answer. Trust the Lord to give you what you need to say when you need to say it. It isn’t about what you know, it is about him. Just remember what Jesus said.  “Because I live, you also will live.”

We have kind of an iron rule in our home that I am to tie the Gospel to special days. So to the mothers, as well as the fathers, you know your children better than anyone. You know their interests, their personalities and their preferences.  When you’re teaching them about Jesus, tie their story to his story.  You don’t need to understand everything or really know anything more than steering them back toward him. Your love is the best reflection of the father’s love and no one has the opportunity you have to share it.

AMEN