Tag Archives: truth

What is truth? Part 3: In the doing

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Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). He answers his own question moments earlier by pointing to the power of action; Pilate asks Jesus, “What have you done?” (John 18:35).

If Pilate wondered what the truth about Jesus was, he nailed it — perhaps instinctively — by laying this abstract question about truth firmly in the realm of behavior and action.

“They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love” goes the popular song. They will know who we are by what we do. The truth will be told more as a reflection of what is done than by what is believed or thought of.

Jesus healed the sick. Jesus spent time with the outcasts. Jesus crossed the boundaries of social norms to speak with women and touch lepers. Jesus broke laws which were stupid. Jesus spoke of God’s truth and love.

Truth is something we do. While intellectual truth can be stimulating, it does not fulfill all of our needs. God calls us beyond mere understanding and words and translate those thoughts into concrete action in the world. Meaningful engagement with the world is a prescription for truth-discovery.

What action stands foremost in Jesus’ encounter with Pilate? And how does this action reflect the truth about God? In this scene between Pilate and Jesus, Jesus invites Pilate to belong by listening to Jesus’ voice (John 18:37). We’ve heard that before, haven’t we? — Listening to Jesus’ voice …

Read John 10:1-16. There, Jesus describes himself as the loving shepherd who takes care of his sheep. He calls them by name, and they know his voice. Jesus is the good shepherd who wants his followers to have life, and have it abundantly.

Even to Pilate, Jesus gives himself to be his good shepherd. Even to the man who has power to condemn him to death. Even to those who hate and kill and are so lost in sin, Jesus offers himself in love, grace, mercy and forgiveness.

This is always Jesus’ invitation to us, and to all people. Jesus invites us to belong to his community. Jesus invites us to the truth which we will know in his love, compassion and grace.

We will know that truth in the loving actions of those around us, belonging in community. And we will receive that truth when we come home to ourselves and face the truth about our lives. And we are called to live as active witnesses to the action of God in the world.

What do you see God doing in the world around you and in the lives of people you encounter today? And what does this action reveal about God’s truth?

What is truth? Part 2: Belonging to community

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I remember when I was ten years old I wanted to run away from home. My brother and I fought with my Mom over watching a TV show. Our disagreement led to this radical solution.

My brother and I packed our little red wagon with pillows, blankets, some twinkies, and a bottle of milk. I informed my Mom, and we were on our way.

We pulled our wagon down the sidewalk in silence. When we reached the first cross street a block away from home, we stopped. Without saying a word, both of us turned around and headed back with heads hung low.

In discovering the truth, not only must you come home to yourself and articulate your own desires, motivations and unique identity, you need to land in a community. This is the important second movement in answering: “What is truth?” (John 18:38).

At some point in the process of discovering the truth, we need to acknowledge the communal nature of truth-telling. It’s one thing to say discovering the truth is a personal journey; but it’s also a path that takes you beyond pure individualism. In other words, you can’t celebrate the truth of anything by yourself. In community we are greater than the sum of our individual parts. The truth can only be ascertained and arrived-at in the midst of others.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus relates the truth with “belonging” (18:37) — belonging to a community. Whether that community is a family, a church, a nation, God, our belonging is often tested. When things don’t go our way. When we don’t get want we want in that community. When others disappoint us. When there is disagreement. When we suffer. There are a host of circumstances that may lead us to question our belonging.

And when that happens, what do we do? Do we leave? Do we, as I tried to do with my red wagon and twin brother in tow, run away? Do we isolate ourselves behind fortress walls of fear and intransigence? What do we do when our belonging is severely tested?

Jesus hints that the kingdom of which he speaks transcends the self. When Jesus says that he was born for the purpose of testifying to the reign of God (John 18:37), Jesus is pointing to that which is larger than any individual, including himself.

We don’t exist unto ourselves. The sun doesn’t orbit around our individual planet; rather, we orbit around the sun! Our lives are meant for more than mere self-indulgence, self-acquisition, self-amelioration, self-justification.

When we discover the truth together, we’re not denying our individual, unique perspectives. We are not hiding our true colours from one another. We are simply affirming that if we are to find the truth, we will only do so together.

Belonging is not so much about individual decisions as it is about collective participation in community. That is why we make major decisions as the church, or as a nation, or even in families together. We share our differing thoughts and opinions with the awareness of our belonging to one another and to God, whether or not that unity is challenged or visibly shaken.

The movement towards community in discerning the truth calls for humility and attentiveness to those around us.

Where do you belong? Give God thanks for your belonging.

What is truth? Part 1: Coming home to yourself

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The Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John) read like a religious manifesto for truth-seekers. Those four books in the bible can be summarized by the question: “What is truth?” which Pilate asks rather dismissively at the conclusion of a spirited conversation when Jesus is brought before him to answer to the charges brought against the purported “King of the Jews” (John 18:38).

