St Paul began a discussion when he stood before the Areopagus and spoke about an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god’ (Acts 17.22-31). The Areopagus was the rock of Ares in Athens, a centre of temples, cultural facilities and high court, and also the name of the council that originally served as the central governing body of Athens, but came to be the court with jurisdiction over cases of homicide and other serious crimes. In speaking to the Areopagus Paul was giving a guest lecture, whilst also being, in some senses, on trial.
Pope John Paul II likened the modern media to the New Areopagus, where Christian ideas needed to be explained and defended anew, against disbelief and the gold and silver idols of consumerism. Understanding how St Paul did so in the original Areopagus can assist in understanding how we might initiate or contribute to debate and dialogue in our own day and time, whether virtually or in person.
Paul began where people were by referring to the altar to an unknown god which was to be found amongst the cluster of temples around him. He didn’t criticize those to whom he was speaking. Instead, he commended the breadth of their engagement with religion. He didn’t tell them they were wrong by suggesting they were pagans worshipping the wrong god or gods. Instead, he overaccepted their religious story fitting it into the larger story of what he believed God was doing with the world. Nor did he dismiss their culture. Instead, he made it clear that he had heard and appreciated their poets by making connections between those poets and the message he had come to share. In these ways, he began a dialogue with them about the nature of faith and its engagement with their lives and culture. We read that some scoffed but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this’, and some joined him and became believers.
Paul was able to be in Athens because he had a trade – tentmaking – which enabled him to be supported financially as he travelled and which opened doors and provided contacts that might not otherwise have been open to him. In each place to which he travelled he formed new congregations led by those who came to faith. In each place that he visited he went to the synagogue and sought to speak with those at the heart of the Jewish community, but also welcomed those who were on the edge, often Gentiles, slaves and servants.
Over the past year we have been making use of the HeartEdge model of mission in this parish. It’s called the 4Cs – compassion, culture, commerce and congregation. It is a pattern for ministry that we share with other churches throughout the UK, and the world, through the movement to renew the church that is called HeartEdge. HeartEdge is about churches developing these 4Cs. Generating finance and impacting communities via social enterprise and commerce. Culture, in the form of art, music, performance, that re-imagines the Christian narrative for the present. Congregations that develop welcoming liturgies, worship, and day-to-day communal life while also addressing social need and community cohesion. Nurturing each of these is essential for renewal of the church.
HeartEdge churches are seeking to begin and develop a conversation with our communities and nations, as Paul sought to do in Athens. As one example, St Mark’s Church in Pennington, within the Diocese of Winchester, used their churchyard hedge as a site for yarn bombing to focus the attention of their community on Holocaust Memorial Day, Holy Week and Easter, and the VE Day anniversary. Organising online community events and services combined with the organisation of knitting and crochet work for the different yarnbombs placed St Mark’s at the heart of their community while connecting many who were isolated because of the Covid-19 lockdown. St Mark’s demonstrated that the boundaries of ‘church’ should be much more porous than they had previously imagined. Rachel Noel, the Vicar of St Mark’s, said she hoped that we will all get so used to worshipping with, and being led by, a variety of people, that we will always seek to find ways to include and value diversity and richness.
As with Paul in Athens and HeartEdge churches like St Mark’s Pennington, we are seeking to connect compassion, culture, commerce and congregation to draw all engaged in those forms of community into a conversation that explores how we shall now live and who it is that is our neighbour.
What we have done over the past year has begun a conversation where the ‘good news’ of community compassion and culture, with church at the heart and on the margins, can be heard and is being valued. We are inviting others to join that conversation, to have their say, so that the margins can speak to the centre that we might encounter God in everyone.
As we do so, we will together find a story which connects a series of otherwise inexplicable circumstances, begin to live in that story and then act our part within it. In this way, like those who joined Paul in Athens, we, too, may discover it is the story of what God is doing with the world that reveals where we are and what we are to do.
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Pissabed Prophet - Waspdrunk.
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