 Well, thank you so much. My editor of Why Do Catholics Genuflect counseled me after my surgery and said, hey, why don't we do a book? How does this Catholic Genuflect? And I said, Bert, that's a little sick. So we didn't do it. But it's great to be with you today. And let's just hope I can find my notes here. This is always one of those. I hear it is, of course. Francis University of Steubenville has been important to me. We began coming, my wife Sally, and a whole contingent of us from Michigan used to come down in the mid-90s. We had a beautiful bunch of people who would come every year and and it was really delightful. Two of my kids have come to school here and graduated. And two of my producers over the years have come from Francis University of Steubenville. And Nick Tom, by the way, who's my producer for 12 years, has been battling a brain tumor for a long time. Many of you have prayed for him. Nick is still struggling and keep him in your prayers as you think of him. My current producer, Bryant Shanley, also a graduate of Franciscan. And I just wanted to say how important it has been. I know I have told Scott this before, but I do remember those years before there was a lot of Catholic apologetics because I was thinking of returning to the Catholic Church. In the late 70s, early 80s, the Marian dogmas were a big obstacle to me. And in fact, I even wrote for a Catholic magazine, a devotional magazine, Queen of All Hearts, an article called, The Evangelical Protestants' View of Mary. And I just couldn't get over the biblical, what I thought the Scripture was saying and what I thought the Catholic Church was saying, took me a long time. I didn't return to the Church until 1992. But Scott's tape on Mary, Ark of the Covenant was actually a very important piece in the puzzle. I had long thought that the Marian dogmas were some form of typology. If you thought typologically like the apostles, then you would maybe come up with the Marian dogmas. And his tape, Mary, Ark of the Covenant, kind of confirmed, yeah, that's the direction to go. So I don't think I told Scott that before, but I've been very grateful for so many of the beautiful things here. So I'm anxious to talk today. I want to thank you for the honor of being here. I like learning with you. I like worshiping with you. And we're all recalling once again God's call that we bear witness to Christ's kingdom collectively as the body of Christ and individually as disciples who are becoming like our master. So let's start with the conference theme verse is first Corinthians chapter one, verses 21 to 25. Saint Paul has lots to say here, for since in the wisdom of God, the world through its wisdom did not know him. God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. But to those who God has called both Jew and Greek, Christ is the power of God, the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom and the weakness of God's stronger than man's strength. Saint Paul later to the Corinthians says, look, we do preach wisdom to the mature. And what he's talking about is divine wisdom. And his teaching right here in first Corinthians chapter one, going through verse four, he's pitting divine wisdom against human wisdom. And that takes us all the way back to creation. In the beginning, God saw that the universe was undifferentiated. It was formless and void. It was unformed and it was unfilled. So by word and wisdom, Proverbs eight, wisdom seven, he brings order where there was disorder. He brings cosmos where there was chaos. He brings light where there was darkness. And through the six days of creation, he forms and he fills the creation. The human was the capstone of his creation, imaging God to the rest of the world, the rest of creation and directed by God to be fruitful, to be multiplying, to continue the work of filling and working the material universe, cultivating the garden. But an alien element shows up in the garden, a serpent, the Satan. He tempts Eve. He tells her that God is not who he claims to be, that he's thwarting her natural desire for wisdom. And she looks over at the tree and she says, hmm, that fruit looks desirable for wisdom. That's actually one of the temptations, desirable for wisdom. So she and her husband, Adam, eat and basically say, we've got a better way to organize our lives. The serpent is our new life coach and we're going to create a new radiating center for human wisdom. And of course, you know what happened. Four great alienations, four great ruptures, they're separated from God, the ultimate source of their life. Disorder enters their psyche and guilt. Shame is born. They can no longer stand before God transparent, you know, strolling with him in the cool of the day. They have to cover themselves. It's operation fig leaf. It's the most futile act of hiding in the history of human folly. I mean, but their work of decreation continues and the perfect harmony that existed between man and woman breaks down. And Adam blames Eve. There's blame shifting. There's insecurity. There's anxiety about the other. And even the work is made painful and futile. Adam's bringing forth thorns and thistles. He's not getting good fruit. Eve is going to have pain in childbirth as she tries to bring forth good fruit. They have set themselves up as an independent little satellite