Sunday
05/21/17 Freeville/Homer Avenue UMC’s
Sermon Title: “Not a God of graven images”
(“The Early Church”
Series – Part 1 of 3)
Old Testament
Scripture: Psalm 66:8-20
New Testament
Scripture: Acts 17:22-31
Gospel Lesson: John
14:15-21
Welcome
again, my friends, my sisters and brothers in Christ, on this the Sixth Sunday
in this the Season of Easter. This Thursday we will celebrate Ascension of the
Lord Day, as the church celebrates the day that Christ left his apostles and
ascended into heaven.
We
will celebrate Ascension Sunday next Sunday May 28th, along with having a
special Memorial Day service. The very next Sunday, Sunday June 4th is
Pentecost Sunday. This is the day that we celebrate the birth of Christian Church,
through the powerful movement of the Holy Spirit, in that Upper Room in
Jerusalem. I would invite you all to wear red on Pentecost Sunday, which once
again, is Sunday June 4th.
In
moving towards Pentecost Sunday then, I am starting a three week preaching
series this morning on “The Early Church”.
The
founder of the Methodist Movement, John Wesley often called the first or early
Christian Church, the “primitive church.” I prefer to just call the first
church, just that, or “The Early Church,” as that terminology seems to connect
with people better.
In
the timeline of where we are at in our liturgical or church year then, we are
post-resurrection of Christ. Jesus Christ rose on Easter, and is continuing to
appear to the disciples and others for 40-days. Jesus will then ascend to
heaven to be with God the Father this Thursday, until he returns again one day in
glory.
When
Jesus ascends to heaven, which is part of the topic of my sermon for next
Sunday, the apostles, those first disciples, are then officially on their own. Then
on the day of Pentecost, the disciples and perhaps others in an Upper Room in
Jerusalem, receive the movement of the Holy Spirit in a powerful way. They will
speak in various languages or tongues, and on this day the disciples and other
early Christians will formally go forth “making disciples of Jesus Christ, for
the transformation of the world”.
Being
part of the first church, or “The Early Church” as this sermon series is called
was quite a task. On the one hand, the number of people who knew Christ as this
point in time were likely less than the population of a very small town, or
perhaps even much less than that. Those first disciples, those first saints,
were charged with going into the world to preach the Good News of Jesus Christ.
For
doing this, they would be heavily persecuted, mocked, and all but the Apostle
John would be brutally put to death for their faith in Christ.
Given
all of this, and while I could do a sermon series on “The Early Church” for
weeks and not possibly cover everything about it, I have picked a few topics on
“The Early Church” for the next few weeks.
My
sermon title today, as I will be preaching on our reading from Acts 17:22-31,
is called “Not a God of graven images”.
You
see, the first disciples, the first Christians, and then the Apostle Paul, once
he converted from Judaism to Christianity, were charged with preaching about the
Kingdom of God, and the Good News of Jesus Christ.
In
many places in the world at this time, many people worshipped many gods.
Sometimes dozens and dozens of them. These god’s might have had different
temples built for them Greece, or Rome, and etc., in their honor. A hallmark of
most of these temples of worship was that there were one or more statues of the
god be worshipped. This is to say, if a person worshipped the goddess Aphrodite,
then they probably would have had one or more statues of this goddess.
What
made us the Christians so odd in “The Early Church” years, and perhaps even odd
now, is that we don’t know what our God looks like. This is to say, we don’t
have a profile of what God the Father, the creator looks like. I mean what does
God the creator of the universe look like?
Since
Jesus Christ was God in the flesh among us, we have at least some connection to
the God that we can see, touch, and experience. We don’t even fully know though
what Jesus looked like physically then, as we have created multiple representations
of him. Since Jesus was God in the flesh, and “dwelt among us” as scripture
says, we have tried to create his likeness over and over again. I would venture
to guess that every church that you have been in has one more paintings or
images of what Jesus Christ might have looked like.
The
question I have us this morning though, is how many of have gone into a church
and have seen a painting or an image of God the Father, the creator of the
universe? The only one I can think of is the image in the Sistine Chapel in
Vatican City in Rome, Italy. This is the image where God reaches out his arm
and extends his finger. This finger then reaches to touch the tip of Adam’s
finger, from the Garden of Eden story.
Other
than this image in Vatican City, in Rome, Italy, I cannot think of many any
other paintings or images of God the Father, the creator. There are some
churches I guess that have such things, but I haven’t seen a ton of them in my
experiences.
Why
is this? Why don’t we have statues, or images of God the Father, the creator? I
mean we don’t know exactly what God the Father or Jesus looked like, yet we
still have images and even statues of Jesus. Why don’t we have the same for God
the Father, the creator?
Well,
our Jewish brothers and sisters also have no images or statues to God, the
creator. This reality goes back to the Ten Commandments. In the Book of Exodus,
when God gives Moses the Ten Commandments, number two and three are as follows:
“You
shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an
idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on
the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow
down to them or worship them;” (Ex. 20:3-4a, NRSV).
This
reality that our Jewish brothers and sisters believe in, is very much a reality
for us as Christians, as we are also called to follow the Ten-Commandments.
