{"id":882,"date":"2020-06-18T17:00:33","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T16:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniofglos.blog\/chaplaincy\/?p=882"},"modified":"2020-06-18T17:00:33","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T16:00:33","slug":"who-do-we-honour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.glos.ac.uk\/chaplaincy\/2020\/06\/18\/who-do-we-honour\/","title":{"rendered":"Who do we honour?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here’s the reading and the reflection from today’s Communion service. The photo is of the stained glass window in the Chapel, which is all about this reading…<\/p>\n\n\n\n


While Paul was waiting in Athens, he was upset to see all the idols in the city. He went to the Jewish meeting place to speak to the Jews and to anyone who worshiped with them. Day after day he also spoke to everyone he met in the market. Some of them were Epicureans and some were Stoics, and they started arguing with him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People were asking, \u201cWhat is this know-it-all trying to say?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some even said, \u201cPaul must be preaching about foreign gods!\nThat\u2019s what he means when he talks about Jesus and about people rising from\ndeath.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They brought Paul before a council called the Areopagus, and\nsaid, \u201cTell us what your new teaching is all about. We have heard you say some\nstrange things, and we want to know what you mean.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than anything else the people of Athens and the\nforeigners living there loved to hear and to talk about anything new. So Paul\nstood up in front of the council and said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People of Athens, I see that you are very religious. As I was\ngoing through your city and looking at the things you worship, I found an altar\nwith the words, \u201cTo an Unknown God.\u201d You worship this God, but you don\u2019t really\nknow him. So I want to tell you about him. This God made the world and\neverything in it. He is Lord of heaven and earth, and he doesn\u2019t live in\ntemples built by human hands. He doesn\u2019t need help from anyone. He gives life,\nbreath, and everything else to all people. From one person God made all nations\nwho live on earth, and he decided when and where every nation would be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God has done all this, so that we will look for him and reach\nout and find him. He isn\u2019t far from any of us, and he gives us the power to\nlive, to move, and to be who we are. \u201cWe are his children,\u201d just as some of\nyour poets have said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


The huge window at the end of our university chapel shows St. Paul speaking to the leading lights of Athens on the hill called the Areopagus. It was a place in the city for you to present your views – a bit like Trafalgar Square now perhaps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul has been in Athens for a few days, wandering around and\nlooking at everything. He sees the many temples and idols – statues perhaps – and\nthey upset him. He thinks about what this all says about the Athenians. And he\nstarts conversations with anyone and everyone, Jews, philosophers, market goers\n– sharing his different way of understanding, and telling everyone about the\none he honours – not an idol, but Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eventually Paul is invited to the Areopagus to give his views\n– a little like being asked onto the Andrew Marr show of the time. His approach\nis interesting. He doesn\u2019t stand up like a street corner preacher, telling\npeople off – he talks about something both he and his audience have in common,\nour shared humanity, as those loved by God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s noticed an altar inscribed \u2018To an unknown God\u2019. This\ngives him the opening to point people to this bigger vision. He tells them\nabout the God who gives life and breathe to everyone. The God who is close to\nthem. The God who even their own poets describe as our Father. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the debate that has been going on following the toppling\nof the statue of Edward Colston, there has been a renewed awareness that what\nwe put up on plinths, and leave there, says something about us. There\u2019s a lot\nof debate on what should stay, and what should be taken down – and on who we\nshould honour, and how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think that debate is important, as long as it doesn\u2019t\ndistract us from the more challenging work of engaging with the issues that\nhave been so powerfully raised by the Black Lives Matter movement. But it might\nbe helpful as well to look at another way of honouring a life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Tuesday it was the 4th<\/sup> anniversary of the\nmurder of the MP Jo Cox by a far right extremist. Instead of a statue, her\nmemory is honoured through the work of the Jo Cox Foundation, guided by the\nbeliefs set out in her maiden speech; \u201cWe are far more united and have far more\nin common than that which divides us.\u201d This weekend thousands of people will make\nconnections with neighbours and across communities as part of the Great Get\nTogether – part of their work in building strong compassionate communities and engaging\nwith loneliness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What a great memorial! And a great reminder that memorials\ncan unite, rather than dividing. Jo\u2019s sister said this, on her anniversary; \u2018At\na time when there is so much uncertainty and sadness around…surely it is more\nimportant than ever that we pull together with compassion and kindness rather\nthan judge each other and allow ourselves to be divided?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we think about the ways that we honour individuals, we\nmight also want to think about the way the one we follow as Christians is\nhonoured. Jesus was put up for public display – not as a powerful or respected\nleader, but as a troublemaker who was brutally put to death by a ruthless\nempire. And that image is what we often choose to put up in our churches – a\nreminder of Jesus not ranked with the great and the good, but put with the\noutcast and the despised. A statement that love is more important than power.\nAnd a challenge to any honour we may bestow on others or we seek for ourselves.\nIn the words of the hymn:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2018When I survey the wondrous cross, on which the prince of\nglory died, my richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can all sometimes get caught in the desire for honour, or\nstatus, in small ways. We want people to be impressed by us. We worry about\nwhere we are in the hierarchies of our world. Or maybe we pay too much\nattention to the position of others. But in the end, none of that will matter.\nAnd even now, if we imagine ourselves looking into the eyes of Jesus, then all\nof that world of status and importance falls away. And then, we may be ready to\noffer him the honour only we can give him: \u2018Love so amazing, so divine, demands\nmy soul, my life, my all.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n