Dear Friends in Christ, grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

When I was young I was taught that not everything you want to achieve in life will be easy. In order to grow and become successful you must step out of your comfort zone. I discovered that is often easier said than done. I started by driving on the other side of the road. Not only was I uncomfortable, but so was everybody else. I was told by my financial advisor after he looked at my bank account that I could live comfortably the rest of my life without working…. as long as I died by the following Thursday.  I even disagreed with a noted motivational speaker who wrote, “Change does not come from a place of comfort.”  I was always finding loose coins in my couch.

Granted, stepping outside your comfort zone can make you anxious, vulnerable, irritable and stressed, but it can also be one of the most rewarding and fulfilling things that you will ever do.  And at no point is that more evident than when you are sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with someone who has not heard.  I know that personally.

When Janna and I were sent as missionaries to live and work in Latvia 30 plus years ago, we had absolutely no idea what we were doing when we had agreed to serve for one year.  We were young and altruistic. We hardly knew what our comfort zone was, until it was no longer there. We didn’t know the language or the customs of Latvia, or even what it was like to have lived in the former Soviet Union. Every day shopping was an adventure. You never knew whether a a particular  food item would be available that day or not, so you always walked around with a plastic bag, just in case you found something. Naively, we thought that every educated person knew something about Christianity. I was shocked when I was thanked by the director of the Religious and Cultural Center of the Riga Technical University for the beautiful music at our Christmas Eve worship service, but then she asked me what was the reason for the wooden manger in the middle of the church? I  was stunned and chagrined when a member of the Men’s Chorus that I was singing in asked me whether I was a member of the CIA.  In his experience, and that of then men in the chorus, all Latvian pastors were members of the KGB, so I certainly as an American I had to be part of the CIA.  Living outside of our comfort zone, we never imagined how fatigued we could be as we counted down the Sunday services until we could leave Latvia proudly with our heads held up high. But in time, surprisingly, we discovered we were no longer merely surviving.  We were thriving.  And so we signed on for two more years.

I rather suspect that the Apostle Paul was out of his comfort zone when he arrived in Athens. He  was astonished and disheartened by the presence of idols everywhere in the city. There was a saying that, “in Athens, there were more gods than men.”  It was a city with temples, shrines and votive niches on every corner and in nearly every wall. The Greeks had temples to their pantheon of 12 gods. But they also had hero cults, mystery religions, they practiced veneration of ancestors, and even worshipped the Agnostos Theos, or the “Unknown god.”

While Paul was waiting for Silas and Timothy to arrive in Athens from Berea, he stepped out of his comfort zone, and walked daily through the Agora or marketplace.  There he debated with both the Epicureans and the Stoics philosophers. On the sabbath he went to the Jewish synagogue where he challenged the rabbis and scholars. Interestingly Paul was not hounded out of Athens like the cities in Macedonia.  He was welcomed and invited to speak to the Athenian philosophers who were both curious and confused by his new teaching and criticized him for merely babbling. The philosophers led him to the Areopagus, the Hill of Ares as the god of war is known in Greece  or Mars Hill as the god of war is known in Roman culture. It was both the  outcropping of rock just below the Acropolis, as well as the court for debating religious matters. Here, Paul could share his zeal for the Gospel with men who spent their days listening and sharing new ideas. For that is what people did in Athens. And Paul seized the moment.

The apostle may not have been aware of it, but God had been preparing him to step out of his comfort zone all his life and with one borrowed phrase from a classic Greek poem of “For in thee we live and move and have our being,”  he demonstrated to his audience that he was not a stranger to Greek philosophy and  poetry, but he was a knowledgeable scholar.

Epimenides, the author of the poem Paul quoted was a 6^th century BCE Greek  priest in the Temple of Zeus on the island of Crete. He was also known as one of the “Seven Wise Poets.” Athenians believed that he had once come to save their city from a great plague. Invited by the city’s leaders to help, he brought black and white sheep to that very place, the Areopagus to graze instructing those who followed them to mark the spot where each sheep lay down and offer a sacrifice to the local divinity on that spot. Hence, the plague was stopped and altars were erected and dedicated to the unknown god who had performed this great deed, and from that day onward, visitors to Athens would find altars to the unknown god scattered around the city.

