What Is Truth?

John 18:28-40

Psalm 145:10-13

3/27/22

 

Truth.  What is truth?  Today we are swamped with extreme stories in our news on both ends of the spectrum.  The tales become more and more wild, and what is real becomes harder and harder to determine.  As a result, people don’t know what to believe anymore.  We don’t know what is true, we don’t know what is TRUTH.  And it feels important, desperately important to know what is real, what is FACTUAL, what is historical, what is TRUE. 

As people try to navigate what is real, what is true, we are impacted by many who are actively trying to hide truth, thinking that truth will be damaging.  I think about what happened in our own Presbytery at Cameron house in San Francisco.  When the stories started to come out that the pastor who had led Cameron house for forty years had been molesting the boys he worked with the entire time he was there, the first response of the Presbytery was to hide it, to shut it down, believing that the truth would create more damage, would divide the church, would effectively stop important programs.  Of course, the opposite was true.  In trying to hide the truth, instead, they did much greater damage to those who had been harmed.  And this led to greater damage to the church because the stories did come out, despite the attempts at hiding them. The appearance of duplicity, the attempts to hide the stories are what made the church look bad and what drove people from it.  Truth matters, and the facts matter.  Telling the truth matters. 

But still, in a world where everyone sees things differently, what is truth?  What is it really? 

The “truths” that we are told, and our determinations of what is real, what is not, who to believe, who not to believe: these are tearing us apart as a country, as a people, as a nation.  And I would say that this is because under all the historical truths, under the facts, under the histories, we have forgotten the deeper meaning of what is really TRUE.  We have gotten so caught up in what is factual, what is historical, that we have forgotten what is true with a capital T. 

I realize that may sound complicated and confusing.  We come to know our world by what we believe to be true.  It determines our actions, it determines our friendships, it determines our lives.  But we also know that there is always more than one way to see any and every event.  Depending on where you stand, what preconceived understandings you already come with, and your core beliefs, you will see each event differently.  There are very few “facts” when it comes down to it.  Let me give you an example.  In front of you right now you see me, a solid.  You see me standing here as a solid person.  But when you dig a little deeper you find that we are all made of atoms and atoms are mostly space.  What you are seeing is not a solid, but mostly space at a core molecular level. 

Let me give you another example.  We see color all around us, but what is color?  To quote scientific Britannica: “color is simply the range of visible light that humans can see. Different colors, such as red and orange, and other invisible spectrums such as infrared light, move around in waves of electromagnetic energy. The human eye is capable of seeing only light with wavelengths between 380 and 750 nanometers. For example, the visible spectrum begins with the wavelengths that we call violet, between 380 and 450 nm, then moves on to blue, green, yellow, and orange, and ends with what we call red, between 590 and 750 nm. When you look at someone’s red shirt, for instance, that shirt will be absorbing or scattering wavelengths of light lower than 590 nm, so those waves will not reach your eyes. But a red shirt will be reflecting some wavelength between 590 and 750 nm, which your eyes process as red.” 

These two examples are just scientific examples.  But I could easily give you human examples too.  When we see other people’s behavior, we ascribe to each person motivations, “agendas” and feelings.  But if you ever think about why someone does something and then ask them why they did it, you will find that our ideas about people’s behaviors and their ideas about their own behaviors do not match.  And to be fair, people don’t see everything about themselves, let alone about other people.  Our motivations for every behavior are complex and are made up of our histories, our perceptions, and our values.  Each action builds on past actions, and our motivations for any one behavior will never be completely determined.

Even at a more basic level, interpreting what we hear and see others DO can be difficult.  I shared in a blog about a church where I had worked as organist/choir director during seminary.  After I graduated, the church hired another young woman to take my place.  One week that new young woman called me extremely upset and said that the pastor’s wife (who sang in the choir) was mean to her and didn’t like her at all.  I found this very hard to believe since the woman had been so kind and sweet to me.  But I listened and tried to encourage her to talk directly to the pastor’s wife.  A week later the pastor’s wife called me, explaining that she didn’t know what to do about the new choir director who misinterpreted everything she said.  She tried to joke with her and the director heard it as attacking.  She tried to offer care and the choir director heard it as telling her what to do.  Neither of them heard each other.  And neither of them could understand very well what was going on.

I remember watching a TV episode on sight.  They ran a bunch of tests on people on their sight, but it was also on their understandings.  One of the tests they ran was to have a group of 100 people watch a small video clip and then each of them wrote about what they saw.  None of what they wrote matched.  After sharing with the group each person’s memory of what had happened, they then had the same group rewatch the video.  And then had them once again write down what they saw.  And while each person’s vision of what had happened had changed a bit, each person had, at some level, incorporated what they heard the others had also seen into their descriptions, none the less, the descriptions still did not match.  What was fact here?  What was historical?  If all of this added up into what was “truth”, “truth” itself was more confusing and unclear than ever. 

