What is Truth

John 18: 33-38

I thought it’d be fun to start today
with a little bible quiz, whaddaya think?
Pencils out, books away.
Just shout the answer when you know it
From which book of the bible do the following passages come:


1.    And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.
 
2.    I am the way and the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me. 
 
3.    And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.
(John 1, 14, 8 are the answers)
 
It’s fair to say, I think,
that John’s gospel is obsessed with the concept of truth.
It comes up dozens of times from beginning to end,
far more than any other text,
and all the other gospels combined.
John is, in essence, our first theologian.
He is not so much attempting to tell an accurate story,
as he is trying to paint us a picture,
of what it might mean,
that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
That eternity entered time and space.
That Wisdom became enfleshed and entombed.
That God could become human.
 
And the places he lands,
the pictures he paints, above all:
are grace and truth.
 
But when the question is asked directly,
by Pilate to Jesus:
What is truth?
There is only silence.

Were our early scribes not so concerned with space,
and the cost of paper,
there would be here in the Gospel of John,
a line break in the middle of verse 38,
And a big one.
A pause is there in the text, pregnant. 
Pilate asked him “What is truth?
…
After he had said this, he went out…”
Jesus answers Pilate,
says Fredrich Buechner,
“with a silence that is overwhelming in its eloquence.”
[Lots in here is inspired by Buechner’s Secrets in the Dark. Check it out.]
Elsewhere,
he puts words to it.  Saying to Thomas, his disciple
by way of gentle corrective:
I.  I am the truth.  (John 14)

And it’s important to note, I think,
that Jesus did not say that Religion is truth.
or that his teachings were truth.
or what people said about him was truth.
or the Bible was truth.
or the church was truth.
or the church’s leaders were truth.
or any system of knowing or doctrine or ethic is truth.
Though we certainly hope that many of these contain examples of truths,
individual truths and signposts.

And Jesus certainly didn’t say that policy positions were truth,
or power structures,
or principalities. 

And he wouldn’t have.  Because none of these are Truth,
with a capital T.
Which is what, I think Pilate was after,
it’s hard not to imagine Pilate as a cynic.
A violent man,
and a brutal overlord.
But I can’t help but wonder if this wasn’t an earnest moment,
and a serious question:
Everyone who belongs to the truth,
said Jesus, listens to my voice.
What is truth?
I imagine he wondered it for real.

And I hope we’re wondering it too.
capital T truth,
in this community,
and at this University. 

small t truths,
are a dime a dozen,
Religious and Doctrinal truths.
Propositional truths,
like 2+2 = 4.
truths derived from scientific observation:
our climate in changing.
or from history:
humans are capable of wonderful and terrible things,
and we are likely to draw lines, and build walls,
when pushed by fear and stress.
And then we turn around and tell stories,
not always real,
about how great things used to be.
These truths matter,
and they are – you may have noticed – in dispute.

And that is, in part,
I think, because while I don’t believe that truth is relative,
the truth is relational,
according to our Christian story.

The truth exists in relationship to us,
came to us,
as a living, breathing human,
the truth loves us,
just as we are – broken and limited and ignorant.
And the truth asks us to repent,
and repair,
and keep trying.


Quoting at length from Buechner (you guessed it Secrets in the Dark):
“It is a truth that can never be put into words because no words can contain it. It is a truth that can never be caught in any doctrine or creed including our own because it will never stay still long enough but is always moving and shifting like air. It is a truth that is always beckoning us in different ways and coming at us from different directions. And I think that is precisely why whenever Jesus tries to put that ultimate and inexpressible truth into words (instead of into silence as he did with Pilate), the form of words he uses is a form that itself moves and shifts and beckons us in different ways and comes at us from different directions. That is to say he tells stories.”

The Truth,
we believe,
is a person,
who is also somehow God.
And the Truth is a person who taught us about truth,
by telling stories,
which are collected across 4, sometimes disparate, volumes.
This is not a simple thing.

In John, Chapter 16
as he was preparing them for his death,
and his departure,
Jesus tells his disciples:
I still have many things to say to you,
but you cannot bear them now.
When the spirit of truth comes,
the Spirit will guide you into all the truth.

Which is to say,
even the Truth couldn’t tell the truth about the truth fully,
to the 12 people he spent the most time with.

Which is also to say,
it is our job to keep learning,
to keep listening,
to keep our ears and hearts and lives open,
to the stories that keep coming at us from different directions,
to the Spirit in our midst.

And there are times when that is exciting and wonderful.
But the plain fact is that the truth is hard, sometimes.
It is not easy and it does not always feel good,

And there are some hard truths that come our way.
This week we marked Holocaust remembrance,
here at Bucknell,
and we should be proud of the depth of learning and exploration we’ve undertaken.
and today we mark 81 years since Kristallnacht,
the night of broken glass,
when the private violence of early Nazi German,
spilled out onto the streets.
A sign and symbol of much worse to come.

And on this anniversary,
we can’t help but note the way,
AntiJudaism slipped into our holy text,
and especially into the Gospel of John –
so concerned with truth.
which goes out of its way,
just verses later,
to place the blame for Jesus’ death on “the Jews” and Jewish leaders.
Even though Pilate was a notoriously violent overlord,
and Jesus died by Roman cross –
the death of a political dissident,
a threat to the Empire.

The church bears significant burden,
for the legacy of anti-Judaism,
and antisemitism.
And it is baked right into our holy text.

I thank God that the Truth is not simple,
and instead comes saying:

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, [God] who is faithful and just will forgive and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
1 John 1:8-9

If you’re like me,
you can’t help but wonder,
how could those people,
those good Lutherans and Catholics,
have allowed,
have perpetuated such violence,
such otherness,
such hate.
such murder?

our tendency is, according to the Oatmeal’s James Inman: (read this)
to “Carr[y) our beliefs around like precious gems wrapped in hand grenades.”
but Christ comes telling us,
we are strongest when we are weak,
holiest not when we put on the armor of God,
but when we confess our shortcomings in the face of the hard truth.

We are, as Nadia Bolz-Weber said,
the broken and blessed beloved of God.
Capable of wonderful and terrible things.
We have much to confess,
and much to forgive.

And hopefully we pause from time to time to wonder,
as I have often this week:
what will our children and grandchildren and greatgrandchildren
say of us,
As stories come to us of children caged within our borders,
stories of violence done and spoken by our Church, our people.
stories about our University’s struggle to welcome those,
who we’ve not always well served here.
Just to name a few.
Where is the truth calling us to account,
correct and beckoning us? 

But all along the way,
the Truth,
the Capital T truth,
is reaching out to us.
Already loves us,
is already loving us toward repentance and wholeness.

And it’s a hard and marvelous thing.
But it’s the truth.
Thank God.