center of wisdom apart from God. They have their own project now. They have their own agenda, their own program. Not satisfied with imaging God. They want to be God. And it's an adolescent sort of response. I can do it myself. I don't need you. I want to do it my way. They establish a competing wisdom, human wisdom. And in our passage from 1 Corinthians, this is what St. Paul wants nothing to do with. He deals with and represents the wisdom of God, Jesus Christ. Jesus is the wisdom of God. Human wisdom is checkmated and the players just don't know it yet. This wisdom theme is very useful for evangelization in today's world, everywhere. People are searching for ways of organizing and bettering their lives. They hire life coaches. They read self-help books. They watch videos. I noticed the teaching companies, great courses series, have moved from publishing a lot of humanities and liberal arts-based courses to a lot of self-help and improvement topics, mindfulness, how to play guitar, various management techniques. People want more out of life. They know their lives are unbalanced and they're trying to order their lives apart from divine wisdom. Even before I was an active Christian, back when I was in my late teens and early 20s, I kept a notebook full of inspirational quotations. I was looking for guidance and wisdom. One of my favorite passages was Jesus in the seventh chapter of Matthew, verses 26 and 27, where he invites us to build on his words. That's like building on a rock, not sand, so that when the rains come, when the hurricane hits, your life would withstand the storm. It made a big impact on me when I was younger. Unfortunately, I have friends who didn't feel that way about Jesus. In fact, Sally and I, this goes back a few years. Sally and I invented a friend from out of town who refused to go to rehab to kick a heroin habit. His wife had found his syringe and other paraphernalia on their honeymoon and went ballistic. He wanted to change things because he didn't want his marriage to go in the crapper that early. This is an important point. I didn't know anything to speak of about the dynamics of addiction at the time. This is quite a few years ago. But I didn't wait until I did. I had a situation in front of me that help was needed. So I gave the help I could. I would do things differently today. In fact, most of my stories are examples of me learning on the job. One thing I'll guarantee that if you wait until you've answered all the questions, until you've got it all together, I'll guarantee you will be educated beyond your obedience. You will have lost many opportunities for witness. You'll know the answer to all kinds of questions no one is likely to ask. So my advice is don't worry about getting it right. Just worry about stepping out. Last year I told you the story of Rebecca, a young Jewish woman upon whom my friends warned me not to waste my time. Because she was Jewish and I didn't know anything about Judaism. I spent hours boning up on Jewish objections to Christianity. One night she called. She wants to talk about spiritual things. And she comes over and I've got all my answers to Jewish objections to the gospel. And I start and she silences me and says, look, I have one question. Will Jesus bring me joy? It was as sweet and as innocent a question as you can imagine. I mean, I had all the answers she never wanted. She had one question. And I said to her, well, Jesus endured the cross for the joy set before him. And I know he's not going to deprive you of any good thing. That night she repented of her sin, committed her life to Christ, was baptized shortly thereafter. She's still an active Christian today. She's not in full communion with the Catholic Church. My point though is don't be afraid of doing something wrong. You will make mistakes. It's inevitable. Saint Teresa of Avila taught me once I became a Catholic that God doesn't so much look on our performance as he looks upon our willingness to obey. And when you're taking those steps out and sharing your faith, you're acting in obedience. So in spite of my ignorance about addiction, Sally and I put my friend and his wife up in a hotel down the street from our apartment. And I told him that I thought God had a plan for his life, that his addiction was a form of idolatry. He was the addict, has to bring everything in his life into compliance, into submission to the addiction. And when he uses, it creates the illusion of power, almost like sorcery. The universe can change with just an injection. And I said to him, you know, God has a better way. So for nearly 10 days, we went around the Detroit area, had dinner at the top of the Renaissance center on television. We watched the Phillies beat the Royals in the World Series. Yes, it was a long time ago. We visited Ann Arbor's Botanical Garden. He was miserable the whole time, didn't enjoy anything. Even drinking didn't help at all. I gave him a copy of the Living Bible, which is a paraphrase of Scripture. And one afternoon he came to me and said, hey, something really weird just happened. And I said, well, what is it? He says, I was thumbing through this Bible. In my eyes landed on words and they just kind of jumped off the page. And it said, do not be surprised that you must be born again. And I thought he was, that book