In faith matters this becomes even more complex.  I can guarantee that if we were to spell out each one of our beliefs in this room, no two of us would agree 100%.  We are all worshiping in the same church, in the same denomination, in the same town and same building.  And yet even here, no two of us would be 100% in agreement in terms of faith beliefs.   If we define “truth” then in this way, we will find that no two of us can agree on what is true, what is real, or even what is factual. 

Bishop Michael Curry said it in his book, Love is the Way: page 221: “If you are only getting stories from people who look like you, you aren’t getting the truth.” And since Sunday is the most segregated hour of the week, our reach for “truth” needs some help.  When I talk to my brothers, sisters and siblings of color, for example, most of them have a depth of faith, an experience of God, that we can only imagine, that we can only hope to attain, hope to reach for.  And that should tell us something.  We, with our intellectualism and our cynicism and our skepticism are missing out on some very deep truths about God’s presence, God’s actions, and God’s movements.

Paul Kalanithi in his book, When Breath Becomes Air, said it this way, “In the end, it cannot be doubted that each of us can see only a part of the picture.  The doctor sees one, the patient another, the engineer a third, the economist a fourth, the pearl diver a fifth, the alcoholic a sixth, the cable guy a seventh, the sheep farmer an eighth, the Indian beggar a ninth, the pastor a tenth.  Human knowledge is never contained in one person.  It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.  And Truth comes somewhere above all of them…”

But still, what is Truth?  One of my favorite movies is Second Hand Lions.  And there is a wonderful scene towards the end of the movie that I want to share with you.  The main character is a kid who has come to stay with his uncles over the summer.  His mother is horrible and has basically abandoned him to two old men she really doesn’t even know.  But these men tell the boy these huge, fantastic tales of their time as young men.  Truly the tales are outrageous, but at the same time, possibly true.  And at one point, the boy confronts one of the men with these words, “Those stories about Africa, about you, they are true aren’t they?”  The old uncle responds, “It doesn’t matter.” 

The boy continues, “It does too!  Around my mom all I hear is lies.  I don’t know what to believe.”

The man responds, “Son, if you want to believe in something, believe in it.  Just because something isn’t true, that’s no reason you can’t believe in it.  …  Sometimes the things that may or may not be true are the things that a [person] needs to believe in the most.  That people are basically good.  That honor, courage and virtue are everything, that money and power are nothing.  That good always triumphs over evil and that love, and I want you to remember this, that true love never dies.  I want you to remember that, boy.  Remember that.  It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.  You see, a [person] should believe in those things because those are the things worth believing in.”  C.S. Lewis in his Narnia series similarly said that it is better to believe in a lie that is wonderful than a “real” world that is hell.

William Faulkner has been quoted as saying, “Facts and Truth really don’t have much to do with each other.”

So what am I saying?  That “facts” don’t matter?  No.  What I’m saying is that we are part of creating what is real, and what is true.  And part of that start with our beliefs, with our visions and with our understandings of the world.  What is true is impacted by our faith.  A belief, for example, in love means that you will behave in ways that are loving, that you will trust your love and that will make a difference to all those you encounter.

Today we come to the story of Jesus’ trial before Pilate.  I wonder, when you think about Jesus, what you think his primary purpose here was?  We can think of many purposes.  A mirror into God, a model for how to live as faithful people, an example of what Love really looks like.  Many of our fundamentalist, evangelical, and even mainstream brothers and sisters would say Jesus’ purpose is death, or resurrection, or salvation from sins.  But this is not what Jesus himself says.  He doesn’t tell us his purpose is any of the theological reasons we might suppose.  No, instead, in this discussion with Pilate, he states very clearly and very simply that his purpose in coming is to testify to the truth.   Pilate then ends today’s readings with the simple question, “What is truth?”

And as we know, this “simple” question is anything but simple.

Frederick Buechner says this about Truth in his book Wishful Thinking: a theological ABC: “When Jesus says that he has come to bear witness to the truth, Pilate asks, ‘What is truth?’  Contrary to the traditional view that his question is cynical, it is possible that he asks it with a lump in his throat.  Instead of Truth, Pilate has only expedience.  His decision to throw Jesus to the wolves is expedient.  Pilate views [humanity] as alone in the universe with nothing but [our] own courage and ingenuity to see [us] through.  It is enough to choke up anybody.  Pilate asks What is truth?  And for years there have been politicians, scientists, theologians, philosophers, poets, and so on to tell him.  The sound they make is like the sound of empty pails falling down the cellar stairs.  Jesus doesn’t answer Pilate’s question.  He just stands there.  Stands, and stands there.”

