Sixth Sunday of Easter Year A

The Sixth Sunday of Easter - Year A

Acts 17.22–31
1 Peter 3.13–22
John 14.15–21

In a spectacular (and presumably heavily abbreviated) speech, Paul takes on culturally sophisticated Athens with the new upside-down wisdom. He begins on their own territory, with the altar to the Unknown God: even the Athenians had left a window open, a gap in their well worked- out theology, where fresh air could blow in from an unexpected quarter. Some of the poets, too, had pointed towards a God who
was both other than the world and yet intimately involved with it.

Yet Paul is not simply finding points in the local culture he can affirm, as though Christian mission simply pats people on the back for being as they are. Affirmation is more than balanced by confrontation. Even today, if you stand on Mars Hill, where the highest court of the city used to meet...

Taken from Twelve Months of Sundays Year A by N T Wright

Published by SPCK