was talking to me. That's what he said. I said, well, listen, Harry, what God has given you is what Christians call a moment of illumination. Now I wasn't Catholic, but I explained what I thought at the time was about being born again. And I came away assured that he would at least think about it. The week went by. I mentioned John 3.7 again, and he said he needs to think about it. Eventually he went home. Months later he lapsed in the heroin use again. He began embezzling money, almost lost his job. The union stepped in, sent him to rehab, and that's how he kept his job. Afterwards he did stay pretty clean and sober for a decade or so. He never seemed to be addicted to heroin again. Alcohol became his drug of choice. And in his 40s he developed a liver cancer. He panicked, left his wife and children, was rumored to be considering divorce and seeing another woman. So his wife and his sister asked me to talk with him. So we went out for an evening. Knowing him over the years gave me some courage and some boldness and some point of entry here. He assured me he wasn't seeing another woman, but he was threatening divorce. And I said to him, Harry, you know, I'm glad you remain faithful to your wife. Don't you think it's time to finally ask, what is God's will for your life? He got angry. Will of God? Where? Where do I find the will of God? And I said, well listen, we can start with prayer. We've got the life of Jesus. We've got the scriptures. We've got the catechism of the Catholic Church. And he snorted and said, I'm not Catholic, and those priests are perverts or something similar. Conversation flattened out. He reconciled with his wife in the coming weeks. And on his deathbed, Sally and I visited and I asked if I could pray with him. No. He was defiant. A few weeks later, he died. You know, I couldn't imagine. I spent many moments agonizing what I should have done differently with this whole thing. A mutual friend of mine in his told me that Harry thought religion was for the weak. It didn't make sense. He thought it was basically foolishness. The gospel seems like foolishness, not only to the Greeks, but also to the Americans. Jews demand signs. Greeks demand wisdom. Americans demand autonomy. They want to be left to themselves to make their own law, choose their own reality. Harry did, and Harry died prematurely. Jews demand miraculous signs. Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and the wisdom of God. So let's enter into St. Paul a little more deeply here. When Paul says that Jews demand miraculous signs, I think he's probably thinking of Jesus in the Pharisees. Matthew 16, teacher, we want you to show us a miraculous sign. And Jesus says a wicked and adulterous generation asks for a miraculous sign. I mean Jesus is basically saying no can do. I'm not a circus act. I'm not here to meet your expectations. I'm not obligated to meet your criterion. New Testament scholar Don Carson puts it this way, this demand for signs becomes the prototype of every condition human beings raise as a barrier to being open to God. I will follow this Jesus if I can maintain my independence. I'll happily become a Christian if God heals my mother. I'll turn to Jesus if he saves my marriage. These people want to set the terms of their repentance. They're like enemies who stipulate the terms of their surrender. Jews demand miraculous signs. They wanted power because they didn't have power. They had an occupying army controlling the real estate that God had given Abraham. And a crucified Messiah in their mind was a contradiction in terms like upward decline or godly rapist. Everyone who hangs on a tree stands under God's curse according to the book of Deuteronomy. A crucified Messiah wasn't just a stumbling block. It was a loathsome blast of this failure. It was an ultimate scandal. But Christ came in ways they didn't expect. Not what I expected. Greeks have the same problem. They expected wisdom for the word of the cross is falling to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. Greeks look for wisdom. No, the crucified philosopher isn't much of a wise figure. One who gets resurrected, that's implausible to the Greeks. Why? They had made an idol of human reason. They insisted on a superior philosophical system that had ultimate explanatory power. Everything could fit in it. But God isn't something that you fit into your picture. He's the entire frame of your picture. Atheist philosopher Luc Ferry noticed that the prologue to John's gospel marked one of the significant turning points in intellectual history. In the beginning was the word, the Lagos. The word was with God. The word was God. Through him, the Lagos, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made. In him was life. And in that life was the light of all mankind. And that word, that Lagos, became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory. That's not good news to the Greeks. It was shocking, disorienting, silly and foolish. Their universe was an orderly, meaningful universe. They had a purpose because they had a Lagos. They had a word. It was a rational principle that undergirded and supported all things. But their Lagos was impersonal. It was an abstract principle that you could contemplate, but it was absolutely not a divine person who would take on human flesh. Paul's