Cedar Valley Lutheran Church
Reformation B October 27, 2024 John 8:31-36
The punch line in our gospel reading for today is the first thing Jesus says to the Jews who believed in him. This is how it reads in the First Nations Version of the New Testament. Jesus told them, “If you walk in my footsteps and follow my teachings, you will truly be my followers. Then you will see and understand the truth that sets all people free.” And there is the punch line. To know – to see and understand – the truth is what sets people free. But the big question is the question Pilate asked of Jesus when he stands before him in his chambers. After Jesus told him that ”Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked that famous question, “What is truth?”
What is truth, indeed! Being a politician himself, Pilate understood that truth is such an elusive commodity as we have seen again in our current election cycle. We have seen politicians tell lies loud enough and long enough that people start to believe they are true. We have heard pundits commenting on the news, who twist and misrepresent what candidates have said to make them sound like they actually said something else. Pilate is absolutely right to ask in a far-fetched way, “what is truth”, like it really doesn’t exist.
Still, it is an honest question worth considering and it is not easily answered. Maybe it is a question we will never know the answer to. Steve Garnaas Holmes voices the struggle with such a question this way:
“There is a question inside you. Like a baby needing to be born,
it must come out.
It may be a curious inquiry, or an angry challenge.
It may be a profound exploration, or a Zen koan.
It may be a question for a friend,
or your lover, or the authorities, or yourself.
It may be a question for God, or the universe.
Maybe even for ancestors long gone.
It may be a question that’s actually a statement,
but there’s a real question behind it.
It’s a question to which you truly don’t know the answer.
But ask I anyway. Don’t force the answer. Wait in silence for it,
which may be a long time.
There may not be an answer at all.
Don’t silence the question any longer.
Because graveyards murmur with the cries of unasked questions.
So, speak it, let the silence hang in the air, and wait.”
Jesus knows that the existence of truth is something we all have, at one time or another – in one way or another, looked for and longed to possess. And, as Garnaas Holmes suggests, “There may not be an answer at all. But don’t silence it. Because graveyards murmur with the cries of unasked questions. So, speak it, let the silence hang in the air, and wait.”
And yet, according to Jesus there really is Truth with a capital “T”. It is Truth that is sent from God and embodied in the divine yet human one. It is Truth that flows out of Jesus’ words and action, bringing healing and life. It is Truth that transforms people’s lives and sets them on the right path leading to wholeness and freedom and peace. This Truth some would sell all that they have in order to possess. This Truth many have search desperately long and hard to find. This Truth people travel the world over to secure such a treasure.
And this is the Truth of which Jesus speaks: that, at our core – in the depth of our being – we are lovable and we are infinitely and unconditionally loved. And what makes this Truth so hard to see and know is that there have been people and circumstances in life that have told us that it isn’t true. There have been people and circumstances that have convinced us that we are losers and beyond redemption. And even when we are told differently and that we are held in God’s loving care forever, it is hard to believe that it is so and live like it is indeed true. All of those sound bites in the world that bombard us with the message that we aren’t good enough, that we aren’t beautiful enough, that we aren’t capable enough keep us from claiming the Truth of how God sees us and how much God believes in us and treasures us.
The Truth is God is love. The Truth is God loves us beyond measure. The Truth is we were made to experience this absolute and pure love and to share that love however we can. This is the Truth that sets us free.
Pentecost 7B July 7, 2024 Mark 6:1-13
We see in our gospel reading for today the continuation of a theme that has been running through the life and ministry of Jesus from the beginning. Again and again, Jesus has been forced to deal with rejection: rejection for what he teaches, rejection for what he does, and rejection for who he is.
The Pharisees criticize him for healing on the Sabbath. His disciples chastise him for sleeping in the middle of a stormy sea. Even his mother and his family try to get him to stop working so hard because his zealousness is proving to be an embarrassment to them. And today, Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth and it happens again. The people who sat next to him in worship, who celebrated with him at festivals, who watched him play and grow up, can’t accept what he has become.
At first, listening to Jesus teach in the synagogue, these family friends and neighbors are astonished by his eloquence and spiritual insight. They are impressed: “Where did he learn all of this?” they ask each other. “How did he get to be this good?” they wonder. “When did he get so wise all of a sudden?” they question. “After all, he is one of us. Up until recently he was just a local handyman, patching our roofs, framing our doors, and fixing our wobbly tables and chairs.” What happened? Where did Jesus get all of this?
Well, the answer to their questions is that he got all of this from them. He got it from his parents and siblings and relatives. He got it from his teachers at the synagogue. He got it from the values kept by his neighbors and from the stories he learned of his hometown heroes and his local scallywags. Jesus, in essence, is a mirror, showing them who they are and the role they played in shaping his identity and his place in the world. And the same is true for us. So much of what it is that makes us who we are and the things we do is shaped by our environment. And the history we carry and the people who have left a mark on our lives play a big part in our identity.
But their amazement suddenly shifts and they take offense at him. Someone in the crowd – perhaps a jealous neighbor, or maybe a childhood rival, or possibly the village gossip who loves to stir up trouble – questions the fact that Jesus has stepped out of his lane and ignored his place in the community. “He was one of us and now he thinks he’s something more – he has become something we didn’t expect him to be – something that doesn’t fit into the box we put him in.” And their doubts leave him powerless to do what he would love to do for them – what he has done for so many others.
But before we judge them too harshly, let’s imagine that we are also standing among his homies wondering the same thing ourselves. Like them, how often have we missed the holy among us because we could only see what we wanted to see? How often have we missed the new thing God is doing in Jesus because what we could only see is the old and familiar? How often have we not allowed Jesus to surprise us?
I remember something a wise friend told Pam and me when we were newly married. She said that we should surprise each other every once in a while with something unexpected. That surprise, she said, keeps the intrigue and the mystery of love alive in a relationship. I believe that part of the gospel mission for us involves an element of surprise. Because our openness to being surprised, keeps us open to the intrigue and mystery of God’s deep love for us so that it doesn’t get old and boring and meaningless.
My prayer for you, my friends, is that when you listen to Jesus you can hear a new thing God is doing underneath the comfortable traditions and the familiar habits of your faith. I pray you will be surprised by the mystery of the abundant life God has for you in Jesus – a life filled with love and grace … with mercy and forgiveness … with freedom and peace. May you have the eyes to see and the ears to hear the surprising good news God has for you in Jesus Christ, our Lord.