More to the point, these stories about Jesus life, death and resurrection describe a process for discovering the truth, in three discernable movements.

First, the gospel stories reveal several encounters between Jesus and various individuals, engagements whose primary effect is to recall those individuals back to themselves.

When I meet someone I don’t know, or who appears powerful, or who for whatever reason emanates presence, it is easy for me to lose sight of myself in the encounter. In the presence of greatness, we can easily lose our groundedness and be motivated to appear that which we are not — maybe out of fear, or out of social pressure, or out of trying to please others, etc.

That clearly was Pilate’s problem. He so desperately wanted to please the religious leaders in order to keep a semblance of political power. He evidently went against his own intuition, his own experience of Jesus (“I find no case against him” he confessed later — v.38) in his desperate effort to stay in control. In that weighty exchange, if anything, Jesus invites Pilate to be transparent, to share how it is with him, to utter the truth of his own life: “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” (v.34)

The first step in discerning truth is to be clear yourself about your motivations — from where you’re coming. When the first two disciples started following Jesus on account of John the Baptist’s public declaration (“Look, here is the Lamb of God!” — John 1:35), Jesus asks them: “What are you looking for?” (v.38). Here, Jesus invites them back into themselves. He doesn’t want them to follow merely, as a parrot would, by repeating what someone else says and do what someone else tells them to. Never mind what other people are saying, what are YOU looking for?

In another encounter of healing, Jesus asks the blind man what he wants (Mark 10:51; Luke 18:41). Why? It goes without saying, right? He wants to see again! But perhaps Jesus asks him this to help him freely name for himself his deepest desires.

In the same way at the beginning of his ministry Jesus confronts the Samaritan woman at the well: While she give him all the ‘right’ answers and doctrinally correct formulations, Jesus goes straight for her heart and invites a true, transparent confession (John 4:1-30).

And when Mary is overcome with grief she does not see Jesus for who he truly is outside the tomb that first Easter morning (John 20:16). She is so distracted by disbelief she thinks he is the gardener. Only when Jesus says her name, “Mary”, does the veil of distraction lift, and she recognizes him and confesses with her own lips the truth of who Jesus is.

We can’t do truth unless we first come home to ourselves. Jesus helps us — even Pilate, in a tense life/death exchange — to articulate for ourselves who we are, what we see, and what we want. It’s so easy to get distracted from ourselves in our noisy, busy world. It’s so easy initially to focus on some external reality upon which to heap blame or praise for all that happens in our lives. Coming home to ourselves is a necessary first step in discovering the truth about God and the world.

Pray for the eyes of your heart to see, hear and know the truth.

The truth will make you free

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“You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32)

This text citing Jesus from the Gospel of John is the chosen text for Reformation Sunday. I wonder why? Is it because in every age the church needs to re-discover the truth for itself?

When you think about it, isn’t this the question that seems to surface time and time again for Christians living in the world today? It does for me: When tragedy strikes. When controversy splinters groups. When conflict erupts. What is true? Who is right? Who speaks the truth?

After watching the presidential debates on TV last week, one of the US networks had a segment where a reporter examined a few of the statements made by the candidates. By appealing to the facts and the official record we could judge whether or not the statements were true. Kind of like a truth-meter. The result wasn’t always clear-cut, either-or – for both candidates.

Pilate’s question to Jesus (“What is truth?” John 18:38) right before Jesus’ death is actually answered by Jesus here: “The truth will make you free.” Okay, so we have a connection between truth and freedom. It’s a good start.

This is the texture and character of what God’s truth is all about; that is, it leads to freedom, to expansion, to a kind of un-shackling, un-binding, un-raveling, un-caging of our lives. This is how we will recognize it – that’s the litmus test: whether it frees us, or not.

In the last couple of weeks you may have noticed the new paint on the walls in the narthex and adjacent rooms upstairs. Repainting the walls is a cleansing act of sorts – a confession, you might say. Because we now look rather critically at what was on the floors – the furniture, and what hung the walls – the plaques and pictures. We revisit the very assumptions of why those things were put there in the first place. In this evaluative process we ask: Why?

Painting the walls was sacramental in that it was an outward act that points to an inward reality. What about taking a look at our inner lives, asking ‘why?’, and begin renovating that space? What about confessing the truth of who we are? What is hanging on the walls of our hearts? And why is it there? Does it need to be? Is it counter-productive? Does it say something about our lives that is not really true?

At the spiritual retreat I attended last weekend the participants were asked the question: “Describe how you know something to be true.” The question was intentionally left to be wide open, and in our small groups we were encouraged not to be judgmental in what others said and with what came to our own lips in the moment. So, how do you know something to be true?

It wasn’t an easy question to answer, truth be told, especially among strangers. My small group comprised of three people. And you might have guessed it: three different kinds of answers.