gospel called into question their deepest assumptions about reality. Luke Ferry said that the Greeks considered the gospel a form of insanity. And you can see that even in the book of Acts. When Paul defends himself against King Agrippa, the governor festus breaks it and says to Paul, you're out of your mind. Your great learning is driving you insane. Gentiles wrote off the meaning of the cross, not as an eccentric, harmless folly, but as a dangerous, almost deranged, stupid superstition. But we know it as the power of God. We have two very different understandings of reality here. And the power of the gospel is not just the proper assembling of words. The power of the gospel to persuade is the power of the message itself. It's not the skill or the rhetoric of the messenger. And St. Paul puts it this way. We have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. Rather, we offer an open statement of the truth. In short, he's saying, don't dress the gospel up. You don't have to do it. That's why he could say to the Corinthians, when I came to you, brethren, I didn't come proclaiming to you the testimony of God in lofty words of eloquence or in words of wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling. And my speech and my message were not implausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the spirit and power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. The gospel is the power of God was something that kept Paul enthusiastic about the message. In Romans, he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of God, for it is the power of salvation for everyone who believes, both Jew and Greek. So Paul is not your great communicator in the way we would think of a classic orator. He says, and the Corinthians say, you're not much in the pulpit. He says, look, it's not about me. It's about the gospel. So let's take a look at how Paul goes about his work. For St. Paul, he's sold out. He's available. The gospel is a priority. Woe to me if I don't preach the gospel. He says, for the love of Christ constrains me, urges me, controls me, compels me, presses me, guides me, overmasters me, because we are convinced that one has died for all and therefore all have died. We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. Unlike St. Paul, too often we don't feel compelled or controlled or constrained. We just feel guilty. And you're not going to be very good persuading people that there's now no condemnation in Christ Jesus if you're standing there hoping to quickly escape your guilt by laying out a gospel track. The truth is we don't witness as often as we'd like because we do other things. We desire to do other things. My son, Nick, went to Home Depot and bought a grill for his deck. It was a great grill at a great price. And so having discovered this grill of great price, he immediately called us up and his brothers and friends and said, look, I got this great grill. And we're a family that enjoys grilling and grinning and gulping on our decks. And so Nick didn't need to explain to us the receipt of the grill and why it was such good news. Our desires had been formed by a society, circle of family and friends that desires and uses and cherishes and expects good grills. And he wasn't timid. He wasn't shy about sharing the grill of great price. So I wonder, I mean, why do I find it much easier to share the good news of the grill rather than the good news of Jesus Christ? Now, part of it is, of course, cultural expectations. We fear not being understood. But when you scale this back, it comes down to this. What do I love? What do I want to do? It is about desire. You know, that's the first, last and most fundamental question of Christian discipleship. Saint Paul was a rewired man. He was thoroughly converted to a degree that I'm not. He desired all time on all cylinders to share the gospel. Jesus' first words in the Gospel of John are, what do you want? What are you looking for? And he poses the question to two of John, the Baptist disciples who were following him. He kind of just wheels around and says, hey, what do you want? And it's his way of saying, will you come and follow me? Peter, do you love me? He's really saying, Peter, what do you want? He doesn't ask, what do you know? Or even what do you believe? He says, what do you want? Because our wants and our desires are at the core of our identity. That's the wellspring from which all of our actions and behaviors flow. I mean, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. We speak of what we love, and discipleship is a way of curating our hearts to be more attentive to and intentional about what we love. And discipleship is more a matter of hungering and thirsting than it is about knowing and believing. And so Jesus' command to follow him is a command to align our loves, our desires with his loves and desires. He wants a people who are hungering and thirsting after God and craving a world in which he is all in all. Seek first the kingdom and all these other things, including converts will be yours. We don't witness like we should because honestly, we think we have better things or more important things to do. And I get it. For most of us too, as we've gotten older, our life fills up. I think I might have used this illustration last year, but you know, these