"What is truth" part II, the conclusion

For the first sermon of this title, see "What is truth?" Questions and Answers in John's Gospel, December 29, 2013

Scripture: John 18:28-40

            This is what it’s all been leading to. I’ve only mentioned this moment about a hundred times since we started the Gospel of John at Christmas: Jesus before Pilate and Pilate’s rhetorical question, echoing across time and history: “What is truth?”

            It’s a question behind how we think and act and order our lives. Is truth a series of true events that have happened? Is it a series of things that can be claimed as “facts?” Is truth an unapproachable ideal? Or is truth something beyond comprehension? For those of you who have listened these past few months, you already know the answer to the question—at least according to John’s Gospel—but rather than just giving you that answer and moving on I’m going to spend some time today talking about why the other answers to the question are insufficient.

            Let’s start with truth as a series of historical events. This is probably the most common way we think about what is true. If something happened, then it’s true. If it didn’t, then it’s false. Academics use this approach to address everything from historical events to scientific hypotheses, but Christians use this approach as well. For example, every time a movie or TV show about the Bible makes its way into the public sphere—like, I don’t know, Noah—there is always debate about to what extent the movie accurately portrays what the Bible portrays. Usually what people mean when they critique a movie like this is that it does not follow the history of the Bible; less often do you hear critiques about the meaning of the story. I haven’t seen the movie, Noah, but it’s pretty predictably not the Bible’s version of history—even if its themes may be biblical through and through. This is fairly predictable, because Hollywood is interested in making movies that involve explosions and battle scenes and Russell Crowe standing around shirtless. The Bible tends to care less about the particulars—even the epic battle scenes—than it does about what the story tells us about God and about human beings. The particulars of the story matter but only insofar as they tell us about God and about us. However, in the modern world, we are taught from a young age that the most important thing is how events took place, and never mind what they mean until it has been firmly established that they happened as portrayed.

Matching people to passions

These days I’m spending a lot of time working on a bike tour we’re calling “The Hunger Ride: Feeding People—Feeding Souls.” It will be a week-long trek across 225 miles of northwestern Minnesota on our way to Moorhead, raising money and awareness for hunger-related causes along the way. I bring this up here as more than mere advertisement, because what I’ve realized in the planning of this project has been fairly startling, and I think it applies to how we work as Christ’s body in the church.

As things have come together, I find myself marveling at all the people involved in this project—leadership groups, week-long riders, the synod hunger table, local business people, local cycling enthusiasts, food shelf directors, musicians, movie theater owners, pastors, and many, many church representatives—and I still can’t quite believe the groundswell of support we’ve had for a project that I at first considered ambitious but probably not all that practical. Now I see how wrong I was. All because we found people passionate about what we were doing and their passion meant we had to twist no arms, make no phone calls begging for support, and time and again when we got together with a group or an individual involved in the planning we found them better prepared than we would have dreamed. People have owned the project, and it’s been amazing to watch.

I don’t think there’s anything magical about a bike tour for world hunger. What makes it special is that it taps into things that people are already passionate about. It has given them an avenue to envision something greater and the particulars to make it happen. I contrast that with the way that we normally work together as a church and it’s night and day. Normally, we have a few menial tasks that we beg and plead people to do. Can you usher? Will you read a lesson? Will you count offering? Can you bring buns on Sunday? Will you serve on the council? It’s not like these are particularly hard jobs, but without a vision that people are passionate about they will always feel just like chores. Chores aren’t a bad thing, but without ownership of the larger picture they will feel menial and discourage further participation, and that’s where many people are in our churches today.

We are flawed. So what? Jesus will use us anyway

Scripture: John 18:12-27

            There’s this great moment in today’s lesson where Jesus, in response to the high priest, says “I have spoken openly to the world [...] Why do you ask me? Ask those who heard what I said to them; they know what I said.” And the scene cuts to Simon Peter, warming himself by the fire, approached by a slave who asks about his relation to Jesus, and Peter, for the third time, denies it. Jesus tells the high priest to ask those who knew him, and at the very same moment Peter, the star pupil, is basked just that and he denies the whole thing.

            Nobody would have expected this from Peter. This is the guy who tried to emulate everything about Jesus—walking on water, washing his feet—and the very same guy who promised never to deny Jesus—even in the face of death. This is the man on whom Jesus has promised to build his church. It’s astonishing that St. Peter, the namesake of the basilica in Rome, backed down not to a high priest, or a temple leader, or a Roman authority, but to a common slave.

            The fact is that Peter was scared. It’s not an excuse; it just is. The disciples, for all their proximity to Jesus, never really grasped this idea that he was going toward his death. Ironically, this is precisely the reason Jesus needed to die. If Peter could have told the slave girl all he knew to be true; if Judas could have accepted Jesus’ strange use of the common purse; if the temple leaders could have seen Jesus as the Messiah; if you and I could just manage perfection, then the cross need not have happened. Of course, like your NCAA bracket, there are always could-a-should-a’s, but you can’t change the past. If you could, you’d all be billionaires.

Service is a joy and those who think differently haven't tried it

Scripture: John 13:1-17

            I was given orders this week to make this as short a sermon as possible [since we're showing off a baby at church and that's going to take some time]. But part of my job is to not always give you exactly what you want but what you need to hear, so consider this your Lenten discipline for the day—that can wait. Although, come to think of it, this whole baby thing does kind of color everything I read here—like I can no longer read Jesus saying “Not all of you are clean” without resisting the urge to point at Natalie, because I know different.