This is why we don’t make statues or paintings of God the Father, or creator,
as we would called this a “Graven Image”. This is also discussed in the New Testament,
as well.
Well
what is a “Graven Image?” According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, a
“Graven Image” is: “An
object of worship carved usually from wood or stone: idol” (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/graven%20image).
As
a result of this, we are called to worship God directly, not pictures, not
objects made of wood, stone, or metal, or idols of any kind. So do we worship
God, or representations of God? Or do worship other things altogether?
This
then gets us back to question of, what does God look like anyway? What sort of
being is God? We know that Jesus was the person of God that was among us, but what
does God the Father, the creator look like? Some of us might say, well that is
easy Pastor Paul, God looks like George Burns, or in more recent years, Morgan
Freeman. Yet does God have a body like you and I do? How do we define this God
that we believe in, that we are told to not make statues, idols, or images of?
Now
if you are new to the Christian faith, these are probably very good questions
to be asking. I mean what do you believe, and why do you believe it?
Well
let me read to the official definition of God from our United Methodist Church
Book of Disciple. This is on page 63, as is entitled “Article 1—Of Faith in the
Holy Trinity”. This is what it says:
“There
is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body or parts, of infinite
power, wisdom, and goodness; the maker and preserver of all things, both
visible and invisible. And in unity of this Godhead there are three persons, of
one substance, power, and eternity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost”
(BOD, pg. 63)
According
to this definition then, which I believe in, God the creator, God the Father,
is not a physical being like you and I. Instead, God is a spiritual being. If
we are “made in God’s image” then, which the Bible tells us that we are, then we
are like God in our spiritual aspects, our gifts, and graces, not our physical
appearances. We are all “made in God’s image,” and God loves us all equally.
The
God we believe in, the creator of the universe, has no physical body like you
or I do. This is not a God then that we then carve into wood, stone, or forge
into metal. As a result of this, you will see very few images of God the
Father, or the creator, as most Christians would agree that God is spiritual being,
not a physical being. Some churches might some images of God of the Father, the
creator, but I have not seen many.
Now
with all of that said, this morning in our reading for today from the Book of
Acts, the Apostle Paul is preaching and teaching in the Greek city of Athens.
In Athens at this time, most of the people worshipped many gods, and have made
likenesses of them out of wood, stone, or metal.
The
scripture this morning begins with:
“Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said,
“Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. For as I went
through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found
among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore
you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you” (Acts 17:22-23, NRSV).
So
the Apostle Paul is preaching and teaching in front of the “Aeropagus,” which
is a massive rock outcropping or formation in Athens, Greece. Instead of
calling this rock formation “Aeropagus,” the Romans called it “Mars Hill,” as
it was dedicated it to the Roman God of War, Mars. Some of you might also know
that there was up until recently a large church on the West Coast called “Mars
Hill.”
The
Apostle Paul also mentions in this scripture that in the city of Athens there is
an altar “To an unknown god” (Acts 17:23b, NRSV). This God is the one in whom
that Apostle Paul addresses the people of Athens about.
The
Apostle Paul then says of this “unknown god,”:
“The God who made the world and everything in it, he
who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines make 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” (Acts 17:24-25, NRSV).
The
Apostle Paul then says:
“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 grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from
each 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 17:26-28, NRSV).
The Apostle Paul then says:
“Since
we are God’s offspring, we out not to think that the deity is like gold, or
silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. While
God has overlooked times of human ignorance, now he commands all people
everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will have the
world judged in righteousness by a man who he has appointed, and of this he has
given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:29-31, NRSV).
The
Apostle Paul this morning, is telling the people of Athens, Greece, and is
telling us, to worship God directly, not through objects made of wood, stone,
or metal. Further let us not make our houses, our cars, or any of our other
possessions into idols.
We
were created to worship God, through Jesus Christ. A God that is a spiritual
being, not a physical being. A God that cannot be contained in a “graven image,”
an “idol,” or even in a “building”. God is much bigger than all of this.
Is
it wrong then to have statues of saints, or Jesus, or crosses on the wall? Well
I guess the best scriptural answer for all of this, is it is only wrong if
those things become an object of our worship. We should not be worshipping
anything other than the Triune God.
Further,
in the Gospel of John reading from this morning, Jesus is preparing his
disciples for his soon departure from earth. Yet he is promising his disciples
that God the Father is in him, and likewise, he is in God the Father. Jesus is
the person of God we could see and touch, but God the father is a spiritual
being. Jesus says that if we follow him, if we keep his commandments and serve
him, that we will be with him for eternity (Jn. 14:15-21, NRSV). Yet God the
Father, God the creator is the God that we can’t see and touch, but yet we believe
in.
This
is why it is called faith brothers and sisters. Believing that God created the
heavens and the earth, and that his son Jesus Christ, who was the fullness of
God came among us. That God’s spirit, the Holy Spirit moves among us. This God
we love and worship cannot be contained in wood, rock, stone, or buildings. In
addition to this, we cannot put this God of ours into our own boxes, as this
God is much bigger than anyone or anything. This is the God, the Jesus Christ, and
the Holy Spirit that “The Early Church” went forth and preached. Due to this,
this is why “The Early Church” and the church today does not believe in “A God
of graven images”. God blessings, and amen.
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