Wednesday of the Sixth Week of Easter
Whenever I read Acts chapter 17, I’m always drawn to the phrase “in him we live and move and have our being.” It’s so remarkable that our lives, the things that make us human, and our very existence find their place in God. God is not something or someone we seek from afar; God is someone we find within us and close around us. I invite us to meditate on and contemplate this phrase today, in him we live and move and have our being.
In our first reading, we find Paul in Athens. Paul is distressed because he walks around the city and sees the idols everywhere – statues to known and even “unknown” gods. He preaches to Jews and God-fearing Greeks (non-Jews) as well as groups of philosophers. The philosophers begin to dispute with him, but they are curious and want to hear more. As a good orator, Paul appeals to his audience and makes his message accessible to them. Paul uses the rhetoric of the philosophers and quotes some of their well-known poets. The line, “in him we live and move and have our being” harkens to a Latin poem with which Paul’s audience would have been familiar. Paul then directly quotes a poem with an invocation to Zeus, when he says, “We are his offspring.” Paul appropriates these texts, written as tributes to the false gods of the time, and reinterprets them for his audience in light of the Gospel and the truth of who we are as creations of the One true God.
Like the philosophers and others of Paul’s day who searched for God in a pantheon or worshipped idols of their own creation, we too can hold false views of God. Even professing Christians at times are confused about who God is, where God is, and if God is. And yet we are told, “in him we live and move and have our being.” That phrase might be more literally translated, “in him we live and are moved and are.” The Greek root word zaó means to live, to be alive, to experience God’s gift of life. The root kineó means to move, but more literally to be moved from within – to be stirred, to have one’s emotions roused. The root eimi means, “I am.” It’s the basic Greek word for existence. One commentary I consulted suggests that eimi refers to what constitutes our true essential being – our intellect and will. In that I find Paul calling us to remember that we are created in God’s image – our intellect and will being indicators of that divine design. In God we receive life, we are moved or roused, and have our very existence.
So, what does all that have to do with our lives practically? When I wake up each morning, I can blindly go about my day, going through the motions, searching for meaning and purpose, longing to find satisfaction, happiness, and joy, hoping that something I do matters, holding other people at arm’s length, seeking God “out there somewhere”. . . Or I can wake up each morning rooted and grounded in the knowledge that In God I receive life, I am moved and roused, and have my very existence. What a game-changer that would be! Imagine walking around and experiencing every moment of your day with the realization that you do so within the Divine, within the Holy Trinity itself. God is not far off, God is not distant, God is not unknown – God is within you, God surrounds you, God desires to be your Companion on the journey each and every day. We don’t live our lives alone, empty, longing, groping blindly, distant from God. We live our lives in God! Put another way, we are alive in Christ! We have died with him in baptism and are alive with him in his Resurrection! Christ enlivens every part of us – in him we are moved – we are roused to passionately follow him. In him, we bow our intellect and will to the God who made us, seeking the Father’s will above our own – evidence that our existence is in God. In him we see our brothers and sisters, our neighbor, as persons who are also positioned in him. I interact with people much differently if I can recognize the Christ in them and the person they are in him, and not just another isolated human whom I might be tempted to objectify or dismiss.
Orienting ourselves in God helps us to trust God more fully, as well. Knowing that I am in God gives me such a sense of safety and security, almost as if I’m contained in the Divine. I pray this knowledge gives you hope and a sense of peace and security, too. As you pray today, don’t look up to the distant heavens. Look within and find God there. Let us be confident in this truth, “in him we live and move and have our being.” Amen!
-Elizabeth Wells