One evening during Billy Graham's 1954 London crusade the much-loved Gospel singer, George Beverly Shea, chose to sing John Peterson's Gospel song: "It took a miracle to put the stars in place; It took a miracle to hang the world in space."

Listening to the song, an irate English woman stormed out of the meeting and penned an angry letter to Billy Graham in which she complained, "You have the audacity to come to England at all and tell us how to live, let alone the impertinence to put your soloist up there to sing, 'It took America to put the stars in place.  It took America to hang the world in space!' "

Communication.  It is vital that Christians communicate well.  We have great news to share with the world and it is essential that we communicate that news clearly, understandably and boldly. 

As we think of sharing the good news that we have with our friends, our neighbours, with our community and world we know that we must be people who study the Word.  But this morning I want to suggest that we must also study the world.  If our communication of God's love is to be clear and understandable we must begin to understand what questions our culture is asking, what forces are motivating them, and what goals they are trying to achieve. 

And I would suggest that this is not an unbiblical approach.  Paul was a master of the Word of God.  He knew his Scriptures.  But Paul also knew the world to which he sought to bring the Word. He knew both and we'll see how well he knew the Word and the World in a moment.

But the point is we must understand the word and the world in which we live.  Now one of the characteristics of the society in which we live that I want to focus on this morning is pluralism.  I want to address the question how do we share the love of Christ, the claims of Christ in a pluralistic society. In simple terms, plural means more than one.  When applied to beliefs or systems of thought to be pluralistic is to acknowledge more than one ultimate principle.

Very quickly - what are the characteristics of a pluralistic society?  First, choice is the rule of the day.  In a pluralistic society various points of view are encouraged and considered valid.  So choice is the rule of the day. 

When you go to Swiss Chalet you are faced with a myriad of choices.  Half or quarter chicken?  Fries or baked potato?  Caesar or garden salad?  House, Thousand Island, French, Ranch, Creamy Italian dressing?  So many choices so that by the time the waitress asks you what you want to drink you just say, "Something wet please". 

But the complexity of life is not limited to a simple meal out.  Moral decisions, ethical dilemmas, lifestyle options, faith commitments, they are all areas where there is now a whole host of options.  There is in our culture no single standard for judging right from wrong.  There is no single set of rules for judging what is appropriate.  Choice is the rule of the day.

Also, in our pluralistic culture there is no such thing as absolute truth.  It is believed that there is no truth out there that is right for every one.  Only the individual responding to a particular situation can decide what is right or wrong for themselves.  Moral absolutes are questioned in our society.  So too are religious absolutes.  Any claim that Christianity is absolute, unique, definitive, final, normative, and ultimate or universal is renounced. 

Many in our pluralistic age would agree with Gandhi's assessment of the claims of Christ: "The soul of religions is one, but is encased in a multitude of forms ... Truth is the exclusive property of no single scripture ... I cannot ascribe exclusive divinity to Jesus.  He is as divine as Krishna or Rama or Mohammad."

Also in our pluralistic culture, tolerance is a virtue.  "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" gets changed to "Let others do what they want to do so that you can do what you want to do."

So a pluralistic society is characterized by choice, the absence of absolute truth and tolerance.  It follows then that anyone who stands up for what they believe or tries to persuade others to a accept a different lifestyle and point of view is often characterized as negative, narrow, inhibited and a fanatic. 

So how do we share the good news of Jesus Christ with such a culture?  How can we engage such a culture in a discussion in a way that earns a hearing and possibly with the dependence on the Holy Spirit brings about a change.  

Well, this fact of pluralism is not new it was present in the culture in which Paul lived. It was present in particular in Athens.  And if we open our Bibles to Acts 17:16-34.  We discover how Paul sought to relate the good news of the existence of God to culture that was pluralistic in its attitude. 

