A sermon preached at
Kowloon Union Church on Sunday 25 May 2014, Asia Sunday, by Dr. Hope S. Antone. The
scripture readings that day were
Acts
17:22-31
Malipayong
adlaw para sa Asya! Happy Asia Sunday to all of you.
Asia Sunday is usually celebrated on the
Sunday before Pentecost, to commemorate the founding of the Christian
Conference of Asia. CCA is an ecumenical
organization whose vision is “life together in common obedience of witness to
the mission of God in the world”. The
word “ecumenical” comes from the Greek word OIKOUMENE, which I prefer to
explain as ‘the whole universe as the household of God.’ If the whole universe is God’s house (oikos), then all the people that God
created are members of that household.
This year, Asia
Sunday falls on the 1st of June.
However, when I was on the CCA staff, we used to put a note on the Asia
Sunday booklet that churches are free to find a suitable Sunday to celebrate
it. The theme for this year’s
celebration is “Longing in Hope for the Freedom of Creation”. I believe that it is a theme that can
continue in the coming weeks as we also observe World Environment Day (June 5),
World Oceans Day (June 8) and World Day to Combat Desertification and Drought
(June 17).
In our celebration
of Asia Sunday today, I decided to use our lectionary readings, particularly
Acts 17:22-31. I made this decision
before the Asia Sunday 2014 booklet was uploaded in the CCA website, and
because I found the lectionary readings appropriate enough to speak to an
enduring concern of the ecumenical movement – i.e., how we relate to people of
different religions, cultures and traditions.
Acts 17 narrates the Apostle Paul’s
missionary journey to the ancient city of Athens, the center of Greek
philosophy, architecture, culture, art, and religion. It was the place where learned people engaged
in philosophical discussion and debate.
The beginning of Acts 17 describes how distressed Paul was to see the
city full of idols. So he tried to share
the good news of Jesus and his resurrection with the people in the synagogue
and in the marketplace. Now Jesus and
his resurrection might have sounded like “Jesus and his Anastasis” – which might have been misunderstood as a new god and
goddess. Since it was illegal to
introduce new foreign gods in Athens, which was already known to have more gods
than people, some philosophers invited Paul to the Areopagus, the name and site of an ancient court on a rocky hill where
the council of nobles met to hear and settle cases.
So what
can we learn from Paul’s speech at the Areopagus that would help us in our
relating with our Asian neighbors, sometimes family members who happen to
embrace a different religion? This is
quite significant for us in Asia, where the major religions and philosophies of
the world were born and continue to thrive: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism,
Christianity, Islam, etc. Is it really
impossible for people of these many religions and philosophies to live together
in Asia?
(1) One lesson that we can
get from this story is the importance of having an affirming and appreciative
attitude towards other religions, cultures and traditions.
Even
though the sight of many altars to so many gods and goddesses distressed Paul,
he did not take an insulting or condemning approach towards the Athenians’
religious practices. Instead, he says to
them: “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in
every way.” I’d like to think that he
was NOT saying this in order to be
nice. And usually for us, it would even
be just pretending to be nice. Paul was well informed about
the beliefs of the Athenians and he sought to connect with them right where
they were, with the spirit of understanding rather than of condemnation. He was paying respect to
the philosophies, beliefs and religious practices of the Athenians. It is like saying that he honored the wisdom
and devotion wherever it was found.
I read that when the English missionary
Bishop Reginald Heber went to India in the early 1800's, he was remembered to
have commented on the Hindus as idolaters, bowing down to wood and stone. Bishop Heber wrote the famous Christian
hymn, "Holy, Holy, Holy" which includes the line, "Only thou art
holy, there is none beside thee."
Now we can understand the perspective in which that song was
written. Many of the early missionaries
who came to Asia probably shared a similar attitude. Thus, it is no wonder that many of the
Christians in Asia tend to show an attitude of superiority to Asians who follow
other religions. Prof. Wilfred Cantwell
Smith of Harvard Divinity School explained in his religion classes that the
Hindus were not bowing down to wood and stone any more than Christians were
bowing down to a wooden or stone cross or image of the crucified Jesus. Rather, Smith said, both Hindus and
Christians bow down to what the wood and stone symbolize for them, pointing to
what lies behind them – namely, God.
My sister who lives in Thailand shared
with me how some friends (and also relatives) who visited them tend to comment
negatively about the Buddhist temples and shrines that abound in Bangkok. It is sad that these visitors cannot
appreciate the religiosity of the Thais but instead judge them based on their
own Christian upbringing. I remember
having a student in my class at the College of Divinity in Payap
University. Coming from another Asian
country, she said she found it very hard to do the wai (the Thai gesture with arms folded together to one’s chest,
which is usually done when you greet someone older, or someone higher in
position). She said that because for her
that gesture is used when praying to God, she found it difficult to use it for
anyone else. But I learned that the wai, which is the same gesture when
greeting Namaste or Namaskar in India or Nepal, actually
means, “I recognize the divine in you.”
Isn’t that a beautiful thing – to affirm the divine in one another? After all, as the Bible affirms, each one of
us is created in the image of God!
The ability to affirm or appreciate other
people’s religion, tradition or culture comes with more knowledge and
understanding about the essence of their religion, culture or tradition. Thus, we need to be open, to learn from
others, because we have so much to learn…
And we can do so meaningfully only in the spirit of understanding and
appreciation rather than of judgment or condemnation.
(2)
Another lesson that we can
get from this story is the importance of making connections and finding points
of similarity or convergence, instead of focusing on divergence or
differences. In the story, Paul does
this by referring to an altar with the inscription, “to an unknown god.”