Lego blocks only have so many places that you can connect, right? Most of our Lego blocks are full, wives, husbands, children, grandchildren, relatives, work at church, business. Our Legos are all capped off. There's nowhere for people to connect anymore with us. And the truth is, most of us probably don't have a lot of non-Christian friends. In fact, a lot of us don't even have many non-Catholic friends. I mean, it's hard to witness to the unbaptized when you don't know any. And so, I mean, you really do have to ask, well, why am I not doing the job of evangelization that I'd like to do? So just keep that in mind. St. Paul did it because that's all he wanted to do essentially. He was rewired. His desires were so aligned with the gospel that that's what he did. He's available in a way that most of us simply are not. Secondly, when he does it, he respects those whom he speaks. This allows him to be flexible. He's available. He respects the people he's talking to. He knows them, and he's listening to their situation. He's analyzing where they're coming from. And he looks for common ground that he can build on before he gets to points of contradiction. He has points of contact and points of contradiction. He always starts with the points of contact and builds common ground. He shapes his preaching to find as much common ground with the audience as possible. There's this fastening in the ninth chapter of 1 Corinthians. He writes, To the Jews, I became like a Jew. To win the Jews. To those under the law, I became like one under the law. So as to win those under the law. To those not having the law, I became like one not having the law. So as to win those not having the law. To the weak, I became weak. To win the weak. I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel. So he's available. He respects his audience. He knows his audience. He shapes his message for his audience. He begins with common ground. And then he isn't afraid, lastly, of contradicting false beliefs. He knows how to turn the tables. And we'll talk more about that. We'll do two quick case studies of St. Paul doing evangelism. Acts chapter 13. He goes to the synagogue with his companions. It's the synagogue in Pasidian Antioch. And they're there on the Sabbath. And they take their seat. The synagogue is filled with Jews and God fearing Gentiles. And the synagogue leaders become aware that Paul's there. Now he's a trained rabbi. He's probably got a reputation. And so they ask him to address them. They say, Brother, do you have a word of encouragement? They're basically giving a chance to take the homiletic portion of the synagogue service. And so he goes through that door. It's an open door. And he goes through it. He sprints through it. And he just lays it out. People loved it. He had common ground to call him brother. He has a winning presentation. And they asked him to come back the next week. Well, next week Luke tells us the just about the entire city showed up. And what happened is that the Gentiles so overpowered the number of Jews there that the Jewish leadership of the synagogue got worried. And so when Paul then begins bringing up Messiah, Christ Jesus, they drive him out of the city. And he now has lost his common ground. He's now at the point of contradiction. And he tells them, look, I'm taking the gospel to the Gentiles. Case study number two, Acts chapter 17. He arrives in Athens. He's greatly distressed by the rampant idolatry in the city. He doesn't run off. He stays available. And watch what he does when he's invited. He's invited to make his case before the city council. He takes himself out of the picture. Now the Jews had called him brother, right? These pagans called him babbler. That was the word. It's a seed-picking bird. It's an insult. You're a babbler. You're a seed-picking bird. He's giving us useless bits of random pieces of information here. They don't address him as brother. Does St. Paul then say, I'm no babbler. Let's see who the real babbler is around here. Do you know who I am? No. He ignores it. He doesn't put himself in the center. To the contrary, he respects his audience and he says, people of Athens, I see that in every way you are religious. Now this is not mere flattery as we see later. He knows their men and women made in the image and likeness of God. They are made for God. And even though they are idolaters, he has a way to go at this. A lot of us would probably start chastising them for the rampant idolatry, their violation, their shameless violation of the First Commandment. That isn't what he makes his contact point. He reframes the issue by focusing on their hunger for God. People of Athens, I see that in every way you are religious. For as I walked around looking carefully at your objects of worship, I found an altar with this inscription, to an unknown God. Paul has a generosity of spirit here. He now begins to turn the tables. He says, what therefore you worship as unknown? This I proclaim to you. He begins a sermon. He recognizes that they have some kind of hunger for God and he begins to describe this unknown God. He's a creator. He's a provider of good things. He doesn't live in temples made by human hands as though he was dependent on the creatures he makes. No, he governs world history. He sets up the boundaries of the