The first person said she knows something to be true because she trusts her gut instinct; for example, she just knows in her gut that someone her teenage daughter hangs out with is not a good friend for her. Her gut tells her this is true – and often it turns out to be true!

The other person said she relies on what other people around her say and do. She trusts her friends and family, what they teach her, tell her and by the example of their lives – this is how she knows and discovers the truth. Not so much her gut, but in her relationships.

I was the third person. The first thing that came to my mind was: I trust ideas and from where they come – the scriptures, the doctrines, the books I read, the traditions, the work of the mind. This is how I know the truth.

I realized after our discussion that it boiled down to what you trust – your instinct, your heart, your mind.

Was someone wrong? Was someone right? The experience of the exercise to listen and then to share honestly taught me that in various ways we were all right. Each of us shared an important perspective on discovering the truth.

If it wasn’t for Martin Luther responding in the moment to his conscience and gut: “Here I stand!” before those who accused him of heresy – I wonder if he and we would have ever received the truth of God’s grace in the way Luther eventually articulated it.

If it wasn’t for Martin Luther’s loving, caring and trusting relationship with Johann von Staupitz, his superior and mentor in the Augustinian monastery, he would not have made a critical step in his journey to discover the truth of justification by grace alone. In Luther’s own words: “If it had not been for Dr. Staupitz, I should have sunk in hell.”

If it wasn’t for Martin Luther’s dedication to the written word in translating the New Testament from the Latin to the language of the people, German, during his exile in the Wartburg castle, if not for his scholarship and knowledge of the scriptures, he most certainly would not have been in a position to stand with credibility and conviction.

On the other hand,

If it were only his instinct that he trusted, he could have barked up the wrong theological tree altogether, without recourse to the people in his life and the traditions of his church, good and bad.

If it were only his relationships that he trusted, he could have easily lost himself, his integrity, his own conscience by trying to please everyone and respond to their demands and expectations, becoming in essence a chameleon.

If it were only his appeal to right ideas manifested in the laws, the scriptures, the words on a page and other such abstract authorities, he would have missed the gift of Jesus to the world, a gift – like peace – which surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7). In other words, what is true is more than merely the understandings of our minds and intellectual intelligence.

Martin Luther’s conscience, his trusted relationships and his mind – all three – were part of the journey of discovering truth. I think we can say that in many ways his influence in the church expanded and freed many to embrace the truth about God.

By trusting only one facet over the other leads us to live life as if we were pushing a plane down the runway. We want to be free. We want the truth of flight. But we’re not getting into the plane and trust all of what the journey means.

It’s hard work. It isn’t easy – both to be honest about yourself, and to accept the other whose answer might be a little different.

It was for Martin Luther. For someone who was so convinced that the truth was found only in serving penance for his sins and slaving away to earn favor with God; for someone who felt deeply remorseful for his sins but who believed the only way to get it right with God was to work even harder at doing good works ….

The truth indeed set him free. For what was his eureka moment in that monastery in Germany? That it is grace that puts him right with God. Not anything that his ego could produce – his energy, his work, his endurance, his good intentions. But a free gift of God’s love, mercy, forgiveness – the doing of God in Jesus un-did the requirement for Luther to earn God’s grace.

So this grace as gift is the truth that sets us free. But it is a freedom FOR something, not FROM something. This is key. Freedom that is grounded in God’s grace is not a freedom from restraints and limits so that we could do anything we want to do. (see Richard Rohr, “On the Threshold of Transformation”, p.123). Here we go pushing that plane again. It is not Jesus’ understanding of freedom.

Instead, what Jesus embodies is a freedom FOR the good, the true, and the beautiful. It is a highly moral approach to freedom. This movement gets us flying. Gets us free. When we have nothing to lose except our egos. We seek justice, we are gracious and understanding, we are compassionate and work on behalf, not of ourselves and our own myopic realities, but of others in need. Why? Because it is the right thing to do. Because we are free to do this! Someone once said: There is no truth without compassion, and no compassion without truth.

I suspect when the world sees us engaged in this kind of approach, they will see Jesus and therefore see God. They will see the truth, they will bear witness to it in our behavior, our decisions and our actions.

What is truth? Each of us needs to personally struggle with that question – as Luther mightily did, as anyone who has grown in their personhood.

The truth is – the Son still shines above the clouds. Discovering this truth is like taking off on a stormy day: We may know theoretically that the sun is still shining. But to experience the Son personally we need to fly through the turbulence of the clouds before we break through and reach the heights where the sky is blue and the sun’s rays warm our bodies, our hearts and our minds.

A seminary prof once told my class that the song should really read: “Jesus loves me this I know for my mother tells me so” – pointing to the truth that for many of us, before we could read any words on a page we were in relationships with loved ones who showed us God’s love and talked to us about it.

The prof got it partially right. For over the span of a lifetime, I believe that Jesus loves me this I know, for my gut, my Mom/Dad/loved ones, and the Bible tells me so.

That is how I know.