Facing the Truth

Proper 19 (B)

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. The truth I want us to face 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. This much at least I know, facing the truth is crucial to human life.

We could begin with Peter's example in the gospel reading today. He gets what seems to be the right answer but he doesn't know what he is talking about. 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 he had to face was that love must suffer, be rejected, even die. The cross is such a powerful symbol because it expresses this truth about life - that love must suffer. It 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 manners. 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. The tears and the broken heart came soon after however and from that came also the truth which led Peter to find his own suffering for. 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 facing the truth 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? Perhaps it is as simple as this: this is what gives life any real meaning. What would life be like with no decisions to make that really mattered, no hardships, no consequences. If we could never lose anything, would we ever care if we had anything to lose?  One thing we know is true, we are all temporary here, caught in time. We all have to die. We have to deal with it in some way. One way is to value the life we have while we have it. This alone, if nothing else is certain, gives this life we have together profound meaning.

Facing the truth that Jesus reveals we are forced, 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, endure, be saved. Life is not found on the path that avoids reality and seeks an easier way. Keeping ones own self safe and secure and undisturbed while others suffer will not suffice. For those who want to save their lies will lose them. Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice: How long will you ignore me, how long will you avoid the truth? The complacency of fools will destroy them  . . .  

Do you know what complacency means? It means to be satisfied, at ease. That's all. Doesn't sound destructive does it? Yet there is that word again. Easy. We are all tempted to take the easy way even if there isn't one. Could it really destroy us?  Facing the truth it is revealed to us that we can be destroyed by doing the wrong thing or we can be destroyed by not doing the right thing. Our faith story calls for action, not complacency. 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, 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. Facing the truth we all find out just how willing we are to face the truth.

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?  When Jesus died on the cross God did not resist the violence of the world that wanted to kill him. The God revealed in Jesus is nonviolent. If this is true, if God is nonviolent, what does it say about us who are not, who rely on violence to keep order in a world that is still hostile to love? Called to nonviolent resistance in a violent world we find ourselves facing the truth we didn't really want to face and that is our own responsibility for the suffering in the world. Not just for what we have done or not done but for what we will do now. That is the place where Jesus takes us. It is as the old saying goes, the moment of truth.  

(Chinese story) Once upon a time a long time ago, some monkeys who lived on a mountain decided they would rather live in the valley below, where it was warmer. But when they went down to the valley, they were bothered by grasshoppers. So they tried to persuade the grasshoppers to leave, first by coaxing and then by threats. But the grasshoppers refused to go. "You puny creatures!" roared the head Monkey. "If you won't leave, we'll force you out! Tomorrow we'll fight you to the finish!"

"All right," said the Head Grasshopper. "If that's the way you want it."

The next day the monkeys marched into the valley armed with heavy clubs. "Come out grasshoppers!" they called. "Where are you? Bring it on!"

"Here we are!" answered the grasshoppers, as they leaped onto their opponents. Whack, whack, whack went the clubs as one monkey battered another. The grasshoppers were too fast for them. The Head Monkey found to his disgust that the Head Grasshopper had landed on his nose. "I'll get him, boss!" said the monkey next to him. He struck a ferocious blow with his club, missing the grasshopper (who by then had leaped away) but squashing the Head Monkey's nose. And so it went with one monkey's nose after another. Finally the monkey's staggered away and the valley was peaceful once again.

And that is why monkeys avoid the valleys and why they have squashed noses.

Facing the truth is our only hope.