There’s a prayer
from the Episcopal service of Morning Prayer that I heard over and over again
as a child and learned to love. It’s called the “Collect for Guidance.”
Heavenly Father, in you we live and move
and have our being: We humbly pray you so to guide and govern us by your Holy
Spirit, that in all the cares and occupations of our life we may not forget you, but may remember
that we are ever walking in your sight; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
I loved it
because of the first line, “in you we live, and move, and have our being”
That line wrapped me in the certainty of being surrounded and supported and loved by God, and gave me a sense of infinite possibility. Those words felt like soaring flight and safe harbor, both at once.
That line wrapped me in the certainty of being surrounded and supported and loved by God, and gave me a sense of infinite possibility. Those words felt like soaring flight and safe harbor, both at once.
I was hooked.
I said that
prayer a lot in my 20s, while I was trying to figure out who, and how, and why
I was.And around that time I learned that pretty much all the language I loved
in the Book of Common Prayer, in Episcopal worship, came from the psalms,
Isaiah, or Paul.
It was this
week, however, when I finally realized that this marvelous image of God in whom
we live and move and have our being doesn’t come from the psalms, or prophets,
or Paul, or anywhere else in scripture, but from some pre-Christian Greek poet.
(One of my
sources attributes it to Epimenidies, six centuries before Jesus.)
We find this out
in today’s story from the Acts of the Apostles, in a speech that Paul makes to
a bunch of Athenian philosophers. Paul makes a point of quoting Greek poets and
writers that his audience should know. He’s
establishing common ground with them,
paying attention
to a truth already in them, already open to them – a truth remarkably like the
one Jesus has to pound into the heads of his disciples over and over in the
gospel stories we hear in this season.
We hear it
today, as Jesus tells his disciples of God’s Spirit that will come and be in them, and that “you will know that I
am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
You can’t
separate God from us, or us from God. We
are in one another, intimately
entwined, living in the same being, being in the same life.
It’s a truth.
Jesus says
it. Repeatedly.
Centuries before
that, the Greek poets knew it; knew it and said it so well that Paul can use
that truth to find common ground with a bunch of Greek philosophers in a city
with no history or intention of worshipping the God of Israel.
He’s using the
truths of non-Christian culture to tell the truth of God.
Though as far as
his audience knew, he’s just there for a good chat about new ideas.
(It’s left out
of what we read today, but Luke, the author of the Acts of the Apostles, makes
a point of telling us the Athenians loved nothing better than to hear or invent
new ideas. Kind of reminds me of iPhone
culture here and now.)
Paul, on the
other hand, whether he’s talking about new ideas or old, never passes up a
chance to talk about Jesus.
And as Paul
talks to the Greek philosophers, in a place named for the Greek god of war, he finds that common ground, a shared,
acknowledged truth from the culture around them all: In God we live, and move,
and have our being.
Paul’s found the
yearning for God in a super-religious, curious and fast paced culture.
He’s found an
altar dedicated to an unknown God, and art that tells the same truth that Jesus
lived out among us.
Has that ever
happened to you?
Have you ever
found a place just yearning for God?
Or heard music,
experienced art, or even been bombarded with advertising that tells a truth
about God, found a secular song, or
story, or catch-phrase that just resonates with truth you know about God?
You never know
where you’ll find these things.
For me, God
grabbed me the first time my car radio played a song that was popular about a
decade ago – and still gets a little play.
It’s a song never meant to refer to God at all,
whose verses are
apparently about either drugs or infidelity,
but the first
verse sounds to me like the living presence of the Holy Spirit:
You don't know how you met me
You don't know why
You can't turn around and say goodbye
All you know is when I'm with you
I make you free
And swim through your veins like a fish in the sea”
You don't know why
You can't turn around and say goodbye
All you know is when I'm with you
I make you free
And swim through your veins like a fish in the sea”
(Uncle Kracker,
“Follow Me,” 2001)
That sure sounds
like God in us to me!
You see, if as
Epimenidies and Paul and Jesus all say, God is in us, and that in God we live,
and move, and have our being, then there is always truth about God in throughout
this world we live and move in, not just in the church.
And you and I
need to find that ground to stand on, to claim those godly truths that come
from the world that’s not the church, to rejoice in them, and to share them
without hesitation, so that our common ground is visible, and welcoming and
strong, ready for people who know the truths we share, and who might just be
ready to meet Jesus.
It doesn’t work
perfectly – it never does, and it didn’t for Paul. Lots of his hearers scoffed
at him, despite the common ground. Others were curious, but not interested in
committing. But there were some who stood on that common ground, and heard, and
loved, and believed. Some new believers
who mattered so much that their names were known soon to other Christian
communities, and remembered in our scripture and story.
It’s not a
miracle, common ground, it just matters.
So this week,
listen with your
heart and your ears to the world around us.
Listen for the
truths about God that you hear in popular music, on TV, in movies, blogs,
gardening catalogs….or even in advertising (it’s there!).
When you hear
and see those truths, collect them; steep yourself in the worldly things that
speak God’s truth to you. Because that’s
how we live the rest of the church’s prayer to God in whom we live and move and
have our being, that:
in all the cares
and occupations of our life we may not forget God,
but may remember
that we are ever walking in God’s sight.
So listen.
Listen and hear
the Godly truths in the common world,
and share.
Play your music
for others, share that holy humor or life-giving art on Facebook. Ask someone
else what that holy snippet means to them. Take a chance on telling them what
it means to you.
Find your common
ground, so you can invite people in;
so we can invite
others to rejoice in the truths we already know,
and God will do
the rest.
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