Areopagus means the Hill of Ares or, to use his Latin name, the Hill of Mars, the god of war. It is a rocky prominence just below the Acropolis in Athens and, originally, it was the place where people accused of murder or corruption were tried by the citizens of the city. By the time St. Paul was there, however, the name remained, but the place had changed. The Areopagus was now a part of the Agora, the forum, the chief meeting-place of Athens. As before, it was a place where various questions were discussed and sometimes decided.

Athens was a very talky city. Its form of government often required decisions to be made by all its citizens, assembled together, disputing and voting. It was also, as we all know, the intellectual center of the ancient world. Schools of philosophy, natural science, aesthetics abounded in ancient Athens, and the city was proud of this. In a verse just before what we heard as the lesson this morning, St Luke tells us that “… all the Athenians and the foreigners who lived there spent their time in nothing except talking or hearing something new.” (17:21) This isn’t quite saying that they were sophists and intellectual dilettantes, but it’s getting pretty close.

Be that as it may, St Paul was in Athens waiting for his companions Silas and Timothy when we hear of him in the lesson. As always, he had been arguing in the synagogue and in the marketplace and attracted the attention of a number of people – among them, St Luke tells us, Epicurean and Stoic philosophers. The crowd seems to have been upset by what he had to say, and they took hold of him and brought him to the Areopagus to present his views. And there in that place of ideas and discussion and talk, sometimes empty, sometimes not, Paul preached the sermon which we heard as the lesson this morning.

Many have praised Paul’s sermon as one of the greatest examples of preaching ever. They point out how he employs all the best techniques of persuasion and homiletics. First of all, he attempted to meet his hearers on common ground, and spoke of God and man in a way which most Greeks would approve of: “he made the world and everything in it,” he “does not live in shrines made by man,” “he himself gives to all men life and breath and everything. And he made from one every nation of men to live on the face of the earth.” (17:24, 25, 26) It’s hard to disagree with that.

And also, he, Paul, proposed to answer a question which was presumably one in everyone’s mind. He observed that there was a temple in the city dedicated “to an unknown God.” Paul announced that he would tell the Athenians who this God is: “What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.” (17:23)

Even better, Paul here supported his ideas in the sermon by quoting the Athenians’ own authorities. “In him [God] we live and move and have our being” (17:28) – a line from Epimenides, a philosopher. And “For we are indeed his offspring” – a line from Aratus, a poet.

And finally, Paul gave his message a certain urgency: “but now God commands all men to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all men by raising him from the dead.” (17:31)

As I said, many point to this sermon on the Areopagus as a model – all the right techniques of persuasion, of homiletics and apologetics. What they ignore, however, is this: it was a complete flop. This may have been due to his audience – who knows? Whatever the reason, the sermon didn’t work. It was a flop. Luke tells us: “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this.’ So, Paul went out from among them.” It was a flop. No one was converted. Later, St Luke records, a few in Athens did come to believe, but this seems to have little to do with the sermon. Indeed, it is not until more than a hundred years after this that there is any record of a Christian community, a Church, in the city of Athens.

Perhaps we should not be surprised that the sermon was a flop, because in it Paul is not being true to himself. In fact, he does precisely what he tells us, in another place, he is not going to do. Writing to the Corinthians, he tells them that he came “to preach the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.” (I Cor. 1:17) “My speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (2:4, 5)

Here, I think, is the real Paul. (And I must tell you that there are many who think that what we heard this morning from the Book of Acts is more Luke than it is Paul. I agree.) Again, here is the real Paul: “not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power”; not in rhetoric or reason, but in witness and testimony; not in persuasion, but in proclamation; not wisdom, but Jesus Christ, crucified and now risen from the dead.

For this, good people, is Christianity: Jesus Christ, risen, alive with the life and power of God; a reality, a person at work in the world through the Spirit, changing lives. Jesus Christ, “the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (I Cor. 1:24) There may be a Christian philosophy; there is, there have been many. Christ, however, is not built upon philosophy. Rather, philosophy is built upon Christ. His resurrection is the creation of a new world and the beginning of an unexpected power in this old world. There is a new wisdom. The old laws, the old thoughts, the old theories no longer apply. “For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God.” (I Cor. 1:25, 24)

The resurrection of Jesus Christ and his risen life among and within his people is the first article of Christian belief, and it is this because it is the principle and the animating power of Christian life. It is not something tacked on at the end as it was in that speech given in Athens. It is always the beginning – the article of faith upon which the Church stands or falls, for Jesus is the life of the Church. His risen life is that which allows us, empowers us to be.

Let’s listen to Jesus. From St John, the Gospel of the Mass this morning:

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

Amen.