Moment
of Truth
Mark 8:31-37
I
wanted to do something light and easy today as we are all in a mood
to party and why not? It is a new beginning. We have accomplished
some good work and there is hope for a bright new future but the Word
for today it turns out is pretty serious. It is a turning point in
the gospel story and perhaps in the story of humankind, what some
might call a moment of truth. You may remember that Rabbit admired
Owl for his ability to spell Tuesday which, if you remember when you
were six years old was a difficult word to figure out. (Not as hard
as Wednesday perhaps but tricky nonetheless) The only problem with
this is that Owl couldn’t spell Tuesday at all. So, what
Rabbit thought was true was not but he did come close to the truth
himself when he said, There are days that spelling Tuesday doesn’t
count. Why does this matter? Buechner wrote once that there are
different kinds of truth. There is the truth that 2+2=4 or that
Tuesday is spelled t-u-e-s-d-a-y but there is also the truth that
can’t be quite so easily described, the truth that is more than the
sum total of the facts.
I know
it's a big subject. It is audacious if not presumptuous to speak of
the truth. It may even be dangerous. Those who claim to have the
truth have done their share of harm that's for sure. Our world is
exploding as we gather this morning because of those whose own truth
is being used as an excuse to kill and destroy. Personally I don’t
think there is much that is true about it except the truth that
hatred is alive and real. Even what is the truth about these events
is lost in the politics and self-interests of who is telling what it
is. How do we know what is true about something that is happening
right before our eyes? (I told you it was a big subject.)
The
truth I speak of this morning though is not truth as an absolute or
as an ideology or as an abstract idea but the truth that is reality,
the truth that reveals what is true about you and I and about life in
general. Maybe we will even dare to venture into the truth about God
at least insofar as we have experienced it through this word. And if
we can't at least engage this topic here where can we? So anyway,
here goes. There are two words that come to mind as I begin: the
first is what the poet TS Eliot said that human kind cannot bear
very much reality. And the other is what Jesus said, the truth
will set you free. There is another word, too, of course, the one
that a profoundly cynical Pilate spoke that still resounds loud and
clear in the world we know: What is truth? suggesting perhaps
that truth itself, any truth, is suspect. Could it be true that what
is true is that there is nothing that is true? If so, who are we and
what are we doing here and why does anything matter? In any case, it
seems to me that truth, whatever it is or is not, must be handled
very carefully so as not to cause harm either by being too sure of
itself or so unsure that we have nothing left to get us through the
night. You may recall that the answer Pilate got to his inquiry was
the beaten and suffering Jesus just standing there in front of him
without saying a word.
In the
gospel reading today it is Peter who is confronted with the truth
when he is asked the question about who do people think Jesus is. He
gets what seems to be the right answer but (as usual) he doesn't
really know what he is talking about. (I so identify with thus guy!)
He declared Jesus the Messiah but then refused to accept what the
Messiah would be. In the context of our story, he got the 'who' right
but the 'what' wrong. The truth that was confronting him was that
love must suffer, be rejected, even die. The cross is such a powerful
symbol because it expresses this truth about life (about the way it
is) - that love suffers. (You don’t have to be a theologian or a
philosopher to know this. All who have loved and lost know this is
true.) The cross is an important symbol because without it we tend to
the delusion that life is easy and suffering is optional and that all
you have to do to get along in life is live by the rules and mind
your own business. Few who delve into these mysteries seriously have
not wondered why suffering plays such a prominent role in the truth
revealed in the story of Jesus. Mary Hinkle, an associate professor
of New Testament at Luther Seminary in St. Paul Minnesota says this:
Maybe
this is why Jesus becomes so angry with Peter. When Peter rejects
Jesus' teaching that the Messiah must be crucified, Peter is
beginning to fashion a lie about God. Surely, Peter is suggesting,
there must be an easier way. I would like very much for Peter to be
right, for I have never understood why God needed the bloody
sacrifice of an innocent victim in order to forgive sin. Why couldn't
Jesus have kept on healing people and telling parables and blessing
children until, at an advanced age, he died in his sleep? Or aged
gracefully as a teacher, spending summers at the lake, sporting a
neatly trimmed salt-and-pepper beard, and greeting class after class
of ever younger fresh-faced disciples every fall? "Consider the
lilies . . ." he would say and pens would start scribbling
across the page of notebooks. (Christian Century, September 6, 2003,
p.18)
When
Peter declared that this (referring to the suffering) must not happen
to you (referring to Jesus) he had no idea that it would also happen
to him. He found out the hard way that there is an easier way but it
requires a lie such as Peter's own lie when he denied that he ever
knew this guy they called Jesus. It was easy to lie at that moment
when he feared for his life. Ironically the easy way, the lie, ends
in pain also. The tears and the broken heart came anyway and from
that came also the truth for Peter’s life which led Peter to find
his own suffering for love. As Hinkle put it, Perhaps Jesus must
suffer because he will not lie about what he knows of God.