Jesus stands there.  The one who has declared over and over “I am” stands there.  “I am” stands there.  And that is the truth that he presents.  His truth is that he is.  The truth to which he testifies is that God IS.

God is present in the heavens, and God is present in this person.  God is present in the very air we breathe, and, dare I say, God is present in YOU.  That is the truth that stands there.  That is the truth that Jesus presents by his very body, by his very being.  That is Truth.  And it is on that that we can base our faith, our determination, our lives.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Confession

 

John 18:12-27

John 21:15-19

Peter loved Jesus.  He loved Jesus deeply and in both of these passages he is making promises to Jesus.  In the second passage from John he is promising that he loves Jesus and Jesus is telling him to therefore show it by going out into the world and caring for Jesus’ sheep – or God’s people.  In the first passages, Peter is promising that he will never forsake or betray Jesus.  But then we see that he does.  This isn’t his intention.  He is not planning to betray Jesus.  He loves Jesus.  But he got caught up in the moment and before he knew what he was doing, he had done the very thing he hated – he had betrayed this person whom he loved.  He had betrayed his Lord.  He had betrayed God.

We, too, make mistakes, devastating mistakes sometimes, against the people we love and in doing so, against God God-self, who loves us all and wants right relationships for us all.  Sometimes these mistakes are complicated by our failure to realize that we have a choice about them.  Many times, maybe even most times, we don’t realize we are being “tempted” into hurting others and therefore hurting God until the moment has passed. 

We see example after example of this in our movies.  So many of our stories involve a betrayal, often unintended, of one person by someone they love. We’ve talked before about the movie “The Devil Wears Prada”.  The movie’s main character, Andi, starts as a person with goals and integrity.  She wants to be a journalist, and she has written about injustices such as poor work conditions.  She is in a committed relationship and values her time with her friends.  She enjoys her life, and has a cause or meaning, a purpose in her future.  Her values do not include shallow things like appearance, being thin, high fashion, owning expensive purses, clothing, things.  She puts work in its proper place as one aspect of who she is.  She is down-to-earth, centered, and knows where she is heading and what she wants.  When she first applies for the job as Assistant to the Director of Runway Magazine, she is appalled by the value system that surrounds her – the emphasis on accessories that make no real difference to one’s well-being, the insistence on being thin, on looking “right,” on dressing “right.”  She is also kind, committed to her friendships and cares about her relationships with those friends, and with her boyfriend, above all others.  But when she takes the job, she finds her values and her identity being slowly challenged, slowly and subtly being undermined and eroded.  She finds herself giving up more and more of her time with her friends and significant other in order to work.  She finds herself being pulled into the drama and the appeal of a fast-paced career with models and glamour and eventually into valuing the entire system of clothing and accessories and being thin and owning purses that cost thousands of dollars – all things she didn’t used to care about.  The choices she is faced with – to choose depth, meaning and relationships, or to choose appearance, glamour, fame and achievement are subtle choices, but she finds herself choosing for the latter again and again, and she finds herself saying to those who would challenge those choices, “well, I didn’t have a choice!” She chooses to do what her boss asks her to do, and in the end that means that she ends up deeply hurting a colleague who was becoming a friend.  She took from her an activity, by agreeing to do it herself, that she knew was the thing most valued by her friend.  She betrayed that relationship, all the time repeating that phrase, “I didn’t have a choice.”  Similarly, she begins a flirtation with another man, “cheating” in an emotional way, on her boyfriend.  Again, it is subtle, and it feels to Andi like she is just responding in the best, most appropriate way to the actions of others coming at her.  But she betrays that relationship as well, deeply hurting the man she loves. 

“I didn’t have a choice.” But that lie that she told herself, that she didn’t have a choice meant that she lost her friends, she lost her significant other, she lost her sense of self and her values.  As she and her boyfriend are having the conversation where they are actually splitting up, she receives a phone call from her boss, and she says, “I’m sorry.  I have to answer this,” STILL not realizing she is making a choice.  As her boyfriend walks away he says to her, “You know, in case you were wondering?  The person whose calls you always take – that’s the relationship you’re in.”  Even after all of those losses she still didn’t realize the choices that she was making or that she had a choice to make, until her boss, Miranda, in the film pointed it out to her by comparing Andi’s choices with her own.  Andi could see that Miranda’s choices were hurtful, were harmful, were devastating.  But until Miranda pointed out that Andi had made the same choices, Andi couldn’t see. She could not see the choice she was making, or even THAT she was making a choice. It was just like with Peter, who did not realize he was doing what Jesus told him he would, that he was denying the person he loved, until the rooster crowed, reminding him of Jesus’ words that said he would do exactly that.