But why have an altar for an unknown god? According to a legend, Athens was plagued by
pestilence around the 6th century BC. Having exhausted their strategies to abate
the plague, the city rulers asked the prophet Epimenides of Crete to help. His remedy was to release a herd of black and
white sheep away from the Areopagus, followed closely by attendants. Wherever the sheep lay down, the attendants
were to sacrifice them to the god of that place. The idea was to appease the angry gods who
caused the plague. If the place where
the sheep lay down in had no affiliation with any deity, the attendants were to
build an altar, dedicating it “to an Unknown God”. It was believed that
after the plague had passed, the Athenians maintained the altars in remembrance
of what had happened there.
Paul tried to show that this “unknown god” to the
Athenians is in fact the God who made the world and everything in it. I like how he quoted the Greek poets who
said, in this God “we live and move and have our being”, and thus, “we too are his offspring”.
This God
is the God of all people in all places at all times! And if we believe so, we must also believe
that we are all God’s children – i.e. God’s offspring. Such an
affirmation would be a great point of convergence, on which better
understanding and harmony can be fostered.
The trouble we have when having a dialogue with people of
other faiths or religions is we tend to focus on divergence and
differences. Worse is when we use the
best about our religion to compare with the worst of another religion. For example, some Christians take great pride
in saying that theirs is a religion of peace while other religions promote
violence. If we get to know the
different religions more closely, we would see that they are essentially for
peace; but unfortunately people interpret and act on their religions’ teachings
differently.
A Filipino couple who were very good friends of my
parents got a chance to visit Bangkok, Thailand a few years ago. When they returned to the Philippines they
shared with my parents how amazed they were at finding how economically better
off Thailand was compared to the Philippines.
They were amazed because in their minds they could not believe that a
predominantly non-Christian country could be so “blessed”. They further shared that while they were in
Bangkok, they prayed so hard to God that the people in Thailand would come to
believe in Christ.
Our
problem as Christians is that our conceptions of God may be too narrow. Like when we think that God only loves and
blesses Christians and no one else. Or
when we think that only Christians are capable of doing good, while those of
other religions are not. Have you heard
how some Christians would comment about a person who is a follower of another
religion and is known to be a good person?
They would say, “Oh that is because he/she is a secret Christian.” When we continue to think this way, we will
find it hard to have meaningful dialogue with those of other faiths or
religions.
(3)
The third lesson that we
can get from this story is the importance of repentance, metanoia in Greek, which means change in one’s way of thinking,
practice and living.
Despite his admiration or appreciation for the Athenians’
wisdom and devotion, Paul still challenged them toward growth. Paul talked of how
God commands all people everywhere to repent because of the impending
time of judgment through his appointed one.
As Christians, we can tell that even though Paul does not mention the
name explicitly, he is referring to Christ Jesus here as the appointed one, the
one who has been raised from the dead, the one to judge in righteousness.
We have to remember that Paul was asked to explain his
teaching at the Areopagus by philosophers, who had their different notions of
the divine and how to live meaningfully in the world. For some the divine is too distant to be
interested or involved in human affairs; for some, they have to depend on their
own actions and works in order for something to happen in life; whereas many
also believed in appeasing this god or that god whenever something bad or sad
happened in their life. Paul reminded
them all of the God who is the creator, ruler and sustainer of all; this God
does not live in temples built by human hands and does not need to be served by
human hands. This all-sufficient God
does not need anything but is the provider and sustainer of all that human
beings need.
Some commentators on the passage have pointed out that
while Paul was distressed to see the many altars to different gods and
goddesses, the other form of idolatry that could have been just as equally
distressing was the worship of oneself.
When the self is made the priority of one’s life and the pursuit of
one’s desires became the rule of life – that too is idolatry.
This is an important reminder for us today – we may not
be bowing to any physical images when we do our religious practice. But we must ask ourselves who or what really
takes priority in our lives (for that is our idol or god). Is it oneself? Is it one’s loved one, or family? Is it our looks, our reputation, our name or
fame? Is it our work or occupation? Whatever it is that takes great priority in
our life most of the time could be the little god or idol that we
worship in place of the true God – who is waiting and longing for us.
Paul connects the need for repentance, metanoia, with the
time of judgment. While repentance has
indeed a lot to do with our personal and individual lives, it also has a lot to
do with our collective lives as a people in Asia and the world. Sin after all is not just about bad personal
habits that may hurt someone. It is also
about structures and policies in society that breed hurtful environments for
many – such as poverty and injustice, corruption and violence.
As our song “God of Asia, God of All” (composed by the
Rev. Dr. Salvador Martinez for the CCA General Assembly 2005) will remind us,
we in Asia are a diverse people, divided for many reasons; rich in resources
but our lands are often devastated – because of wars and our neglect; many are
suffering, violence is increasing, many live in hopelessness, doubt and fear.
In the face of all these, we are called to metanoia, repentance, change in our
thinking and living. One form of metanoia is a return to God as we commit
our lives to serving God, by serving God’s people. But our bigger challenge in Asia is to call
our leaders and the powers-that-be in our different countries to metanoia – i.e. from only thinking of
enriching themselves at the expense of the suffering and vulnerable people of
our lands. This is our more daunting
task today – speaking to and calling upon the powers that be, that they may be
open to a real metanoia. May we strive to do whatever we can to help
bring this about.
Let us pray, with the words from this song:
God of Asia, God of all:
Turn our doubts into
faith; and our fears into hope
Let love rule in our
hearts; let justice rule in our lands
Give us strength to
serve and love to persevere
Till true peace with
justice reign in our communities. Amen
# posted by Kowloon Union Church : Sunday, May 25, 2014
