Wandering the Streets...
A reading for Wednesday, April 20, 2016: Acts 17:16-28.
There is a deep longing in the human heart. A sense that something bigger than just ourselves is part of life and living. Artists sense it and paint and sculpt to try and reflect it. Poets scribble words on a page in an attempt to put words to it. Song writers match rhythm and rhyme so our ears can take in sounds of this longing. Even scholars study and measure the universe and conclude that something arranged and organized all we know and see.
When Paul was in the city of Athens, he wandered the streets filled with idols and images of this divine presence. The Greeks too made their attempts to describe this inner longing of the heart.
So Paul proclaimed what you and I know, and what you and I also proclaim. The deep longing of the human heart is the living God of Israel. "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..."
Today as you wander the streets of your neighborhood, amidst all the longing of the human heart, look for signs and wonders of the living God. Go gently into the world as one called to notice and to proclaim, and when you have the chance, tell the world what you know. "‘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.’"
There is a deep longing in the human heart. A sense that something bigger than just ourselves is part of life and living. Artists sense it and paint and sculpt to try and reflect it. Poets scribble words on a page in an attempt to put words to it. Song writers match rhythm and rhyme so our ears can take in sounds of this longing. Even scholars study and measure the universe and conclude that something arranged and organized all we know and see.
When Paul was in the city of Athens, he wandered the streets filled with idols and images of this divine presence. The Greeks too made their attempts to describe this inner longing of the heart.
So Paul proclaimed what you and I know, and what you and I also proclaim. The deep longing of the human heart is the living God of Israel. "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..."
Today as you wander the streets of your neighborhood, amidst all the longing of the human heart, look for signs and wonders of the living God. Go gently into the world as one called to notice and to proclaim, and when you have the chance, tell the world what you know. "‘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.’"
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