Similarly with Saruman in Lord of the Rings who thought he could look into the Palantir thinking he could learn from it and instead was seduced by it.

            Also in a Joan of Arcadia episode where Joan has been asked to do something by God that Joan does not understand and that she feels would hurt her friend.  She chooses to say “no” to God instead, believing that she has a good reason, but that choice, that choice to “protect” her friend against that request of God lead to the friend being much more harmed, much more damaged than if she had acted differently. 

            In most of these situations: Andi in Devil Wears Prada, Joan in Joan of Arcadia, and Peter in this story with Jesus, we find the same ending.  In the “Devil Wears Prada” Andi eventually chooses to walk away from the evil that she is becoming.  In the Joan clip, she is given another chance, repeatedly, and she chooses to listen and follow God.  Saruman never changes: he becomes too entrapt in his love for evil.  But with Peter, too, we know the end of this story.  The end is that Peter does follow Jesus after Jesus’ death and resurrection.  Peter becomes a martyr for the faith – dying because of his proclamation of Jesus as Lord.  He does stand up for God, by God, by Jesus.  He had a slip, but that wasn’t the end of the story. 

We, too, make mistakes and hurt people we care about.  But God offers us forgiveness, God offers us new chances every day.  More, God forgives us and starts us over again and again and again.  I wish I could say that people were as forgiving.  But they aren’t always.  Some betrayals can’t be gotten over.  Some mistakes can’t be righted by apologies or attempts at reconciliation. 

            I’m reminded of a MASH episode which I shared about recently in a blog post but wanted to share it here as well: In Episode “Dear Sis”: Father Mulcahy punched a guy who had hit him first and was being difficult.  He felt bad about it and tried to apologize, but the man was still being an absolute jerk who was completely incapable of seeing how he contributed to the problem.  Father felt bad and was outside and said to Hawkeye:

F: You know, I used to coach boxing at the CYO. I told my boys it built character.

H: Father, why don’t you stop punching yourself on the chin.  Pick on someone your own size

F: I’m Christ’s representative. “Suffer the little children to come unto me.  Do unto others… I’m not just supposed to say that stuff.  I’m supposed to do it.

H:All you’re supposed to do is the best you can.

F: Some best.

H: Best is best!  Look.  Suppose you were sitting here right now with somebody who had done his best and was feeling lousy about it.  You’d let ‘em off the hook wouldn’t you?

F:  Sure I would.  And if the hook didn’t work, I’d probably try an uppercut.

H: Father, get off your back.

F: It isn’t just that.  I don’t seem to make a difference here.  I hang around on the edge of effectiveness.  And when I do step in, I really step in.

H: Look.  This place has made us all nuts.  Whey should you be any different?   WE don’t sleep we don’t eat and every day a truck dumps a load of bloody bodies on the ground.  Okay so you hit someone.  We have to stand here and watch so much misery we’re lucky we don’t all join hands and walk into a chopper blade.

            The reality is that none of us are perfect.  Not one.  And that means that all of us will err at one point or another.  We all will.  No matter how “good” we are, and no matter how hard we try, we will hurt people.  We will hurt people we don’t care about, and we will hurt people we love.  We will, like Peter, deny someone we love when we feel threatened, refusing to stand up and say “I know that person and I love that person” to someone who is condemning them.  We will, like Andi in “Devil wears Prada” choose to do what gets us ahead, even if it means someone else losing out on an opportunity.  We will, like Joan in Joan of Arcadia, choose to follow our own path, thinking we know best, even when we’ve been told otherwise.  We will err. 

            But the Good News of this story and every Bible story is one of God’s amazing and great, unfathomable forgiveness, offered to us again and again and again.  It is the Good News of second, third, 100^th choices to do right again next time.  It is one of Grace.

            Our call when others seek forgiveness and reconciliation is to follow God, to follow Jesus and extend grace just as they did, not just for the other, but for our own healing as well.  But we cannot control the choices of others and sometimes we will not be offered that same grace. 

            Still, you can count on God’s grace.  Jesus shows it to Peter, and God shows it to us.  God hopes that we will not make those decisions that harm relationships, but God knows we will err, we will make mistakes.  And when we do, God is there to offer us new starts, new chances, new opportunities. 

