Sermon: Christian Babbling June 27, 2010

CHRISTIAN BABBLING - June 27, 2010 – Doug Diehl

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Scripture Reading:  Acts 17:16-31

Twice we have been the not so proud owners of cockatiels, overgrown parakeets of sorts. Each time we bought expensive bird food - specially blended mixtures of millet, sunflower and safflowers seeds, alfalfa meal, soybean meal, ground corn and various grass seeds all fortified with vitamins and minerals.  Why we bought such a well-balanced mixture of food is beyond me.  Our birds, named Cockatiel Dundee 1 and 2, had one or two favorite seeds and the rest would sit in the food cup.  We tried leaving the food for several days hoping they would get hungry enough to diversify their menu. They were not interested. 

The Greek language has a word that goes by the handle, spermologos.  Originally, it meant someone who picks up seeds, in particular a bird who picks up grain from a field.  Later, it described a person loitering around the market place, picking up merchandise that fell off the carts.  Later still, it came to mean a person who picks up bits and pieces of information from other people’s lectures but with no clearly developed thoughts of their own.  It might mean a person who, like our birds, just picks the bits and pieces of what they want and like to hear.

You heard the word in our scripture reading this morning. The name was given to Paul by some Greek scholars. Paul was preaching in the great city of Athens, full of scholarly sophisticates.  Basically, the scholars were of two groups – the Epicureans and the Stoics – as different as night and day.  The Epicureans chief aim in life was pleasure.  The Stoics were concerned with living in harmony with the world, ethically and morally. These scholars liked to sit around all day in the marketplace debating the issues and matters of the day.  In fact we read in the 21st verse, “All the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but talking about and listening to the latest ideas.”  Kind of like a never-ending coffee time at the cafe.

On this particular day the issue was a new guy in town – a Jew from Palestine named Paul.  His new ideas centered on an individual by the name of Jesus, and the far out claim that he had risen bodily from the dead.  The town of Athens was full of all kinds of gods and idols but this was something new.  The response was mixed. Some of the sophisticates dismissed him as a – and here’s the word – a babbler or in Greek – σπερμολόγος.  “What is this babbler trying to say?”

They summon Paul to appear before a group called the Areopagus, which had the authority to say who would be allowed to lecture in the city and who wouldn’t. Paul does an incredible job.  For one thing he does not respond with the attitude – “I’m right and you’re wrong.”  He starts where they are at. In the speech, he uses two quotations from their own philosophers. Even more skillful is the way he starts his speech.  He makes his audience feel at ease by complimenting them and establishing mutual ground.  “²²…“Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way.  ²³For 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)

This is what he tells them: God has not been created but God is the Creator; God has guided history and God is in charge of the present course of the world. God has placed within each person a longing for Him. The days for not being able to find God are past.  God has come in the fullness of Jesus Christ. There are no more excuses for worshipping false gods. The Day of Judgment is coming.  Whereas the Epicureans believed there was no life after death and the Stoics believed that upon death one was absorbed somehow into God, Paul says that someday all persons will appear individually before God to be judged by Jesus Christ. The proof of the divinity of Jesus Christ was his resurrection from the dead.

Paul’s speech has a mixed reception.  Some laugh at him.  Some are curious and ask to talk with him again.  Some believe.

The Athenians misspoke when they called Paul a babbler.  He of all people could not be accused of picking up bits and pieces of other people’s thoughts, compiling them to suit himself.  He spoke in confidence.  He was single-minded.  His philosophy of life was fixed on the one true God who revealed himself through the scriptures and most recently through Jesus Christ.  It was no potluck of ideas.

The Athenians were the babblers.  Their city was filled and surrounded with idols dedicated to all kinds of gods.  Just in case they missed any, they even had, as Paul pointed out, an altar to the unknown God. Their gods were inventions of human reason and skilled idol makers.

Paul could not be accused of being a babbler.  The Athenians could.  What about us? Could any of us be accused of developing our faith around bits and pieces of things we have heard or read here and there, picking those things that sound good to us. 

When we look inside our hearts do we see an Athens cluttered with all kinds of altars to all kinds of gods – the god of money, or career, or worry or whatever with Jesus standing somewhere in the middle of this forest of gods? Is the God we worship an unknown God – simply because we have never spent the time getting to know God through Bible reading and prayer and study? 

I’m afraid in this information age when we are bombarded daily in the media by new ideas and new happenings and multitudes of opinions we draw this mistaken conclusion that we know what is truly going on – we know what it is all about.  All the while, we hold to a mish mash of inaccurate information.  Could we be accused of babbling?  It is scary to think of some of the un-Biblical and un-Christian views I have heard people express from time to time when talking religion, especially when they sincerely believe that what they believe is Biblical and Christian.

Paul had an answer when the Athenians asked him to express his faith.  Could we do the same?  Paul didn’t know anything that we aren’t capable of knowing.  What if someone were to ask us what we believe about God?  What if someone were to ask us what makes Christianity unique?  What if someone were to ask us why Jesus had to die on the cross? Would we babble, spurting out inaccurate and subjective thoughts and opinions or would we be grounded in the revelation that God has shared with us through the Bible and in Jesus Christ?

Earlier in this chapter, we find Paul preaching in a place named Berea.  We read, “¹¹… for they welcomed the message very eagerly and examined the scriptures every day to see whether these things were so.” (Acts 17:11 NRSV)

How do we evaluate the theories and ideas we hear each day?  I admit, I have a hard time.  I read one opinion on a subject and think, “Sounds good.”  Then I read a different opinion on the same subject and change my mind, “That sounds good, too!”  The worst is when I find myself accepting an opinion simply because it makes me feel comfortable.

We need to watch out.  Paul writes to Timothy, “³For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires,  ⁴and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths.“ (2 Timothy 4:3-4 NRSV)

We are surrounded by a lot of crazy ideas.  Our country is full of all kinds of crazy cults.  All kinds of un-Biblical, un-Christian ideas bombard our homes day after day. Will we be found babbling?

Eric Springsted writes, “Unless people are taught at levels that go beyond their confirmation classes in the eighth or ninth grade, their understanding of the (Christian) story will remain at the level of an eighth or ninth grader.  The fact that the religious education of most people stops there (if it even get that far) undoubtedly explains in good part the popularity of “children’s sermons” among the adult congregation ….  We would be appalled if the voting population of the country decided major state and federal issues with only that level of education, yet somehow we have not seen this as much of a problem in the church.”

This world needs to hear and see portrayed the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  It is you and I who are privileged with access to it and it is you and I who need to be prepared to share it.  And in order to share it we must know it.  Read the Bible, read books about the Christian faith, join a Bible Study.  Don’t settle for babbling.