May 10, 2026 "Fumbling About for God"

Sixth Sunday of Easter

Acts 17:22-31

Psalm 66:8-20

1 Peter 3:13-22

John 14:15-21

Dear fellow ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ,

grace and peace to you

from the one who is not far from each of us. Amen

Fumbling about for God.

This image that Paul uses in his speech to the Athenians

 to describe the human search for God

 stuck with me this week,

I think for the truth of the image,

 for isn’t that what we do as humans?

We fumble about for God,

 even though God is not far from each of us,

even though it is in God that we live and move and have our being,

 even though God abides in us as Jesus abides in the father,

even though God has been revealed to us in the Word made flesh

 in Jesus who will not leave us orphaned.

Even as all this is true

we still fumble about for God.

And while we might despair that this is the case,

And we might wonder

whether this fumbling about is a defect in us.

Is something wrong with us

 that even though God is so close

 we have so much trouble perceiving God?

 Actually

Paul says

God created us this way. 

“From one ancestor he made all peoples to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, ²⁷ so that they would search for God and perhaps fumble about for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us.” 

Why wouldn’t God create us to automatically know and follow God?

Why would God create us in a way that means we have to find God?

Because God is all about relationships

And being in relationship with God’s own creation,

a relationship defined by love,

love which is not something that can be commanded into existence

 but rather which must grow out of the experience of first being loved. 

Now some of you who paid particularly close attention to the gospel

 may be thinking “um, isn’t the new commandment that Jesus gives his disciples

 to ‘love one another’?”

 and yes that is part of it,

 but remember the full commandment is

 “that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”

The love of the new commandment

 originates in the love of God,

love in response to love with no ulterior motive.

 A concept so radical

 as to be almost incomprehensible,

 and so we fumble about for God.

We fumble about

because our experience of the world

has taught us to mistrust freely offered gifts.

 That “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”

That relationships are transactional

you’ve got to give something to get something.

Indeed, the Athenians to whom Paul is speaking

understand their relationship with the gods in just this way,

their understanding of how the world works

was that the gods each had their own sphere of influence

and while they were to provide gifts in that area for the humans

if the humans wanted these “gifts” to continue

they had to make offerings and libations to the gods,

 it’s an entirely transactional relationship

 and it makes sense why Paul found an altar to an unknown god,

 they were covering their bases,

 the prosperity of their lives depended on acknowledging all the right gods

so just in case they missed one

 here’s an extra altar

 but Paul uses this as a point of entry

 to witness to the God revealed in Jesus

and turn their belief system on its head

“What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴ 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, ²⁵ 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. “ 

In other words

our God does not have a transactional relationship with humans,

God created us, and everything

out of love,

 and God continues to care for it, for us, out of love

regardless of how we respond.

 Does God want a relationship with us?

 Yes, of course!

But God wants it to be a relationship

based on love and trust

 not on transactional need,

love and trust that will be learned

 by witnessing the love and trust of God.

And actually God created us to be in this kind of relationship

Created us to learn love and trust by being loved

Created us to teach this love by loving

As we come into the world completely dependent on those who care for us

And as we are cared for and loved

We in turn learn to love.

We experience the love of God first through our mothers,

Our fathers, our community

However true and imperfect that love may be

Because the world is broken in a way that turns that love transactional

And in the attempt to repair the break

 God loved creation and people in many ways

Though covenants and lessons

Overt provisions

Through judges and prophets

Stability and exile

but the people

even if they made the connection for a moment

always seemed to drift away.

So God sent Jesus,

God revealed in the flesh

 to show us how God loves us,

how much God loves us in a non-transactional way,

even going to the cross for us

not because God needed to to satisfy some cosmic accounting sheet

but because God realized

 that only such an extreme act of love

could hope to mend the transactional world

and loved in this way

the love will overflow from our lives to those around us

because we have found how lifegiving love is,

and even if we love imperfectly,

which we invariably will

 God is still right there

loving us, abiding in us,

 for it is in God who we live and move and have our being.

This is what Jesus is trying to get the disciples to understand

that even as they fumble about

God is with them

 and one of the ways that they can tell that God is with them, loving them,

is the love that they share with one another and all creation,

 love that has its source in God

 love that surrounds them, fills them, and overflows. 

Even as we fumble about

Love surrounds us, fills us, and overflows,

 in the waters of baptism love promises we will never be orphaned,

that God will always love us.

Love surrounds us, fills us, and overflows

 in the bread and wine at Christ’s table,

love promises to continue even as we are imperfect,

 that when we fail there is forgiveness,

that God is within us as close to us as the bread and wine in our stomachs,

 bread and wine that strengthen us to go out and love again,

not because we have to

 but because we get to,

 because we have been so loved by love.

Love is indeed not far from each one of us,

 love in whom we live and move and have our being,

 love that abides. Amen