            There is something else I want to say here.  We are in the season of lent, and lent as you know, is a time that we are usually called to self-reflect and to “repent”.  But that word, “repent” carries with it so many associations that are incorrect.  “Repenting” is not about beating yourself up with shame and guilt and pain.  It’s not about punishing yourself and then striving to do better.  “Repenting” means turning around, going a different direction.  Marcus Borg defines “repentance” as “returning from exile.”  I want you to think about that for a moment.  Because doesn’t that feel very different that what we’ve always heard it to mean up until now?  Returning from exile is about coming home: coming HOME.  You come home to yourself, you come home to who you really are, you come home to who you want to be.  And we don’t tend to get there by beating ourselves up.  Yes, self-reflection is necessary to know what is keeping us in exile, and what is keeping us apart from what we love and what we want to be.  For Peter, his denial of Jesus was keeping him from Jesus.  So we change.  But we don’t change out of shame and guilt.  We change as a way to return home to the people we are called to be. 

            I think about Frodo in Lord of the Rings when he thought that Sam was out to take the ring from him.  Frodo “repented” or came home from exile when he saw Sam again for who he really was: the helper who, in the end, saved Frodo’s life.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

Footwashing - The Third Sacrament

John 13:1-17

Psalm 51:7-12

    How many sacraments are there in the Presbyterian church?  Two. And what are they?  Communion and Baptism.

    How do we define “sacrament” then?  Something Jesus did, something he had done to him, and something that he calls us to do for each other.  Obviously this is different in some other denominations.  

     Catholicism: “Sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, through which Divine life is given. There are seven Sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation, Eucharist, Reconciliation, Anointing of the Sick, Matrimony, and Holy Orders. Sacraments are classified as Christian Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation and the Eucharist), Sacraments of Healing (Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick), and Sacraments of Commitment (Matrimony and Holy Orders).”

      Similarly, for more conservative Lutherans, “The Lutheran sacraments are "sacred acts of divine institution". These Lutherans believe that, whenever they are properly administered by the use of the physical component commanded by God along with the divine words of institution, God is, in a way specific to each sacrament, present with the Word and physical component. And for them there are also seven.  

       But for our sister church, the ELCA, as well as the Methodist church and the UCC there are also only two and they are same two that we have.

       According to our Book of Order, The Sacraments are “gifts of God for the people of God. They are a visible, tangible, and even taste-able way of experiencing God’s immeasurable grace and unfathomable goodness—the same grace and goodness we have come to know above all through Jesus Christ, God’s Word made flesh. The Sacraments are “signs” and “seals”—signs of God’s gracious promise and seals of God’s life-giving Word. They show us who God is and what God has done for us and for our salvation in Jesus Christ, expressing God’s claim upon our lives and confirming Christ’s calling to be faithful disciples. At the same time, the Sacraments provide a way for us to respond to God’s grace and goodness with our gratitude and praise, offering our lives in joyful service. The Sacraments unite past, present, and future. We remember the history of God’s saving work and proclaim the mystery of faith: the dying and rising of Christ for the salvation of the world (see Romans 6:3–4 and 1 Corinthians 11:26). We rejoice in the presence of the risen Christ and celebrate the new things that God is doing in the world, here and now. We also look with hope to the day of Christ’s coming again, at the dawning of God’s new creation. The Sacraments are Trinitarian events. They represent our celebration of, and participation in, the redeeming work of Jesus Christ. As noted above, they are gifts of God’s goodness and grace. We receive these gifts only by the power of the Holy Spirit, who also works through the Sacraments to equip us for ministry in Christ’s name. Therefore, in the Sacraments we give honor and glory to God Almighty, through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit.”

      So then, given all of that, and especially the first statements that sacraments are three things: something Jesus had done to or for him, something Jesus did himself and something he calls us to do: are there other things that we should define as sacraments?  

What was foot washing then?  Feet are dirty: they work hard.  But it was also touch:  intimacy.  

        But not only do we not consider it a sacrament now, but we tend to avoid it like the plague.  When services do choose to have foot washing, we always also offer hand washing.  We offer it because we recognize that it is very, very hard for some people to participate in it.  Why is this one so hard for us?  Humiliating?  Embarrassing?  Uncomfortable?  We don’t usually think of our feet as “private” but they are, aren’t they?  Having another human being touch, or clean our feet is scary.  It is vulnerable.  Similarly, touching another person’s feet is vulnerable.  I think the closest we get to this currently in our culture is going for a massage.  If you’ve never had a massage, let me tell you, it is a very vulnerable thing to both experience and to offer to another.  When I have had massages, I always wonder, “what will they judge about my body?  Will they find that mole on my back disgusting?  Will they avoid that scar on my foot?”  Putting those aside and accepting what they offer is only made easier by the fact that I pay them to do it.  So then with foot washing: you offer your feet to someone, perhaps someone you value, perhaps someone you don’t know at all.  But there is no payment.  It is a gift given and a gift received.  And that can be very, very hard.  

