The Sixth Sunday of Easter – Lectionary for May 10

The Adventurous Lectionary – Sixth Sunday of Easter – May 10, 2026

Bruce G. Epperly
Acts 17:22-31
Psalm 66:18-20
I Peter 3:13-22
John 14:15-21

Today’s readings affirm both the universality and intimacy of God.  God is the reality in whom we live and move and have our being and that includes and also ourselves. (Acts 17:28)  God’s Spriit is in us and all things just as God’s Spirit is in Jesus and Jesus is in God.  Nothing is outside of God’s care and love. Loving omnipresence even embraces the afterlife as well as our current situation. The Risen Jesus ministers to souls in the underworld, beckoning them to return to God’s way.

My teacher John Cobb referred to Christ as the way that excludes no authentic spiritual way. In our pluralistic age, as Cobb describes it, we need more rather than less theology and a bigger not a smaller God and spirituality.  First Testament scholar Terry Fretheim notes that it is more important to ask, “What kind of God do you believe in?” than “Do you believe in God?” Although our theological perspectives need to be fluid, contextual, and open to change, the variety of theological and spiritual perspectives available to seekers and church members alike call the adventurous preacher to claim her or his role as the theologian of her or his congregation, sharing theological insights in open-spirited and accessible ways. Our theology needs to be healing and not abusive, open-spirited and not dogmatic.  (For more on Christianity and pluralism, see Bruce Epperly, “The Elephant is Running: Process and Open and Relational Theology and Religious Pluralism,” SacraSage, 2022.)

This week, I focus primarily on Paul’s speech at the Areopagus. Although 2000 years old, this speech addresses our pluralistic, post-Christian time, and to those who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious.’

Today’s scriptures invite us to consider the scope of divine revelation and salvation. As the reality in whom we live and move and have our being, God’s wisdom touches all of us in life and death. Death and the afterlife are part of God’s vision of salvation. Those presumed lost and unaware of Jesus’ mission are still objects of God’s love and recipients of Jesus’ ministry. Indeed, as I Peter proclaims, Christ goes to the depths of hades, seeking the salvation of those who perished centuries before his time. Could it be that death is no impediment to God’s love and that God’s love embraces the deceased, despite their waywardness and unbelief? Our hope is not in our own efforts or the exclusivity of our faith but in God’s everlasting love that invites us to be lovers as well.  Nothing, not even death and dementia, or previous mistakes, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. As the parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost Coin affirm, God searches for the lost “until” they are found and brought home.  There is no limit to the word “until.”  God’s ever-fresh love is also all inclusive and intimate and seeks wholeness for all, including those who see themselves as our enemies and those politicians whose policies wreak havoc on the nation and planet.

One of my favorite passages from scripture, Paul’s speech in the Athenian “marketplace of ideas” speaks to our current spiritual landscape. Like the Athenians, we live in a pluralistic time, with many options for worship and spiritual practice. Anyone with an internet connection or cable television can become a digital pluralist. Christians need to share their good news in light of the world in which we live in all its wondrous diversity.  Moreover, many of us practice hybrid or inter-spiritual faith, supplementing our Christian faith with practices from other spiritual traditions.

Paul speech reflects his understanding not only of Christ but of the aspirations of his listeners. Paul affirms their spiritual quest, noting how religious the Athenian people are. He even alludes to an “unknown god,” and suggests that Christ is the one for whom they have been looking. Deep down, all persons seek the divine, and as Augustine says, are restless until they find their peace in the true God. In his speech, Paul proceeds to use some of the grandest words in New Testament theology, rivaling John’s prologue in its universality, and even going beyond John 1 in his appropriation of non-Christian language to describe Christian truth. In perhaps the only place in the scriptures, Paul explicitly quotes Greek philosophy to describe God’s nature as the one “in whom we live and move and have our being.” Moreover, in contrast to sin and redemption theologies that focus on human unworthiness, Paul positively cites non-Christian wisdom to affirm that we are “God’s offspring.” Created in God’s image, we can awaken God’s Spirit at any time.  God is present in Buddha’s enlightenment, Moses encounter with the burning bush, Mohammed’s mysticism in the cave, and in the sweat lodges of indigenous North Americans and aboriginal peoples.  God is present in Yoruba/Ifa spirituality and the quest of earth-based religions.  We can learn from our Christian mystics and the Bible and also from spiritual guides and scriptures of other faiths.  (See Bruce Epperly, “The Elephant is Running” for a discussion of Christianity in relationship with African and earth-based religions.)

