Year A Easter 6 2026 Acts 17: 22-31

We’ve just witnessed a high stakes gamble, where a lone speaker far from home tries to convince a crowd of sceptical foreign power-brokers that he and they have something in common, that his message might just be the thing that allows them to see the world in a new and different way.

I’m talking of course about King Charles’ visit to the USA last month, his address to the United States Congress, his effort to smooth over diplomatic tensions, and by the power of one excellently crafted speech, to challenge assumptions, question prejudices, and open minds that were previously very much closed. He emphasised the importance of the rule of law, restraint upon power, mutual obligation, reverence for human dignity.

Even the most swivel-eyed anti-monarchist would concede that the speech he gave was pitch perfect; it established common ground, used humour to puncture hubris, and reframed lots of firmly-held assumptions about his credibility as a speaker. It also happened I think to be a re-run of one of St Paul’s most famous speeches from Acts 17, our first reading today.

The section of the Acts of the Apostles that today’s reading comes from is from Paul’s long journey through Greece; he’s come from Thessalonica to Athens and is waiting for Silas and Timothy to join him.

The Acts of the Apostles was written by the author of St Luke’s Gospel as you know, not Paul who is its main character, but we know that its timeline and history is pretty accurate here because we can read Paul’s own letters from this time written to the Thessalonians. These are Paul telling us, in his own words, what he’s thinking as he travels this road. The first letter to the Thessalonians could well have been written in Athens at the same time that Paul was composing this speech to the Athenian philosophers.

I really can’t emphasise enough how important this is. There are basically no other examples from the 1st Century of biographies written at the same time as letters from the person being written about telling us what they are thinking and whether the biography is misrepresenting them. That we have this record from 2000 years ago is mind blowing. 1 Thessalonians is maybe the earliest surviving Christian sermon written, by someone who knew the disciples, argued with St Peter. Read them this week, together. Acts 17, with the first letter to the Thessalonians. They’re short, just do it.

Anyway, St Paul is waiting in Athens for Silas and Timothy, and immediately throws himself into the city’s marketplace of ideas. The Athenians love new ideas, new religious movements, and, although many call him a babbler, or literally a ‘seed picker’ a (spermologos) others including the Stoics and the Epicureans, two well-known philosophical movements that are still popular today, invited him to say more in the Areopagus. This is the Hill of Ares, an elevated open-air spot in Athens, just west of the famous Acropolis where debates took place.

Paul starts cautiously, with complements. He has noticed, he says, that they are a deeply religious people. The audience, we can imagine, nods in agreement. Yes we take spirituality seriously around here.

Indeed, Paul goes on, I’ve noticed that you seem prepared to worship anything, and put up altars to nothing in particular, just in case. The audience falters perhaps, unsure if this is a complement or a dig. Throughout the speech Paul does this, blending flattery with criticism. First complementing their religious instincts, then telling them they’re misdirected. Next agreeing with their philosophy that humanity is derived from God, and then telling them that this doesn’t mean they’re equals with God. No, instead God has channeled the whole fullness of creation into one person, Jesus, raised from the dead, who calls everyone to repent and who will one day be their judge.

This is a bit much for most of the Athenians. The speech at the Areopagus ended ambiguously. Some mocked. Some were curious. A few believed. So it is when truth enters public life.

That is why it is so important that we read Acts 17 today. The marketplace of ideas is still open. Parliament, Congress, courts, markets, alliances — these are not self-sustaining mechanisms. They depend upon virtues they cannot themselves manufacture: honesty, restraint, courage, fidelity, sacrifice. Paul’s witness to the God in whom we live and move and have our being still matters, because we still need to articulate a faith that gives grounds for hope and confidence for the future.

The Christian faith does not ask us to withdraw from public life. Paul did not abandon Athens. He walked straight into its intellectual centre. Nor are Christians called merely to baptise national power. Paul certainly did not do that. Rather, we are called to stand within our civilisation lovingly, truthfully, penitently — reminding it of what it has forgotten; about the human person, about justice, and ultimately about God.

For the unknown God whom Paul proclaimed is no longer unknown. And every nation, however mighty, must finally decide whether it will live as though that were true.

Amen.