I think we tend to believe that somehow it must have been a less vulnerable act during biblical times.  But it wasn’t.  Foot washing then, too, was a very intimate and personal act.  It was also a deep service.  And to do it, to serve another in this way of washing another’s feet required a great deal of humility.  Just as allowing your feet to be washed requires and required a great deal of humility.  That conversation where Peter struggled to accept the foot washing offered to him by Jesus shows just how hard it was.  Peter LOVED Jesus.  But to accept this kind of act from him?  It did not seem right, it was too vulnerable, for both of them, to comfortably accept.  

But those acts of service, those acts of caring, those acts of loving matter so much more than we can ever, ever imagine.  

I want to share with you a personal story.  Three years ago now my C5 group: Contra Costa Clergy Cohort went to Alabama to look at our history around racism.  We went to the Lynching Museum, and we went to the church that had been bombed, killing 5 young African American girls who were about to be baptized.  We went to many of the historical sites from the Civil Rights Movement.  It was a very disturbing trip, but an incredibly important one.  But the truth is that I knew it would be hard.  So when one of our folk here died, someone I really, deeply loved and valued, the “excuse” not to go was a welcome one.  Then it came that the date that had been picked for the memorial was during the time I was supposed to be gone.  I called the leaders of the trip, told them of my dilemma, and then prayed.  I prayed hard.  And despite the difficulty of the anticipated trip, I decided I really, unfortunately, had to go.  I needed to learn.  I needed to experience everything that there was there to learn, and I needed to do it with this amazing group of pastors, many of whom were African American and would give me a very unique and personal perspective.  I went.  The trip was as hard as I anticipated, but was also deeply, deeply important for my own learning and for the connections we have since made that led us to develop our amazing Belong Circle of communion with our sisters from an African American congregation.  

What was unexpected for me was a conversation that we all had after returning from our trip.  The C5 group of pastors and faith leaders who had gone on the trip met to discuss and debrief the experience.  One of the questions that was asked was “what was the most impactful event of the trip for you.”  One of the Faith in Action leaders, an African American faith leader from Oakland stood up and said to the group, “This will surprise you, I have no doubt.  But the event that had the biggest impact for me on this trip was Barbara’s decision to go on the trip, despite the fact that this meant she would not be able to participate in the memorial service of her parishioner.  That gave me hope.  That a white woman would choose to face the horrible truths of the country’s very racist and violent history over the celebration of life of someone she valued.  It gave me the hope to believe that maybe other white people are also ready and willing to hear, to learn, to listen and to be present, to be an ally with those of us struggling in this country.”  He was right that it surprised me.  It also humbled me, deeply.  I didn’t think my presence on the trip mattered.  I had thought I had gone for my own learning.  I had not the slightest, smallest idea that the decision to go would matter so much to this man.  

The truth is we have no idea who we impact or how.  We have no idea what is an act of service to others.  We are called to show up, to wash feet when we have the opportunity to do so, to be present when we are asked.  Choosing vulnerability, choosing openness with one another makes more difference than we can know.  

In the church we tend to put on a shield of “propriety”.  We wear our best clothes, we put on appropriate behavior.  We are guarded.  James Angell in his book, “Yes is a world” wrote, “Church ought to be a set of moments when we become most expansively, openly and honestly ourselves.  Yet it is in the church where we often find it hardest to be ourselves: where we are often the most guarded, the most paranoid, the most unsure of being accepted and understood.”  The church is a place in which, every Sunday, we take time to acknowledge our brokenness and our need for God’s forgiveness to make us whole.  And yet still, we hide – from each other, from the world, and maybe even from God.  Nowhere is this more evident than in our avoidance of foot washing.

Amy Frykholm, who writes for the Christian Century, wrote, “The history of the church does not necessarily confirm this instinct of mine. To me foot washing has a sacramental quality—a place where heaven meets earth, where the scandal of the incarnation is as vivid and present as it is in the Eucharist. But foot washing has never been a sacrament. In fact, church historians have found no instances in which the idea of foot washing as a sacrament was even considered. John’s Gospel is the only one to mention foot washing. The passage in John begins with the briefest mention of the supper that would become so central to the Christian tradition. Instead, the passage introduces foot washing via a declaration of Jesus’ love in the context of the betrayal that will lead to his death. ‘And during supper, Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God, got up from the table, took off his outer robe, and tied a towel around himself.’”

