In this episode of Faith at Work, Pastor Harry Jarrett reflects on Paul’s visit to Athens in Acts 17 and the altar dedicated “to an unknown God.” Rather than beginning with condemnation, Paul begins with attention. He walks, observes, listens, and notices that the people of Athens are already reaching toward something holy, even if they cannot yet name it.

Pastor Harry connects that story to our own lives in the Shenandoah Valley and beyond. Many of us know the feeling that something is missing, something worth our devotion, our creativity, and our love. This sermon invites us to see that longing not as failure, but as a doorway. God is not far away. As Paul says, “In him we live and move and have our being.” The sermon centers on the claim that our lives are already held inside the life of God.

Drawing on Richard Rohr’s The Universal Christ, Pastor Harry explores the idea that Christ reveals what has always been true: God is present to creation, with creation, and within creation. The incarnation is not God’s sudden arrival after a long absence. It is the clearest revelation of God’s eternal nearness, love, and presence.

This episode also reflects on the Trinity as a vision of divine relationship. At the center of the universe, Pastor Harry says, there is no lonely God. There is relationship, conversation, mutual love, and self-giving. If we are made in the image of this God, then we are made for “we,” not for an us-versus-them world.

Faith at Work is the weekly sermon podcast from Pleasant Valley Church of the Brethren in Weyers Cave, Virginia. Listen, like, share, and join the conversation.

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