Then Paul stood up at the Areopagus and said:
You Athenians, I see that in every respect
you are very religious.
For as I walked around looking carefully at your shrines,
I even discovered an altar inscribed, ‘To an Unknown God.’
What therefore you unknowingly worship, I proclaim to you.
The God who made the world and all that is in it,
the Lord of heaven and earth,
does not dwell in sanctuaries made by human hands,
nor is he served by human hands because he needs anything.
Rather it is he who gives to everyone life and breath and everything.
He made from one the whole human race
to dwell on the entire surface of the earth,
and he fixed the ordered seasons and the boundaries of their regions,
so that people might seek God,
even perhaps grope for him and find him,
though indeed he is not far from any one of us.
For ‘In him we live and move and have our being,’
as even some of your poets have said,
‘For we too are his offspring.’
— Acts 17:15, 22-18:1
The peace of the Lord be with you. Have you ever tried to help someone understand God? It can be challenging, in part because it is almost impossible to put the grandeur and the goodness of God in to words. Yet, as the reading Acts points out today, there is inner knowing that most of us experienced and varied ways people have attempted to worship and seek God. The Scriptures remind us this morning that we most likely will not find God in the tangible because none of those things are great enough to contain Him. Rather, God is the author of all that is. God is the ultimate servant. God is being itself. Despite God’s immeasurable power, reaching out to us, he put on human form in the person of Jesus. The God Man accepted our limitations and the vagaries of our being to show us how to live to, to show us our original nature, and to show us how much he loves us without reservation.
In humility and gratitude let us ask God:
How are we to worship you?
How are we to show you our thanks?
How are we to become your sons and daughters?
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.