As Paul was standing at the Areopagus speaking to the crowd, he drew upon that story, that historical context, even the Greek poetry of Epimenides, as well as the style and language of the great Greek philosophers.   ‘Men of Athens, I see that you are very religious in all respects. For while I was passing through and examining the objects of your worship, I also found an altar with this inscription, ‘To an Unknown God.’  Pointing to the altars he said, “You have unknowingly worshipped this unknown god who once saved your city back then, and I am his messenger here to tell you exactly who he is.” This introduction  gave Paul a place of honor, credibility and a mutual respect with  his Athenian audience. But there was a distinction that Paul underscored.  Whereas Epimenides served Zeus first and foremost, Paul proclaimed the Jewish God as the unknown god. “For in thee we live and move and have our being true. You worship what you do not know, we worship what we know.”  Interesting, Paul never mentioned the name of Jesus.

Paul’s speech at the Areopagus is an important guide for anyone stepping out of their comfort zone- especially for followers of Christ who wish to engage with other cultures and people who have not heard.  Paul, you see,  didn’t just get off a boat in Athens, hike up to the Areopagus and start preaching. He did his homework.

First of all, he paid attention to his listeners:  He walked out of his comfort zone into a city full of idols. He grew to understand the significance of these idols, though he never accepted them as real.  Quoting another great Greek poet, Aratus, he questioned, “How can you be the offspring of metal or stone?  For we are also his offspring.  Then he had diverse conversations: He reasoned both in the synagogue with his fellow Jews, and in the marketplace with people outside his own religious background. On top of that, he talked with Epicurean and Stoic philosophers, people with very different ideas about the ultimate goal in life, be it pleasure or virtue. Paul wasn’t just giving speeches; he was reasoning with them and having respectful conversations.  He was truly learning about the Athenians.

Paul’s speech at the Areopagus was a sensitive discourse in cross-cultural relations. He was showing respect for the cultural touchstones of Greek culture in order  to introduce the Athenians to Christ. As he later wrote in 1 Corinthians 9, “I have become all things to all people and I do it for the sake of the Gospel.” But Paul never lost sight of Jesus and his witness to the resurrection.

Was the Apostle Paul successful in Athens? Perhaps. Regrettably, some walked away and scoffed. But others were open and returned to him, saying, “We will hear you again about this.” One man in particular is mentioned in scripture, Dionysius the Areopagite.  According to Greek Church tradition he was born and raised in Athens where he received a classical Greek education. He then went to Egypt, where he studied astronomy at the city of Heliopolis. It was in Heliopolis, where he witnessed the solar eclipse that occurred at the moment of the death of Jesus. He wrote at the time, “Either the Creator of all the world now suffers, or this visible world is coming to an end.” Upon his return to Athens from Egypt, he was chosen to be a member of the Areopagus.  As Dionysius heard Paul speak of a man who would judge in righteousness, he understood that this was the man who had died at the hour of the great eclipse and had been raised from the dead. For three years Dionysius remained a companion of the Apostle.  Later, Paul selected him as the first bishop of Athens

Over the past 40 years of parish ministry, I have learned that God uses our experiences outside of our comfort zone to grow so that we can become his instruments of peace and change. When I first visited the Areopagus in Athens, 30 years ago, I thought, how clever Paul must have been to notice an altar to an “Unknown God” and use it to help him introduce the Gospel to the Athenians. Thinking on his feet, he was able to come up with a great angle to create an attention-getting opener to his sermon. But now I understand that Paul through his missionary journeys had been changed. He had grown and learned from walking out of his comfort zone. And through that experience, he had become a more gifted preacher of the gospel.

My friends, God uses all of your experiences as well, both good and bad, to shape you into his witnesses.   So be open to the possibilities. Even now he may be preparing you to share the gospel with someone who has not heard. And what a blessing you will be.  Amen.

May the peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen