Sermon Podcast: "The Protection of the Truth"

The Protection of the Truth

(John 17:6–19)

I pulled into a parking lot yesterday. Only one space available. The owner of the Lexus apparently figured that his car was worthy not only of its space, but also of about 10 inches worth in the next space over—not surprisingly, the only space open in the lot.

What am I going to do? My kid’s got drum lessons. So, I pull my admittedly anti-earth-friendly Dodge Ram pickup into the extremely cramped but only open space, leaving an impossibly small gap between our two vehicles.

I say “impossibly small,” by which I mean it appeared impossibly small to me. It seemed doable, however, to the Lexus-owner, who appeared as I put the truck in park, and told his pre-teen son to get in the back seat.

The young boy did as he as told; he pulled the car door open, and surprise! He cracked the rear fender of my truck. I’m sitting in the driver seat watching all this. In response, the father says—not, “Careful buddy! Watch out for the truck.” He doesn’t look up at me sitting in the driver’s seat observing the whole thing with great interest and say, “Sorry about that! You know how kids are.” Nothing like that.

Instead, he yells over the top of the car roof, “Watch out for the guitar!”

Then, without ever once looking at me, he gets in the car and drives off.

And I thought, “You know, silence can be a form of lying, a way of avoiding having to take responsibility for your actions. You can stand by while injustice is perpetrated without saying anything for fear of ”getting into it.“ And though you never say a word, by failing to own your life, it’s possible to commit a sin against the truth.”

When you’re a kid, they tell you not to lie. Honesty is always the best policy. That’s what they tell you, isn’t it?

When you get older and you start reading the New York Times, they modify the wording a bit: “The coverup is always worse than the crime.” It all means pretty much the same thing, though.

Life is always a lot easier if you tell the truth.

Except it’s not always easier, is it? It’s way more difficult to tell the truth. It’s easier to fire up the Lexus and take off.

Honesty is always the best policy—unless you don’t get caught.

The coverup is always worse than the crime … that is, unless nobody ever finds out about the plumbers and the Watergate Hotel, or about Rielle Hunter and her baby—then lying looks like the most effective strategy.

So, here’s today’s moral lesson from Uncle Derek: Keep quiet. And if you can’t keep quiet, lie. Lie your rear end off … unless it looks like you’re about to get nailed. Then, by all means, sing like a canary. Roll over. Drop dime. Tell the truth.

Isn’t that what Jesus is getting at in today’s Gospel? Life is tough. If you get the chance, make it easier on yourself. Life is difficult enough. Following Jesus should be “user-friendly.” You shouldn’t have to put up with any more than is absolutely necessary. And, if anything arises that threatens to get your world tied up in knots—don’t worry, Jesus’ll fix it.

That’s pretty much the gist of it, isn’t it?

No? I can see the disapproval in your faces. Am I not getting this right? I should really read this stuff more carefully before Sunday morning.

All right, then. If I’m headed down the wrong track, let’s go back and see if we can get pointed in the right direction.

What’s going on in our passage for this morning?

The scene begins all the way back in chapter 13. Jesus and the disciples are gathered together. It’s Thursday night, the eve of his coming violent death at the hands of the Roman authorities. He’s washed his disciples feet, predicted his betrayal at the hands of one of his trusted lieutenants and a series of heartbreaking denials by one of the others.

Then, he starts talking about going away to a place the disciples can’t follow.

“What? You’re leaving?”

Things on the political front are pretty well stirred up. Something’s getting ready to happen. Everybody can feel it. Whatever it is is in the air.

Jesus has made all the wrong people mad, and the whole Judean population knows it’s getting ready to hit the fan.

You can imagine the disciples are pretty well freaked out by now. Their world’s about to implode, and Jesus is talking about bugging out.

“Who’s going to stay with us?”

“Don’t worry. I’m sending along somebody to look after you.”

Skittish. You can see it their eyes. “Come on, Jesus. Throw us a bone here. We’re feeling extremely exposed here. Can’t you offer us some assurance of protection?”

In our Gospel for this morning Jesus turns his eyes toward heaven and starts praying: “God, so here we are. You sent me here for this moment. Glorify me so that I may glorify you. You’ve given me some friends, Lord, and I showed them who you really are. So, I’m praying for them. Protect them. I’ve protected them since I’ve been here, but now I’m heading out, so you’re going to have to look out for them. Really, we kind of owe it to them, since everybody hates them now because of me.”

The disciples are doing well with this prayer so far.

“It’s tough out there, keep an eye on them when I leave.”

Good stuff. The disciples are kind of peeking, looking at one another, nodding their heads: “See, I told you he wouldn’t leave us high and dry. God’s going to look out for us.”

Relief. They were sure they were going to be left holding the bag, but it looks like Jesus is going to take care of them. Pressure’s lightening.

       “As long as there’s a back-up plan, we should be good.”

Jesus keeps praying. He’s being realistic: “I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.”

“Ok. Fine. We’ve got to stay here, but we’ve got some protection. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s a start.”

But then Jesus makes a mess of things.

What’s Jesus plan? What are the amazing forces unleashed to protect Jesus’ followers from the evil they will encounter?

It’s got to be something good, right? Maybe an invisibility cloak, a long sword with maximum hit points, some kind of escape portal when things get tough. Something.

But what does Jesus ask for? Truth.

That’s it? Really? Sanctify them in truth? That’s the plan? The truth is supposed to protect them?

And I can understand that. I go to God, anxious, afraid … and I’m looking for God to do something big—if not “take me out of the world,” then at least more than what Jesus prays for.

If not “take me out of the world,” then at least jigger the world so it’s not such a threat.

Fix the world, Lord. That’s what we need. It’s too dangerous as things stand now. Life is getting too uncertain.

But instead, Jesus’ answer to the impending danger his disciples face is to ask that they be made holy in the truth.

What does that even mean? Sanctify them in truth?

In my experience the truth can get you into a lot of hot water. Tell people the truth and you’re setting yourself up for a great deal of animosity from people who are more than satisfied with the lies they embrace.

But Jesus doesn’t say, “God, things are fixin’ to get hairy for my friends here, so please help them to speak honestly”—although, of course, he expects that too. He prays that his followers will be sanctified in truth.

But if Jesus isn’t just saying, “Make sure to tell the truth no matter what,” then what is he saying?

I think Jesus prays that his disciples will be sanctified in truth, not as a way of “taking them out of the world,” but as a way of embracing the world in which they live—not the world they imagine God should surely want if God were paying attention to the way things are currently situated. The disciples are looking for a world where everything turns out well for the good guys, a world where it doesn’t cost anything to follow Jesus.

According to Jesus, however, this world is the only one there is—and God wants to bless it, not the one we think is worth blessing. This one … in all its messiness and violence and pettiness, in all of its craven sneaking around and brazen wantonness.

“But how is that going to protect Jesus’ followers? How is embracing the truth going to help, when what really appears necessary is a heart transplant?”

If you spend much time around people in recovery, you’ll eventually hear someone say, “I went through hell, but even if given a chance, I wouldn’t change it.”

“What? If you could go back and change your life you wouldn’t do it—even though it’s caused you and so many others inexpressible pain? Why not?”

“I could never be who I am without being who I was.”

Did you hear that? That’s called owning your life. It’s called the truth. And once you’ve been through the fire of truth, there’s nothing left to fear. If you can own your life, if you can tell yourself the truth about who you are, you need not be afraid—you’ve already confronted that which can harm you.

My first reaction is to want Jesus to pray for it to be easy. I want to him to protect me from the world by installing some kind of force field, some heat shield around me that won’t allow the slings and arrows to touch me.

But he doesn’t do that. He prays not that there be a protective wall around me to guard against the damage life can cause, but that I can endure the damage, that I can embrace the truth that life is full of fear and horror.

Implicit in his prayer Jesus promises not that we will be protected from the truth of an often hostile and scary world, but that the truth will protect us from being undone by that world. It is the crazy, paradoxical notion that we are protected by our vulnerability.

       “What?”

Growing up in Michigan, apparently unlike some folks in the south, I learned to drive in the snow. I had to. If you didn’t know how to drive in the snow where I’m from, you’d have to sit in your house watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island for about 5 months out of the year.

Anyway, they teach a few things about driving in the snow that are absolutely counter-intuitve—like if you start to skid, don’t hit the brakes.

“Are you crazy? Brakes, if you didn’t know, are those contraptions they put on modern motor vehicles as an aid to stopping. If you don’t put on the brakes, you can’t stop.”

I know it sounds crazy, but hitting the brakes when you’re skidding in the snow is about the absolute worst thing you can do.

Here’s another one: If your car starts to skid, not only should you not hit the brakes, you should steer into the skid. If you’re losing control of the car and it’s skidding to the right, you should turn your steering wheel to the right.

I know. Crazy ain’t it? I have neither the time nor the intellectual wattage necessary to explain why it’s true: leaning into a skid feels like the absolute worst thing you can do—but it can save your life. As someone who’s driven thousands of miles in the snow, you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.

       “Jesus, the truth exposes us. We want some protection.”

And Jesus says, “Being exposed by the truth is the greatest protection you have. Lean into it. As someone who laid down his life in the name of truth, you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.”

—Amen.

Sermon Podcast Audio

Mothers' Day Carnations!

The youth will be selling carnations in the gathering area this Sunday in honor of Mothers' Day. They will be sold for $2 a piece and proceeds will go toward the youth's mission trip to Mexico!

So He Got Up and Went

So He Got Up and Went

(Acts 8:26-40)

On January 31, 1872, Henry Ward Beecher, brother of Harriett Beecher Stowe, of Uncle Tom’s Cabin fame, traveled to Yale to deliver the first Lyman Beecher Lecture on preaching — a lecture series that has included such homiletical luminaries as Phillips Brooks, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Reinhold Niebuhr, George and David Buttrick, and Fred Craddock.  The lectures were named after Henry Ward Beecher’s Father, and it was thought fitting that Henry Ward should give the first lecture in the series.  Frederick Buechner recalls what Beecher’s biographer wrote of the occasion:

He had a bad night, not feeling well.  Went to his hotel, got his dinner, lay down to take a nap.  About two o’clock he got up and began to shave without having been able to get at any plan of the lecture to be delivered within the hour.  Just as he had his face lathered and was beginning to strop his razor, the whole thing came out of the clouds and dawned on him.  He dropped his razor, seized his pencil, and dashed off the memoranda for it and afterwards cut himself badly, he said, thinking it out.

Henry Ward Beecher faced some very trying times as he mopped the blood from his cheek and prepared to go to the hall and tell others how to preach.  The rumors about his relationship with the wife of one of his parishioners had ceased to be harmless gossip, appearing now in bold face type in the news.  He was about to face, perhaps, a public trial for adultery.

The work that he cherished and the life that he loved were dangerously in jeopardy; and yet the word about the work he cherished and the life he loved could no more be silenced than the incoming tide at sunrise.  Buechner comments on the situation:

So when he stood there looking into the hotel mirror with soap on his face and a razor in his hand, part of what he saw was his own shame and horror, the sight of his own folly, the judgment one can imagine he found even harder to bear than God’s, which was his own judgment on himself, because whereas God is merciful, we are none of us very good at showing mercy on ourselves.  Henry Ward Beecher cut himself with his razor and wrote out notes for that first Beecher Lecture in blood because, whatever else he was or aspired to be or was famous for being, he was a man of flesh and blood.

Flesh and blood.  Seems to me we’ve got an awful lot of that in Scripture too.  Remember Moses?  He stands barefoot on holy ground as God says, “I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people out of Egypt.”  And what does Moses say?  “O my Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor even now that you have spoken to your servant; but I am slow of speech and slow of tongue.”

Remember Jeremiah?  God tapped him to go be a prophet to the nations.  “Before you were born I consecrated you,” God says.  And what does Jeremiah say?  “Ah, Lord God!  Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.”

Remember Isaiah?  One day Isaiah sees the Lord sitting on a throne — high and lifted up.  Isaiah, we are led to believe, experiences the vision as a call.  And what’s the first thing out of his mouth?  “Woe is me!  I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.”

And how about Jonah?  God says, “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.”  And what does Jonah do?  He doesn’t even bother to offer up an excuse, he just turns tail and sneaks off to Tarshish, the text says, “away from the presence of the Lord.”

We can understand that way of responding to God’s call.  We know ourselves to be inadequate to the task.  God calls and we have our defenses up in a heart beat.  

I can’t go there.  

I can’t do that.  

I’m really not the one for the job.  

If you really knew anything about me, you’d realize what a mistake this is.  I’m just little ol’ me — nothing big, no bells and whistles.  I can’t talk good.  I’m too young.  I’m not a very holy person.  I actually don’t see the sense in it.  Well, yeah, but my kids have soccer practice then.  I have to work too much overtime.  

Flesh and blood.  Nick us and we bleed.  For better or worse, we are all of us flesh and blood.  And the fact that we’re imperfect is one that we lose no time in explaining when the call comes.  So we understand all those characters who lit up the excuse-’o-meter when God came calling.

But, then there’s Philip.  In our text for today, Peter and John have just returned to Jerusalem, and an angel of the Lord comes to Philip and tells him to pack his bags and head on down the road toward Gaza, which, parenthetically, we’re told is a wilderness road.  That is to say, this is not the road to go walking on if you value your life.  

You remember what happened the last time Luke had someone walking down a wilderness road?  That road led from Jerusalem to Jericho, and the man who walked it, Luke says, “fell into the hands of robbers, who stripped him, beat him, and went away leaving him half dead” (Luke 10:30), before a Good Samaritan finally wandered by to help.  

So the angel isn’t telling Philip to put on his walking shorts, in order to see the sights and pick some daisies.  He’s telling Philip to walk on the other side of the tracks—where smart people don’t go if they don’t have to.  Lot’s of car-jackings and drive-by shootings.

How does Philip respond?  What does he do?  The angel comes, doesn’t even say “Hi.  How’re the wife and kids?” and tells Philip to get up, pack his bags, and go for a walk in the wrong part of town.  And the text says with eloquent understatement, “So he got up and went.”  

Don’t you love that?  No fussing.  No arguing.  No whining about how it’s too dangerous, and how he can’t speak, and how his in-laws are coming over for dinner, and how he promised his wife he’d clean out the garage, and how his back’s been hurting him—and he’d love to but this is just a bad time for everybody.  

The angel of the Lord said, “Get up and go.”  So he got up and went.

And on the way, apparently, there was an Ethiopian eunuch.  

Now, let’s try to understand what’s going on here.  Luke reports the encounter straightforwardly, but we must remember it wasn’t every day that—even when one was on business for God in the hinterlands—one bumped into a eunuch from Ethiopia.  

The fact that the man was a eunuch was odd enough, but that he was from Ethiopia was downright amazing.  

Why is that?  Because Ethiopia was believed to be at the end of the earth. The Land of Oz.  Timbuktu.  Luke’s audience wouldn’t have been able to conceive of a place more mysterious, farther away.  In Homer’s Odyssey, he wrote about those exotic Ethiopians from the other side of the world.  

But all of a sudden, out in the middle of nowhere, Philip runs into a eunuch from Ethiopia.  Kind of like walking from here to Seneca Park and bumping into a dwarf from Burundi.  

What are the chances?  That, of course, is exactly what we’re supposed to ask.  How could that be a coincidence?  

The point, you ask?  The point is that God tells Philip to go, Philip goes, and the gospel is brought to an Ethiopian Eunuch—to the ends of the earth.  Why does it happen?  Because Philip went.

We keep thinking that it takes a seminary degree, or a certificate from the Mother Teresa school for the spiritually gifted.  We think we have to be all that and a glass of ice tea before we can ever do something important for God.  Important stuff is for other people.  I’m slow of speech, slow of tongue.  I’m too young.  I’m not worthy.  I don’t want to go.  I have to do some things differently before I can do anything for God.  I have to believe better, be better.  Something!

In his book, The Cost of Discipleship, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, sets up a situation between a pastor and a troubled parishioner.  The parishioner complains that he’s having a hard time with his faith.  Bonhoeffer says that the pastor in this hypothetical situation ought to take the bull by the horns and say, “Only those who obey believe.  You are disobedient; you are trying to keep some part of your life under your own control.  That is what is preventing you from listening to Christ and believing in his grace.  You cannot hear Christ because you are wilfully disobedient.  Somewhere in your heart you are refusing to listen to His call.  Tear yourself away from all other attachments and follow him” (p.61ff.).

“Gladys, we’ve prayerfully considered it, and we think you’d be the perfect person to teach this class.”

“Well, I’d love to, but I don’t hardly think I’m qualified.  I’m quite busy right now.  But thank you very much for asking.  I’d really like to be of service, if you can find something that won’t take any time or ask anything of me.  I’d love to do more—as long as it doesn’t entail speaking, cooking, lifting, cleaning, teaching, painting, mowing, or praying in public.  But, believe me, if you could find something, I’d love to help.”

“Arthur, we’ve been talking it over, and the leadership of the church believes you’d make a great elder.  We think you’ve been given gifts for service.”

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m afraid I’m going to have to decline.  Being an elder is a big responsibility, and I don’t think I’m the right type of person for the job.  I have all kinds of personal things I need to work through before I’d ever consider something like that.  I mean, how could I tell someone else how to live, if I can’t even get it right?  Right?”

My friend Mike has a young girl going to his church.  Brandy’s 12.  She’s been coming faithfully to Mike’s church all by herself for some time now.  Not long ago, Brandy came to Mike, who is the pastor, and told him that she wanted to be baptized.  Of course he was pleased.  But he said to her, “Brandy, we need to talk about some things before you’re baptized.  And, I also need to talk to your parents.”  She said that would be fine.

So Mike went to talk to her folks, who don’t go to church, about Brandy being baptized.  He introduced himself, and told them why he’d come, that Brandy had approached him about wanting to be baptized, and he wanted to check with her parents to see if they’d allow it.  Brandy’s mom, looked puzzled—almost confused: “We don’t go to church.”

“Yes, I know that.”

“Well, we’ve taken sort of a ‘hands-off’ approach to Brandy’s religion.  We want her to make up her own mind about God.”

“Hmmmm,” Mike said.

“You know, let Brandy make her own decisions.”

“Do you let her make up her own mind about using cocaine or playing with firearms?  Because those things can prove to be a lot less dangerous than what she’s about to do.”

“Well, we’ve tried to let Brandy express her spirituality in her own way.”

“So you don’t care if we baptize her?”

“If that’s what she wants.”

“Let me get this straight.  You don’t care if we baptize her.  And you don’t care if we read the Bible to her, and help her understand how to live her life, and what to do with her money, and who she has the gifts one day to be?  You don’t care if someday we may tell your daughter that she’s being called by God to go to Africa and work as a missionary, and that she may have to give up everything, including perhaps her life, in order to follow?”

“If that’s what she wants.”

“If you don’t want to take responsibility for her, we’ll be more than happy to.”

Let me ask you something: Why?  Why would we take all the trouble of baptizing and raising someone else’s kid?  

I’ll tell you why.  Because we know what Brandy’s mom has no way of knowing: A little girl in the church’s hands, a weak minister with blood on his chin, or a stuttering sheep herder who will hear the voice of God in a burning bush, or a deacon who’ll follow the Holy Spirit to Timbuktu can change the world.  It doesn’t take much.  

God’s not picky . . . but God’s awfully persistent. 

-Amen.

Sermon Podcast: "So He Got Up and Went"

Do I Really Have to Forgive?

I had a conversation with a parishioner one time that still vexes me. At one point some years prior, she and her husband had opposed me on the issue of homosexuality. A wealthy and influential couple, they were convinced that I was leading the flock down the road to perdition. I was a young pastor at the time, so their opposition proved particularly worrisome from a vocational standpoint. But, after a great deal of work, we mended fences--unfortunately, without ever really addressing the hurt I'd experienced.

A few years after the controversy, we were sitting in my office speaking candidly with one another--about what I don't remember. But I do remember feeling like it was important for me to say something out loud about the kerfuffle we'd had. So, apropos of nothing we happened to be discussing at the time, I said, "Gladys, you know that whole big thing we had a few years back over homosexuality?"

I saw her eyes widen. She nodded her head, perhaps more as a warning gesture than an affirmation. "Yes," she said.

Gladys was a true southern woman, one who did not like to engage in direct interpersonal dust-ups. She was the kind of person who preferred never to attack a problem head-on. Instead, she preferred to circle it for a while, sneak up on it, then strike passing blows—hoping, I think, to wear it down and force it to surrender. I, on the other hand, grew up in the North thinking that speaking directly is a virtue. Two different ways of communicating, the conflict between which often trips me up still.

"Well," I said, not picking up on the signs, "I felt very hurt by you and Henry in that whole thing."

I'm not sure what I was expecting. I guess I hoped she would say, "I know, Derek, and we're so sorry about that. I hope you'll forgive us." Or, "Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about that. I wished that had never happened." Or maybe even, "Mistakes were made."

Instead, what she said was, "That's behind us now. We don't need to talk about it."

I wanted to object: "No. It's really not behind us. Otherwise, I wouldn't bring it up."

What I said instead, however, was . . . well, not much of anything.

I've been thinking about forgiveness. There are things in my life I need to forgive, things for which I need to be forgiven. But what exactly does that mean? Say, for instance, you've been involved with an addict, who's left a trail of devastation behind. This person has done some work to get clean and work through the process of recovery. What now, though? What does forgiveness look like in this situation? I don't think Gladys' response that "that's behind us now. We don't need to talk about it" is the answer. Forgiveness is not willed forgetfulness.

On the other hand, I realize that forgiveness at some point means taking a chance on getting hurt again. When is it time to take that chance? If I'm the offended party, is it up to me to decide when is the right time? This seems right to me.

But what if I'm content to nurse my wounds, to savor the wrongs? Does the offender ever have a right to say, "I've said I'm sorry every way I know how. I've tried to regain your trust, but you won't let me near?"

I'm torn because I realize that some hurts are so grievous that getting past them seems impossible. The offender has a difficult time regaining the moral high ground in this interchange.

But as someone who follows Jesus, who regularly preaches that forgiveness isn't part of the optional special off-road package upgrade, I think the offended has certain responsibilities to the offender.

(I'm a thoroughgoing liberal, so let me just say that that last sentence scares me—since this sounds eerily like what the powerless are often urged to offer the powerful who've hurt them.)

What does that forgiveness look like? When, and under what circumstances should I offer it? I wish there were an algorithm into which I could plug my experience, the depth of the hurt, the nature of the offender's remorse and recovery, and have it spit out answers to those questions.

But I don't have such an algorithm. All I have is a community. So, let me ask you: What does forgiveness look like? When, and under what circumstances should I offer it? Do I really have to forgive?

Sermon Podcast: "In Truth and Action"

In Truth and Action

(1 John 3:16-24)

John appears to be hunting big game today—perhaps the favorite target of everyone sensitive to religious excesses.  As far as the quarry goes, it’s huge, slow, and tough to miss.  As I said last week, I don’t know of any studies, but just going on my own experience, I’d be willing to bet that it’s the most frequently cited reason for giving up on Christianity—either leaving the church or deciding never to start up.  

Oh sure, some will say that the problem of evil sits at the top of the list.  And other folks will mention the church’s irrelevance in a modern, scientific culture.  But for my money, you’d have a hard time beating hypocrisy as the favorite choice of the religiously disenchanted.  

So, when John says, “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action,” it seems he’s on the trail, about to bag the big one.  Seems pretty clear what he’s getting at, doesn’t it?  Word and speech occupy the realm of the fluffy and insubstantial on this reading.  

You know what I’m talking about.  Show me a sermon, don’t preach me one.  Conventional wisdom in some circles has it that the church is populated with hypocrites—people who’ve got the “word and speech” part down, but are a little light on the “truth and action.”

When I was in middle school, we got a new student from Detroit—Wesley.  Wes was a nice guy.  We liked him.  But, boy, he told some whoppers.  He said he was related to Magic Johnson, that he played pick-up ball with NBA players over the summer.  That kind of stuff.

One day, Wes was late to school.  We asked him where he’d been.

“Well, man, it was awful.  I was walking to school, like I always do.  I looked up, and saw this red Ferrari coming down the road, straight at me—like 100 miles an hour.  I didn’t have time to do anything, so I jumped up straight in the air—and that car went right under me.  The thing is, I didn’t get quite high enough, and the roof clipped my heel.  I flipped like three times, and landed in the ditch.  I don’t know how long I was there.  When I finally woke up, I was a little wobbly.  But I knew I had to come to school—so here I am.”

“Where are the marks.  You look fine to me.”

“I got hurt mostly on the inside—where the marks don’t show.  Man, I was lucky.  I coulda been killed.”

Ever know anybody like that?  So many stories—too good to be true stories—you find it hard to believe them.

The first question that pop into your head is, “How do I know that’s true?”  I mean, anybody can say stuff like that, right?  The world is full of people claiming to be something they’re not.  Talk’s cheap.  You don’t get to be that interesting in my mind until I’ve seen some results.

We learn early on to negotiate the world, more or less, in precisely this fashion.  You remember from the playground.  There was always that kid who was your rival.  There was this kind of competition.  Unlike many adults, for whom the response to rivals is passive-aggression—kids haven’t yet learned all the subtle nuances and are completely satisfied with just plain old active-aggression.  “I’m faster than you.”  

“I can draw better than that.”  

And what’s the standard reply to the “my old man can beat up your old man” strategic assault?  

“Oh, huh.  Prove it.”

So when John throws out “truth and action,” over against “words and speech,” we figure he’s calling Christians on their commitments: “Prove it,” John says.  

And that’s just it, isn’t it?  On a casual reading, it looks like he’s merely saying, “Refrain from being a hypocrite.  It’s more important to do it than to talk about it.”  And, to be honest, I have some sympathy for that reading—except, of course, when it can be applied to me.  

But you know what I’m saying.  Gandhi said, “Be the change you want the world to see”—the implication of which is, “Don’t just talk about change—do something.”  I’m sold.  Part of my job as a minister is to convince people that that’s true.  We’ve got things that need doing around here, and I’m supposed to persuade you to do them.”

On the other hand, I also get paid to muck around in a garden of “word and speech,” so I don’t want to walk exclusively down the other side of the street.  In fact, I’d make the case that words are a form of action.  I believe words do things.  They don’t just fill the space between our mouths and our ears.  

In fact, the Hebrew word davar stands for both word and act.  When God speaks a word in the Jewish Scriptures, for instance, God’s already acted.  When God says, “I will bless you,” God doesn’t say, “I intend to bless you—all things being equal and the transmission problems on my Dodge Omni don’t turn out to be serious.”  Rather, for God to speak a word is already to have that word realized, enacted, alive, moving.  Think the incarnation.  Think Jesus.

Jesus stands right smack in the middle of what John is trying to say in our text for this morning.  Rather than merely arguing against hypocrisy (Who, after all, would argue in favor of it?), John is driving at something else. 

Notice the parallel construction of verse 18: “word and speech” are set against “truth and action.”  In other words, John opposes “word and truth,” and “speech and action.”  

Now, of course, we get the “speech vs. action” part—the hypocrisy clause.  What seems less clear is the “word vs. truth” part.  In the binary word/truth, “word” obviously means falsehood.  That is to say, John’s not coming down on words, in general, as necessarily inferior to action, but rather words that are spoken falsely.

But what kind of truth is John after?  What kind of action would qualify, on John’s reading of things, as truth?  Simply put, according to John, those actions are true that are loving.  We act in truth when we act in love.  

We hear that, though, and we say (rightfully, I think), “Loving in what sense?  Love how?”  We live in a culture that has systematically worked love over—from “Love is all you need” to “What’s love got to do with it?” from “Love is the answer” to “Love stinks.”  So, we may be forgiven for wondering just how it is that “love” answers the question about truthful action.  After all, a lot of horrible, unspeakable things are done in the name of love.  People kill and manipulate and abuse, claiming love as the motivation—so love as a generic principle proves less than satisfactory as a set of moral guidelines.

But John doesn’t let love stand alone—a word without content.  He puts some flesh on it, “We know love by this, that Jesus laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.”  According to John, we aren’t to love falsely by saying pretty things, while living another way. 

We love in “truth and action,” the way Jesus did—which is to say, sacrificially, sold-out, all-in.  We follow Jesus in offering up ourselves to be used by God for God’s purposes rather than our own.  

It’s not enough to avoid hypocrisy by acting in congruence with our words—that is, it’s not enough just to be who we say we are.  Realistically, who would ever argue otherwise?  

Moreover, we’re not just trying to be loving by some broad calculation of human niceness.  Rather, we’re trying to be loving in the way Jesus was loving.  

The truth we’re after is not the truth of love defined as the world defines it—in a million different ways—most of the roads of which lead inexorably back to me and my grasping, clutching little self.  The truth we’re after is the truth of love demonstrated in Jesus, who gave himself up, who laid his life down.

And all of this might remain at the level of abstraction if we left it there.  It would be possible, if that was all we said, to leave here feeling edified, having been exhorted to lay down our lives like Jesus laid down his life.  “That’s nice dear, but what’s for lunch?”  

John’s not satisfied with abstraction, though—not content to let us feel affirmed in our determination to live quiet, honest lives—uncontaminated by controversy or expense.

John gets particular: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?”

Ouch!  Give preachers enough time and we’ll find some wiggle room in there for you—but I’ve got to tell you, it’s hard.  John doesn’t seem to be opening things up for a long series of qualifications: “I would help, but you know the kids have oboe lessons, and the in-laws are coming for the weekend.  The Dow’s down, and if things don’t improve, we’re going to wind up having to dip into savings to maintain the box at the race track.  Times are tight.  

“Plus, if you start helping those people, pretty soon they’re going to start expecting it.  Then, what’re you gonna do?”  

In fact, there are some politicians who think the best way to help those kind of people is to cut ‘em off, let them learn to start doing for themselves.  Don’t help them more; help them less.

John’s not having it.  He’s got a pretty narrow view of this issue, if you ask me: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s good and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?”  

I much prefer conditional sentences: If the brother or sister in need seems redeemable, then you should help.  If he’s an American citizen who appears to bathe semi-regularly, then it’s o.k.  

If she keeps having babies when she can’t afford it, then you don’t need to worry about her.  

If they were smart and got a good, fixed-interest rate mortgage they could afford, then maybe they’re worth helping.  

Conditions.  Simple, really.  If this, then that.  In not this, then don’t bother with that.

John’s not into conditional sentences, though; he’s full of declarative sentences: “Do this, whether or not that.”  He says, “Little children, let us love . . . in truth and action.  Obey God’s commandments.  Love those in need.”  I’d love to find some wiggle room in there, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.

Mother Theresa, the saint of the gutters, who gave herself to the dying on the streets of Calcutta, had a hard time following God.  You’d think with spiritual superstars that it’d be easy.  But, as most of us have probably heard, Mother Theresa struggled mightily with her faith.  She regularly questioned the existence of God, feeling alone and isolated, abandoned by the one she felt called to serve.  But, in spite of doubts that would paralyze most people, serve she did.  

In August 1982, Pope John Paul sent her to war-torn Beirut so that the victims of war would know of his solidarity with them.  Mother Theresa determined shortly to go into the heart of the killing fields in West Beirut to rescue a small group of the victims of the violence.  Everyone warned her against going.  It was too dangerous.  She would only be able to help a handful.  It wasn’t worth it.  

She ignored them, and said she’d pray for a cease fire.  On August 12 at 4:00, she lit a candle she’d brought with her to Beirut, and started praying.  At 5:00, the shooting stopped.  Shortly thereafter she went to a place where there were 38 Muslim children, ages 7 to 21—all mentally or physically handicapped—all starving, dirty, and frightened—for all practical purposes, left for dead.  She organized their extraction from the war zone.  Two days later, she went back and brought out 27 more children.  

Before she came, nobody wanted these children.  Too sick, too much trouble, too much else going on.  After her journey into West Beirut, however, people began to step up.  Neighbors started bringing food.  Pretty soon the government officials and the doctors showed up.  

One of the Red Cross officials who admitted quite candidly that his initial reaction to Mother Teresa’s presence had been that a saint was not what he needed most, afterwards acknowledged that he’d been astonished at the efficiency and energy that went hand in hand with her spirituality.  She was, he said, “a cross between a military commander and St. Francis” 

(http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:GgGCVO4KR-J:www.sjbcatholicparish.org/generator/downloads/Story_about_Mother_Teresa.pd.  

Mother Theresa, in her 1979 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech said, “It is not enough for us to say, ‘I love God, but I do not love my neighbor,’“ since in dying on the Cross, God had “[made] himself the hungry one — the naked one — the homeless one.” Jesus’ hunger, she said, is what “you and I must find” and alleviate (http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1655415,00.html).  

That’s how Mother Theresa said it.  The way John said it was, “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses to help?  Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.”  

So how do we know love?  According to John, we know it when we see it.

-Amen.

Sermon Podcast: In Truth and Action