While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. So he argued in the synagogue with the Jews and the devout persons, and also in the marketplace£ every day with those who happened to be there. Also some Epicurean and Stoic philosophers debated with him. Some said, “What does this babbler want to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign divinities.” (This was because he was telling the good news about Jesus and the resurrection.) So they took him and brought him to the Areopagus and asked him, “May we know what this new teaching is that you are presenting? It sounds rather strange to us, so we would like to know what it means.” Now all the Athenians and the foreigners living there would spend their time in nothing but telling or hearing something new. 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. The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made 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. 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 own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ Since we are God’s offspring, we ought 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 the 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 whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.   (Acts 17:16-34) (NRSV)

"While Paul was waiting for them in Athens, he was greatly distressed to see that the city was full of idols."

Here is the scene - Paul is alone in the city of Athens.  He is waiting for Silas and Timothy to join him, but he is not in the mood to waste time. He goes for a walk through that great city and comes back greatly distressed for he has discovered that the city is full of false idols.  Like we discovered a couple of weeks ago, sharing the love of God with others begins with a broken heart.  Paul had a broken heart for this city.   Paul is greatly distressed because he sees all these idols - a sign of a pluralistic culture - and he knows that these people desperately need to know the great living God. This must be our motivation.  This is important because sometimes we get to thinking, as we live in this pluralistic society, that because a person has their belief or their gods, that we don't have a right to speak to them about our faith. 

I'm not suggesting we impose or force, but we need to understand that leaving people in an ungodly haze is not a sign of love or respect for another. It was Elton Trueblood who said that there was no place in Christianity for mere well-wishers. We share the love of God with others because we love others and want them to know the wonder of his unmerited favour.       

So what does Paul do?  Look at verse 17.  First he goes to where the people are and he engages them in conversation about eternal matters.  Paul knew that he served a sending God.  Do you know that you serve a sending God?  He is constantly sending - He sent Abraham from his country and family into the great unknown, promising to bless him and to bless the world through him. 

God sent Joseph into Egypt, overcoming his brother's cruelty in order to preserve a remnant on earth. God sent Moses to an oppressed people in Egypt with the good news of liberation. God sent a continuous stream of prophets with words of warning and promise. Then in the fullness of time when the time had fully come, God sent His Son and then the Son sent the Spirit.

Now the Son sends us, His people, as He Himself was sent.  Jesus tells us to GO.  In John 20:21 He says, "As the Father sent Me, so I send you".  And in Mark's Gospel, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation." (Mark 16:16).

So we are called to go where the people are. We need to be participating in our neighbourhood barbecues.  We need to in the arenas and on the ball diamonds, and in the marketplaces.  We need Christians in the condominiums and in the schools influencing people for Christ.  We need Christians in the office buildings and in the governments.  We need to go where people are influencing them for Christ.

Now I would be the last one to tell you that you don't need to go to a Bible Study or join a small group.  Some of you already do.  But your relationship with God will be stagnating if you are only allowing Him one hour of your time a week. 

But others of you - your faith has grown stale because the Christian community is your only community.   Don Posterski, president of World Vision writes about contained Christians and he says that contained Christians worship together, travel together, go on retreats together.  They search for Christian plumbers and dentists.  They lunch with each other in crowded cafeterias.  They take vacations at the same times in the same places.  They spend New Year's Eve at the watchnight service and New Year's day watching football on television and eating in each other's homes.  Christians in containment socialize and fraternize - always together.  Eventually they form subcultural groups within the culture.¹

So what happens is that the outside world is seen as a place to get what we need, like money, or work, or leisure, but it is not seen as place to actually live.  Posterski concludes, "The mind of the contained Christian is set on the dial of survival rather than on penetration.  He fears getting influenced and does not worry about being an influence.² 

We need to be involved with people - if you need some help with that here are some suggestions -

	Offer your services as a block parent
	Coach a community sports team
	Help out in a political campaign
	Join the Rotary Club or some other business association
	Go back to the same beauty salon or barbershop
	Serve pizza on Wednesdays at our high school lunch drop-in
	Train and serve on a distress hotline
	Join the garden club
	Try out for an all school team
	Volunteer at the local food bank
	Deliver Meal on Wheels
	Drive for the cancer society
	Invite the neighbours over for a barbecue

We need to be where the people are influencing them for Christ.  How is that done?  What is Paul's approach?  He accepted the people (see verses 18-21). If we wish to share our faith in our pluralistic age we must accept people with the baggage that they bring with them in order to establish that all important trust factor.  If Paul had an attitude of judgment or superiority toward the philosophers, they would have written off both Paul and his message.  But by meeting them on their terms with an open attitude we open the door to potential influence.

