Sixth Sunday of Easter

“May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight,
O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.”

I’ve taken my text today from the reading in Acts: 17:22 – 31. However, since today is Mother’s Day, I would like to say a few words about the most significant and gracious mother who ever lived: Mary.

Beginning with the Annunciation, Mary played an essential role in the story of our salvation, by expressing her willingness to become the mother of the prophesied Messiah. Subsequently, some of the most beautiful and stirring words in the New Testament are spoken by Mary to her kinswoman Elizabeth, who was to become the mother of John the Baptist:

“My soul doth magnify the Lord,
and my spirit hath rejoiced in God, my Savior,
For he hath regarded the humble estate of His handmaiden:
And, behold, from henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed.
For He that is mighty hath done for me great things, and holy is His name.
And His mercy blesses them that fear him from generation to generation.

He hath performed mighty deeds with His arm;
He hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
He hath brought down the mighty from their thrones

And exalted them of low degree.
He hath filled the hungry with good things,
And the rich He hath sent away empty.

He hath holpen his servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy; Even as He spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed forever.” Luke 1:46-55.

In due time, Mary gives birth to the Savior, Jesus, who grows to manhood in the home of Mary and Joseph, and it is not difficult to imagine the Blessed Mother raising the Messiah in perfect love and benevolence, the model of all maternal duties. However, aside from those motherly activities, which we take for granted, we should also keep in mind Mary’s role in encouraging Jesus to begin his public ministry. I am speaking, of course, of the wedding at Cana of Galilee. We’re all familiar with the story, which appears in the Gospel of John: it occurs shortly after Jesus’s calling of the first disciples.

“On the third day, a wedding took place in Cana of Galilee; and Mary, the mother of Jesus, was there: And both Jesus and his disciples were called to the marriage. “When the wine was gone, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’ “Jesus said to her, ‘Dear woman, why do you involve me in this? My time has not yet come.’ “However, Mary said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ “Nearby, stood six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus said to the servants, ‘Fill the jars with water;’ so they filled them to the brim. Then Jesus said to them, ‘Now draw some out and take it to the master of the banquet. [I can’t help thinking Jesus issued this order with a straight face and a twinkle in his eyes.]

“They did so, and the master of the banquet tasted the water that had been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from, thought he servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and said, “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.” [Imagine the bridegroom’s amazement. I’m sure his initial response was a baffled “Huh? What wine, where?”]

“This, the first of His miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed His glory, and His disciples put their faith in him.” John 2:1-11

Consequently, it is clear that Jesus performed His first miracle at his mother’s instigation – thereby demonstrating to us all, her importance in His ministry.

SEGUE TO THE AREOPAGUS: THE GREEK CONCEPT OF “ARISTOS”

St. Paul’s Areopagus sermon is the most dramatic and most fully reported speech in the saint’s missionary career. In today’s reading in Acts, Paul – the cosmopolitan, Hellenized, Roman citizen – [These are Paul’s credentials, and they are extremely important to the audience he is addressing] -- stands before the Areopagus to present his case for the worship of the one true Creator God and His only son, Jesus Christ. “Areopagus” has a dual meaning: first, it refers to a specific structure in Athens – a massive geological formation dedicated to Ares; and, second, to the Athenian judicial council which met in that location. The council tried cases involving homicide, assault, arson of olive trees (equivalent to burning a farmer’s crops), and religious matters. Hence Paul’s presence before them.

Prior to his appearance before the Areopagus, Paul had been preaching in the Athenian agora, the town square or marketplace – where he was shocked to see so many temples, shrines, and idols. Among them, he found an altar with the inscription “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD,” and he understood that the Athenians were hedging their bets, not wanting to offend any deity in their extensive pantheon. Although we often think of the Greeks as worshipping the Olympian gods – Zeus, Hera, Ares, Aphrodite, Athena, and the others – those were, in fact, mere personifications of physical and spiritual phenomena.

However, the Hellenes actually cherished the concept of a higher god, a Creator, to whom the Olympian gods were subservient: they called this supreme being “Aristos,” (as in the word “aristocrat”) which in Greek means everything we mean by the Highest, the Wisest, the Best, and the Greatest Good. Classically, as well as rabbinically, trained, Paul seized upon the opportunity to identify the Greeks’ Unknown God, Aristos, as YHWH, Jehovah.

In his sermon to the Areopagus, Paul addresses five principal issues:
(1) The ignorance of pagan worship;
(2) The one Creator God being the only worthy object of worship;
(3) God’s relationship to humanity;
(4) Idols of gold, silver, and stone as objects of false worship; and
(5) God’s call to repentance and rejection of false worship.

Paul begins tactfully by praising the Athenians’ piety: “Men of Athens! I see that you are extremely religious in every way. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with the inscription “TO AN UNKNOWN GOD.”

“Now, because what you worship is something unknown, this I proclaim to you: the God who made the world and everything in it, He who is Lord of Heaven and Earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is He served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since He, Himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things.” Here, Paul speaks to the impossibility of creating an image of the One True God, and the equal impossibility of offering YHWH anything physical or tangible as if He needed it as sacrifice.

Paul follows in explaining YHWH’s role in the creation of humanity: “From one ancestor, He made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and He allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, so that they would search for God and perhaps reach out for Him and find Him, though He is never far from each of us: for in Him “we live and move and have our being” – as even some of your own poets have said: “For we, too, are His offspring.”

Paul emphasizes that humans are God’s offspring – and therefore, we should not envision this Divine Being as anything that can be captured in gold or silver or stone: no image created by the art and imagination of mortal men could possibly capture the infinite wisdom and power of the Lord God Jehovah.

In warning the judges of the Areopagus that YHWH had heretofore tolerated human ignorance, Paul clearly stated that the time had come for mankind to repent, because God had sent Jesus to judge mankind and appointed a day when the Savior will judge the world in righteousness. And as proof of Jesus’s role as Judge, Paul offers the irrefutable evidence of the Resurrection.

So powerful was Paul’s sermon to the august members of the Areopagus that two of the judges became converts that day – in particular, two men named Dionysius (not to be confused with the Greek god of wine) and a woman named Damaris, as well as a number of unnamed others.

Before ending my discussion, I would like to pose a question – one such as Paul put to the members of the Areopagus -- and we all need to answer it honestly to ourselves: “What idols of gold or silver, steel and chrome, artificial intelligence, or whatever, do we worship?” Today is a good day to restore our focus on the real Aristos: the one true God, Creator and Shaper of the Universes, who sacrificed His only begotten Son to ransom us from sin.
Selah.

Dr. Stan Lombardo