nations. Human beings grope toward him, feeling their way along. Maybe they might find them. Yet he says, he's not far from us. Even your own poets, let us know this. And he quotes their own poets. In him we live, move, and have our being, another poet, for we are indeed his offspring. And that's where he really does turn the tables. He shows that their idolatrous practice failed the test of their own premises. You are God's offspring. That's right. You believe that? That's right. So why are you then bowing to idols made from gold, silver, and stone? Idols that you make. You're God's offspring. You're beyond wood. You're beyond hay. You're beyond silver. You're beyond stone. You're beyond gold. And this God will judge the world by the man who he has raised from the dead. So get ready, the times of ignorance are passing. Repent. Now the text says, when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, they mocked. Remember, the Greeks don't have room for a Lagos, which is a personal God. And they certainly have no room in their cosmology for a resurrection. But others of them said, we'll hear you again about this. And some others believed. Paul went out and he had some converts, Dionysian the Areopagite. He had a woman named Damaris, and there were some other men. Now let me be clear. Paul's not claiming that the Athenians were anonymous Christians, or that somehow they could be saved because they were well-intentioned in their idolatry. Absolutely not. What he was doing was recognizing what St. Augustine shows us in the first opening prayer of his confessions. You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you. He was recognizing what sociologists of religion call signals of transcendence. Signals of transcendence are authors to the unknown God. What are these things? They're highly personal, they're very subjective, they're internal longings for that which is greater than ourselves. Words with called them intimations of immortality. They're yearnings for our ultimate home. And all kinds of terms are used to describe these things, epiphanies, jolts, homing devices, actual graces, metaphysical hunger. And these impressions and desires point us to something we don't possess, but believe we should. They signal something transcendent about our nature. You know, in material terms, a hungry man knows he's made for food, and he's troubled when he can't find it. He knows he's from a race of people that normally satisfy their hunger by food. Well, it's the same thing with metaphysical hungers, aspirations or desires for God. It tells us we are made for more than this material world. And this shows up all the time, even in the writing of atheists. Jurgen Habermas, an influential atheist who had long conversations with Benedict XVI, wrote a famous essay years after he attended the funeral of a close atheist friend. He was struck by how flat the memorial service was. It was like soda water that had lost its fizzle. The essay was called an awareness of what was missing. Agnostic philosopher Iris Murdoch similarly asked, but is there something where God used to be? St. Paul starts his evangelization of the Athenians by recognizing and respecting their aspiration for God, twisted as their practice was. And there are two mistakes surrounding these signals of transcendence, these little epiphanies, these metaphysical hungers that we can identify in ourselves and in other people. The first thing that we get wrong about them is to simply dismiss them or discount them or belittle them as subjective, oftentimes they're heterodox. An evangelical Protestant friend of mine and I were talking with a woman who had lost her seven-year-old son. And she was talking about how the boy is now gone, but he still comforts her. And she made a phrase, you know, he's God's little angel now is what she said. My friend decides he should correct her. He says, you know, he can't really be an angel because humans don't become angels. He's theologically correct, but evangelistically, he's a nimnod. What he should have done is taken the woman's hand and said, you know, you are so blessed to have the comfort of your son's love. And in the Song of Solomon, in the Scriptures, we learn that love conquers death and Jesus and his resurrection is the final evidence of that. He made the first big mistake. He didn't recognize she had a signal of transcendence. She was identifying something beyond the material world that was of a comfort to her. The second mistake, though, would be to confuse those pointers with the destination. So we affirm, we accept and we build on these experiences, but we have to go beyond them. If we don't, we end up lost in the suburbs of Jerusalem. We never get to the heavenly city. We're in the outskirts of heaven, or if worse comes the worst, we end up in hell. But we fall short of the heavenly Jerusalem. We have to move these things and point them in the right direction. C.S. Lewis talks about this at great length in his spiritual memoir, Surprised by Joy. So we have these signals of transcendence. Everybody's gotten altered to an unknown God. We all have aspirations, intimations of immortality, something that tells us we are made for more than this world. The second thing that St. Paul learned to do, he not only recognized that, he learned how to turn the