I admit it's a tension - to identify with others without being identical to them, to be in the world and not of it.  That's why it's important that we gather together to worship, and participate in small group Bible studies and times of prayer.  We go to these events - not to cloister ourselves from the world, which is what sometimes happens, but the purpose is to support one another, to get our focus right again so that we can go back out into the world being salt, preserving and influencing it for God.

We need to realize that acceptance allows us the right in our society to share our faith. If you don't give it you won't get it.  If you do not accept people, they do not accept you.  If you do not listen seriously to people, they do not listen seriously to you.

It is Rebecca Pippert who gives us a modern example of what it means to accept people without being identical to them.  She tells of how a girl who lived in the apartment below always seemed to be on her way to a party.  They always exchanged friendly words and one day she said, "Becky, I like you.  You're all right.  Let's get together next week and smoke a joint, okay?"

Becky replied, "Gee, thanks, I'd really like you too, and I'd love to spend time with you.  Actually I can't stand the stuff, but I'd sure love to do something else."

And she tells of how the girl looked a bit surprised, not so much because Becky didn't smoke grass, but because she had expressed delight at the thought of spending time with her.  She could have told her, "I'm a Christian and I never touch the stuff."  But she wanted to affirm whatever she possibly could without selling short Christian standards.

"Too often we broadcast what we don't do when we should be trying to discover genuine points of contact.  Most of us tend either to over-identify and blend in so well that no one can tell we are Christians or to separate ourselves and play it safe by having little contact with the world.  We should recognize what our tendency is and work against it."³

Go where people are, accept people. Next we need to show people that they are of worth.  

Again, Paul is our model verses 22-23.  It is clear that Paul does not waver in his proclamation of the truth. From verse 18 we know that Paul preached about Jesus and the resurrection.  He proclaimed the sovereignty of God in verses 24-28. And he called them to repent of their sin in verse 30.  And the coming judgment in verse 31. 

BUT he does not ignore what is important to the people. Notice his opening words - he does not tear down, there is no hint of aggressiveness or hint of attack in his approach.  His aim is to build on what exists and bring clarity to what is unknown.

You notice from the text that Paul quotes a poet from their heritage.  He builds a bridge between himself and his listeners - there is none of this attitude that says, "I'm right and you're wrong and you better shape up".  No, he acknowledges what is important to them and their culture.  And he uses that to build a bridge and he uses that bridge to proclaim the truth of God's existence and the reality of His Son. 

The bridges we can use are sometimes verbal bridges but most often folks in our day, in our pluralistic age, the bridge that we can use to show people that they are valuable,  that we love them with the love of Christ - the bridge that connects us with others is - caring.  Genuine care for another is that bridge that tells people that they are of worth and that we serve a loving Lord.

So when divorce strikes the home across the street from us we are the first ones there with the offer of babysitting or a hot meal.  If housing is a crisis, God's people make extra room in their homes. If a business colleague is fired, we phone or visit and offer our resources and ourselves. In the midst of financial difficulty we are there to offer support in tangible ways.  If someone is lonely we bring a pot of tea and a listening, compassionate ear.   All those are examples of ways we show that they are important, of great worth, and that we accept them.

I hope that you leave this place this morning, not fearing or bemoaning pluralism.  The good thing about our pluralistic age is that people are open to new influences.  I don't think we need to lament the rise of pluralism.  We have a wonderful message to share and pluralism simply offers us more venues to offer it to others.  To engage people in this pluralistic age we need to go to where people are.  We need to accept people.  Show them that they are people of worth and you will win a hearing for the great truth that has transformed your life.

Copyright MBC and Tom Cullen - May 2003