In my lectionary bible study group the question was asked, what if, instead of the last supper that is present in the synoptic gospels, we had instead adopted the sacrament of footwashing as a regular practice?  How would the church be different?  What if, instead of being fed regularly in our church services, we were invited into service: serving one another through foot washing regularly?  Remember that Jesus washed Judas’ feet too.  And if we were called each month or each week to wash the feet of one another, perhaps people we aren’t close to, perhaps people we don’t even like, what would that have done for us as a church?  Perhaps we would not be so very proper.  

Fred Rogers, whom most of you know as Mister Rogers also saw the deep sacramental quality of foot washing.  Francois Clemmons, became the first African American to have a recurring role in a children’s TV show when he was hired to play the part of the policeman in Mister Roger’s Neighborhood.  At some point he was interviewed about one episode in particular.  Mr. Rogers was sitting on a hot day, resting his feet in a plastic baby pool of water.  He invited Clemmons to come and join him.  To quote Clemmons,  “The icon Fred Rogers not only was showing my brown skin in the tub with his white skin as two friends, but as I was getting out of that tub, he was helping me dry my feet.” That scene, which was revisited in their very last episode together in 1993 touched Clemmons very, very deeply and in a way he had not expected.  Mr. Rogers, a Presbyterian minister, had washed his feet.  It was extremely personal, and extremely sacramental.  

     This Maundy Thursday we will probably have foot washing as part of the service, and I invite you to take the time now, during lent, to think through whether you are willing to be real, to be open, to be vulnerable with each other.  I invite you to consider whether you will allow another human to touch your feet, to clean your feet, to be with you in that way.  I also invite you to consider whether you will be willing to offer to clean another’s feet in return.  We are all called both to serve and to be served.  And in this particularly vulnerable way we have a unique opportunity to try something new.  

Foot washing is a reminder of water, of being washed, of serving and being served, of God’s call to us to step out, try things that may normally not be comfortable, to look for God in those uncomfortable feelings, events and situations, to look for God in the unexpected.  I hope that we can find ways to honor and remember this third sacrament with more intentionality.  Amen.

Lord, If You Had Been Here!

 

John 11:1-44

Psalm 104:27-30

Lent 1

            The story we hear today is a complicated one.  Jesus’ life has been threatened so his disciples are not excited about going back to Judea, and so close to Jerusalem.  We hear that it was “less then two miles” from Jerusalem to where Martha, Mary and Lazarus were.  But Jesus heard that Lazarus was very ill, so after waiting a couple days, he decided he needed to go back to see him, he had to go, despite the threats against him.  The disciples were anxious, but Jesus needed to do this.  He loved Lazarus, he loved Martha and Mary and he needed to return to them to help. 

            On the way back he heard that Lazarus had died.  And Martha and Mary were both upset with Jesus, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!”  Martha said.  Later Mary said the same thing, “If you had been here, my brother would not have died!”  We understand this.  We understand this pain, this anger, this frustration.  They are grieving the loss of their brother!  And at some level they feel it is Jesus’ fault.  “If only!”  They say.  If only!  If only Jesus had been there, Lazarus would not have died!  And while in their anger it sounds like they are being disrespectful, the truth is that these statements on their parts are strong statements of faith, of trust.  Jesus is able to see past their accusations and to understand that these angry comments are both statements of love for their brother and statements of trust in him!  They trusted that he would have been able to prevent Lazarus’ death.  They also trusted that he could still do something about it.

            Oh, that we were able to see the same in those who get angry with us!  But it’s not that easy for us, is it?  It just isn’t really that simple when we are faced with an “If only” most of the time!

            A couple months ago now my parents both were sick with COVID.  Because they had been vaccinated, they did not get it severely.  They both thought they just had colds.  But the truth was that they both had it and that my father had been to my house the first day that his symptoms showed up.  By the time we found out that it was, in fact, COVID, both David and I had symptoms similar to theirs.  And while I was not worried about myself, I was worried, very worried, about other people in my life.  I was worried about the congregation.  I was worried about my kids being exposed.  And I was deeply worried about David.  David has some fairly serious respiratory issues.  The major diagnosis for him is that he has asthma about being sick.  To say it differently, he gets an asthmatic reaction every time he is ill.  That means that once he gets sick, his allergy system kicks in and he has a hard time breathing, he coughs terribly and constantly, and it doesn’t go away.  As a result of this and other respiratory issues, he actually had to have a tracheotomy when he was only 5 years of age because he couldn’t breathe.  He has the scar from that to this day and it is a daily reminder to me that for David, being sick, especially with a respiratory illness, is not a simple or uncomplicated thing.  For David, being sick is very serious.  So, when I heard that my parents did in fact have COVID, and when I realized they had been at my house the first day that it really presented itself, I was upset.  Like Martha and Mary, I confronted my dad, “If you had not come that day, David would not be sick!”  Different words, but equally a response of grief and fear that manifested in being upset.  And, like Mary and Martha, I wasn’t calling him to just complain.  They went to Jesus seeking help.  They needed to express their grief.  They needed someone to hear their pain.  But also, they were both still hoping, still trusting that he could make it better.  I called my dad to complain just because I needed someone to hear how scared and sad I was that David was sick and that I was afraid it, too, would be COVID.  But we also know that a huge part of grieving is bargaining, or negotiating.  At some level I think it felt that if I could just say “if only you hadn’t come!” it would fix it, it would turn the hands of time back and mean he hadn’t exposed David, and that we were okay. 