tables. And the key to turning the tables was to show that a person is inconsistent with some of the assumptions that he holds. So with the Athenians in their idolatrous practice, he says, look, you are God's offspring. So why the heck are you building idols of stone, silver, and gold? You are greater than these things. And God is greater than all these things. I was talking to an atheist philosopher from Wayne State University a while back. He wasn't your swashbuckling kind of Richard Dawkins atheist. He was rather humble and not jubilant about the non-existence of God. We were discussing the problem of evil and to his credit, he confessed that he didn't believe there was any ultimate purpose to life. And I said to him, Bruce, doesn't that bother you? He said, I just don't dwell on it. I said, well, where do you find purpose at all? He says, well, I find purpose in my projects. And I said, you know, isn't that cheating? I mean, ultimately, you don't think there's any purpose. So finding purpose in your projects is just postponing the inevitable. They're meaningless. Bertrand Russell said it best, brilliantly, atheist, all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction and the vast death of the solar system. And the whole temple of man's achievements must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins. And Russell countered despair, but with all due respect, atheists cheat on this point. They say that life is meaningless, but then live as though it has a point or a purpose. They say that morality is relative and then they teach their kids not to lie, cheat, steal, or be promiscuous. They say that life is pointless and then get angry at injustice. They say there's no God and then give thanks when they have a beautiful July afternoon. They say life is meaningless. There is no truth to communicate. And then they write books knowing full well that they're going to be understood. And in fact, if somebody misunderstands what they say, they get angry. They can't live with the logic of their own assumptions about life. Turning the tables is the saying to them, you know, you're cheating about this. Saint Paul teaches us to be available, to be respectful of our audience, to know them, to adapt our message to them. He's not ashamed of the gospel because the gospel is about the power of God, not about his competence. He uses these altars of an unknown God, these signals of transcendent, to make points of contact in common ground. And he also knows how to turn the tables and move to a point of contradiction. He's a very keen observer of culture. Jews seek signs, Greeks seek wisdom, and what do Americans seek? Well, we seek the autonomous sovereign self. Who am I? What can I be? And what's in my way? This is what drives America today. That's what's necessary in most people's lives when they think of their future. Their deepest desires and longings are to throw off all restraints that keep us from grasping that total liberty to be who we want to be. A lot of people call it the sovereign self. Jews want a sign, Greeks want wisdom, Americans want the sovereign self. This is a long historical road to this point in our history. It escalates after the Second World War. And in the Supreme Court decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey and Lawrence v. Texas, we have the Supreme Court even showing us this. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life. Among our elite culture and in our popular culture, we now believe there really is no external cosmic order to which we must conform. We now believe that truth can be constructed to our individual will. And this shows up all over popular culture. A few weeks ago, Sal and I and our two of our sons went to see the Avengers Endgame. The Avengers, if you don't know, are an ensemble of superheroes. One of the Avengers is Thor. He's a bit out of the ordinary. He's got Captain America and Iron Man and the Hulk are all mid-20th century science fiction figures. They're normal men who are made extraordinary by technology or superdrugs. Tony Stark and Bruce Ben are really mad scientists. Thor, no, he comes from a whole different patch of cultural history. He's the Norse god of thunder. He's the guy Thursday is named after, you know, and he's a prominent religious figure in Norse mythology. Long before Christianity, he's got a big hammer. He throws thunderbolts. He's invulnerable. He's king of Asgard, too. But in Endgame, he's more of a broken, conflicted comic figure who's kind of fallen into disrepair. In one of the last scenes in the movie, one of the goddesses, Valkyrie, one of the goddesses of Asgard comes and says to him, hey, when can we expect you back? And he hems and haws, well, you know, about that, she's adamant. She says, your people need their king. And he looks at Valkyrie and says, no, they already have one referring to Valkyrie. She says, that's funny. You're being serious. And then we learn that an American popular culture, even Norse gods, are not immune from the diseases of modernity. In one of the most humdrum, trivial lines in movie history, Thor says wistfully, it's time for me to be who I am rather than who I'm supposed to be. Who you're supposed to be? Good heavens, man, you're a god. You know, do what gods do. Pop culture is full of these kind of stories of the