God is constantly influencing our lives, and is responsible for the life-saving wisdom of non-Christian religions. As John’s Gospel suggests, there is a unity between humankind and God similar to God’s unity with Christ. While Paul assumes that Christ is the fullness of salvation, Paul – like the author of John’s prologue – recognizes that God’s wisdom is broadcast generously throughout the world. Paul’s evangelistic message begins by citing a point of contact between Jesus Christ and non-Christian traditions. Wherever truth is to found, and in whatever culture it emerges, God is its source.

From the perspective of Acts 17, healthy evangelism involves finding common ground with the seekers in our midst. We are not called to be patronizing or one-up in relation to those with whom we share good news. We are called to be one in the spirit with seekers and doubters, privileged only by our awareness of God’s love which also embraces them.

Psalm 66:8-20 contains some problematic passages that require interpretation if they are to be included in worship. God is to be praised for God’s deliverance of the people. Yet, God also appears to be the source of their torment. God has “tried us,” “laid burdens on us,” and “let people ride over us.” This juxtaposition of praise and torment begs questions such as: Are our offerings a type of barter insuring God’s good will? Is God’s loving response conditional, based on our attitudes and worship?  We best not quote this scripture without challenging the image of God as opponent and abuser it apparently portrays.  God is out to love us, not harm us. Transactional religion distances us from God and our neighbor and makes faith a work, something to be earned by reciting the right doctrines to ensure our “personal” salvation and not a gift of a gracious and expansive God.  We reap what we sow, but the goal of divine judgment is healing not punishment, restoration and not retribution.

Three points emerge from I Peter 3:13-22. First, the author counsels followers of Jesus to know their faith well enough to defend it in public. Our mission to the world embraces heart, mind, and hands. We need to be able to share the good news of Jesus and that means a commitment to theological reflection. We need to know what we believe and why and share the good news in respectful and gentle ways. This means that the church should be a place of theological reflection as well as spiritual practice. Second, the author asserts that the scope of Jesus’ salvation embraces the underworld as well as this lifetime. Jesus preaches to persons living in Noah’s time as if to say: death is not a limit to God’s love. God’s care for the lost extends beyond the grave. Third, the resurrected Jesus now reigns with God in heaven. Christ is exalted and one with the Father/Creator. His sovereign love goes beyond the boundaries of life and death and east and west, embracing all things in heaven, earth, and below.  Christ is universal as well as intimate.

The words of John 14 describe Jesus’ promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit, an advocate who will abide in his followers. The Spirit is not an external reality, but the voice within, whispering to us in sighs too deep for words. While the Spirit is not limited to Christian faith, faith opens to the guidance of God’s Spirit. We experience God as our deepest reality, truly the One in whom we live and move and have our being.

Jesus proclaims an intimate interconnectedness between God and us. “I am in my Father, and I in you, and you in me.” Christ is our deepest reality, sharing with us the same divine wisdom that comes from his relationship with the Creator. Jesus emphasizes the importance of love in knowing God: in following Jesus’ path of love, we discover and reveal God’s true nature to the world.

Today’s texts describe the relationship between love and knowledge. Love opens us to understanding the ambient God in whom we live and move and have our being. Love is God’s character.  God’s power is loving not compelling, coercive, or destructive. Love is not limited by culture, space or time, or even death. God’s salvation is intended to embrace all creation. God is the ultimate universalist, generous in love, salvation, and search for the lost.  God’s universalism inspires an ethical universalism that inspires us to see the holiness of all creation and, even when tough decisions must be made, see restoration, reunion, and reconciliation as our goal in personal, political, and foreign relations.

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Bruce Epperly is Theologian in Residence at Westmoreland Congregational United Church of Christ, Bethesda, MD and a professor in theology and spirituality at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington DC. He is the author of over ninety books, including his Christological trilogy Jesus: Mystic, Healer, and Prophet; Whitehead and Jesus: An Adventure in Spiritual Transformation; and Messy Incarnation: Meditations in Christology in Process and also Creation Sings: Forty Days of Spiritual Wisdom from the Non-Human World; and Homegrown Mystics: Restoring Our Nation with the Healing Wisdom of America’s Visionaries.  He is married to Rev. Kate Epperly, D.Min. and lives in Potomac, Maryland.