If
this is true then it seems to me that getting to know God is a lot
more dangerous than considering the lilies. It is more like the
Dillard experience who said one time that we ought to all be wearing
crash helmets in church. Hard to imagine here isn't it? Doesn't feel
very dangerous, some might even think it was boring. Maybe we like it
that way. Maybe we don't want to know God either, not if it is going
to cost us anything, not if it demands something from us, not if we
have to suffer, especially if we are expected to choose suffering we
could easily avoid. If this is what the truth has to offer then maybe
we would just as soon stay with our delusions as long as possible.
Someone once said that the truth may set you free but there's an
even chance that first it will scare the daylights out of you.
It
seems a terrible price to pay this idea that to love we must suffer,
to be healed we must be broken, to live we must die. This is one of
the things that so intrigues me about the Christian story. At the
core of Christian belief is heavy stuff - tragedy, irony, paradox,
redemption. Is this really the truth, the way things are? Why does
this have to be so hard? Why does life demand so much from us? What,
if anything, is the point of all this suffering?
In the
truth that Jesus reveals we are asked, like Peter, to confront the
reality that life is hard, there is no easy way; that much is asked
of us, that love does suffer. But that is not the end of the story.
There is something else. If we are willing to face the truth and
accept reality and live faithfully by continuing to love through the
suffering, we will in fact overcome adversity, endure every trouble,
and the world and its people can be saved. Life is not found on the
path that avoids reality and seeks an easier way. Keeping one’s own
self safe and secure and undisturbed while others suffer will not
suffice. For those who want to save their lives will lose them.
Love gives itself away and it is there, where life is freely given
for the sake of love, that life is abundantly present. The only
love we get to keep is the love we give away.
Woody
Allen has famously said: More than at any time in history, mankind
faces the crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter
hopelessness, the other to total extinction. I pray we have the
wisdom to choose wisely.) Our faith story offers another choice.
It calls for action, not despair but compassion. If any want to
become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross
and follow me. In other words if we want to live life fully, to
be with God, to choose life, we are asked to willingly take on the
suffering of the world, to do something about it even if it means
sacrifices of our comfort and ease. Taking up our cross does not mean
lugging a piece of wood around on our back. It means doing something
that may cost us something for the good of somebody else. It means
addressing the suffering of the world with actions that heal what is
broken, that make right what is wrong, that give instead of take.
Burton
Cooper writes in Why, God? Jesus on the cross presents his
failure to God. It is the failure of suffering love to coerce a
loving response. But this defeat on the cross redefines failure for
the Christian - and for the church. In his defeat, Christ denies the
identification of God's power with coercion. Now it is a sign of
failure to resort to coercive powers. In his defeat at the hands of
the strong, Christ makes it a victory to identify with and care for
the weak. Now it is a sign of failure to live with indifference to
the suffering of the weak.
How
far do we really want to go into the truth that is revealed in Jesus?
How vulnerable will our trust in God allow us to be? How do we move
from anger to compassion, from revenge to mercy, from fear to love?
That is the place where Jesus takes us. It is as the old saying goes,
the moment of truth.