adolescent who must break away and become all they fancy, and they'll overcome all traditions, all relationships to get there. We see it even in our funeral practices. Blogger Kim Fabricius points out that in the last few decades, funerals have become customized. They're celebrations now of the individual's life. They're usually upbeat, avoid sad, avoid mourning. Coffins are likely to be as draped with photos and flags or sports memorabilia as they are Christian symbols. One minute you're singing amazing grace, and the next minute somebody flips on a CD of Frank Sinatra singing, I did it my way. Palms are red, and they're often walkish and banal and false. They're untruthful. You know, things like cousin, one of the cousins gets up and says, you know, Harvey, you left me to read this poem to all of you. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there. I did not die. No, Harvey, I'm sorry, you're dead, and we're not. You know, sentimentality, I don't know who said that, but sentimentality is to truth, what pornography is to love, and there's mounting pressure upon us to collude in this make-believe denial of death and lose great moments for witness. Jews seek signs, Greeks seek wisdom, Americans seek the sovereign self. I'll close here with a story that tries to bring together availability and living in expectation of witness, God's providence, respect for the other, common ground, turning the tables, and above all, how I didn't know what I was doing. My friend David and I got out of church, went to our favorite Detroit Mexican restaurant. The server's name was Maryland. I was doing some research on New Age thought at the time, and I was carrying a book that was popular among New Ages called The Crack in the Cosmic Egg. Maryland saw the book and said, hey, I'm reading that. What do you think? Well, I was feeling unusually bold and frisky after service, and in the spirit, I was saying that I thought the book wasn't very good at all, that the author's God was too small. God doesn't squeak through a crack in the cosmic egg, but he throws open the windows of heaven so that rain blessings will rain down. He answers prayers, and she asks somewhat scornfully, so what God do you worship? Oh, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who sent his son to bring the gospel to the poor, to release the prisoner, to lift the oppressed, to mend the broken hearted, to heal the lame, the maimed and the blind. I was on. I had it. It was going well. Tamisha Grinn, she teared up and says, then let him come and heal my mother. Her mom was in the hospital, deadly tumor behind her eyes. I knew nothing about healing ministry or healing prayer. I shot off my mouth, and now she's actually expecting me, or worse, God to do something. But I knew enough to say, you know, the message is not about me. I have the freedom to fail here. I have the freedom to do what I think God wants me to do. So Sally joined us at the table. We continued to talk with Marilyn. We learned that she'd been alienated from the Catholic Church for a few years, but her mother's health crisis had her asking all those deep and sometimes dark questions that confront us in the wee hours of the morning. The church had let her down in some way, and she was pursuing UAG type spirituality. Later that week, Sally and I made our way to the hospital to pray for healing. Marilyn's mom was not much, more than a living skeleton. Her body was shriveled. She couldn't speak, and she appeared to be in pain. Sal told her that Marilyn had asked us to come and pray with her. Was that all right? And she nodded. And so we held her hand, and we prayed, and we closed with the Lord's prayer. She squeezed our hands. We took our leave. Nothing remarkable happened. But we had to fulfill the promise to a new friend. We consoled a dying woman in some small way. The rest was really God's problem. There was no grand healing miracle. Nothing that would prove to Marilyn my window on heaven was better than her crack in the cosmic egg. The Sunday following our visit, Sally turns to me during worship and says, we need to call Marilyn. I think her mother just died. I chalked it up to an overly sympathetic imagination. After church, we call Marilyn. Indeed, her mother died near the time that Sally had that jarring impression. We did go to the visitation at the funeral home, still feeling a bit sheepish about, you know, this healing thing about over promising. But heck, I wouldn't have taken credit if she was healed. So I'm not going to take the blame if she wasn't, you know. And as we left, Marilyn came with us out to the parking lot and let us in on a bigger family story than we had known. It turns out that our meeting Marilyn and Marilyn's urging us to visit her mom in the hospital actually helped thaw out some frozen ice between them. They were reconciled the week of her mom's death. And Marilyn said to me whispering that she had found a priest and she was being reconciled to the church. All this came about because I didn't know what I was doing. And I believe that God said we should pray for healing. And so that's what we did. God is alive. There are invisible realities. We have divine appointments like that. And so our prayer should always be wisdom of God, be with me, always at work in me. Thank you. It's been very good.