In fact, it turned out neither of us did contract COVID.  But in that moment of pain, those feelings of “If Only” were the feelings that overwhelmed me. 

            “If only!”  If only Jesus had been there.  If only my parents hadn’t come over that day.  If only Brent hadn’t gone to that party where COVID went crazy through the group.  If only Suzie hadn’t sold their house at the bottom of the market.  If only, if only, if only.  These are familiar sentiments to all of us, far too often.

            And Jesus’ response?  The shortest but most packed verse in the entire Bible, “Jesus wept.”  Even though in the story he could still do something about Lazarus’ death, even though he could still bring Lazarus back, even though the story did not end here, we still have this amazing and profound verse, “Jesus wept.” 

            I remember reading a sermon once in which the pastor said that we are to be people of the resurrection, people of joy, people always trusting and delighting in the hope of tomorrow.  We are to trust that God truly can and does bring new life out of every death, and new beginnings out of every ending.  And yes, there is truth in that.  As I mentioned in my sermon on the wedding in Cana back in January, we should celebrate much more than we do.  There is so much hope, promise and joy in the resurrection story!  There is so much life and grace and abundance in what Jesus brought and shows us of who God is, that we have no excuse not to party and celebrate and live this life in great fullness!  I stand by that.  I believe it to be true.

            But these two words in this one verse give us a very different gift.  They also give us permission to grieve.  Jesus wept before moving on and bringing new life to Lazarus.  Jesus wept before even looking towards hope and new possibilities for life for Lazarus.  Jesus wept.  He didn’t just cry a few tears.  He didn’t just say “aw, that’s too bad!”  He WEPT.  And he wept for a long time: all the way to the cave where Lazarus was buried.  And in doing so, he invites us to do the same.  We are given permission to cry and to grieve and to lament the changes, the losses and the struggles that we, too, have experienced. 

            I have talked before about the importance of reframing our tragedies.  And of seeing God in them, through them, and in the resurrection aftermath of them.  But we cannot jump there too quickly.  It is immensely important for us to live through the feelings of loss, and of grief. 

            I’m reminded of a movie I saw (Joan of Arcadia episode) in which one of the main characters had been in a car accident and had become a paraplegic as a result.  The person who caused the accident was the driver of the car who had been drunk when he drove.  While Kevin had finally come to terms with the loss of his legs, the loss of the life he had envisioned for himself, the family of the one who had driven the car sued him because he had allowed his drunk friend to drive.  Kevin’s parents tried to shield him from that.  They said to him, “Kevin, you should not have to go through this again!”  But his response, his profound, wise, deep response was, “But I have to.  Don’t take this away from me.”  Don’t take this away from me.  Jesus got that.  He got that there is a need to go through grief, through the pain, in order to truly heal, and, I would say, in order to see the new life on the other side. 

            When the kids were little, we had, for a while, two pets: a cat, Sabbath, and a Beta fish named Jeriah.  At night when I would tuck them into bed, I usually sang to the kids and my song would include a part where I would list everyone in our family: “With Mama and Daddy and Jasmyn and Jonah and Aislynn and Grandma and Grandpa and Nana and ….” Etc.  I would name everyone who was part of my kids’ closest circle in the song each night.  Grandparents, aunts and uncles, friends, and, yes, the pets.  I would end each one with “And Sabbath and Jeriah” Well, as you know, fish don’t live long.  One day when we came out we found Jeriah at the top of the fish tank, floating on his side.  It was sad but we made it important: did a little service before flushing the fish down the toilet, sending him to his watery grave.  No one cried at that point.  I think everyone, even the littlest of the kids, understood that death was a part of life and that fish just don’t live very long.  That night when I sang our goodnight song, though, Jonah was adamant, even before I started singing, “Don’t forget Jeriah!  You still need to include Jeriah!”  And it was at that point, when I was singing our goodnight song and naming the fish, that the tears came. 

            There is a wonderful Washington Irving poem that I would like to share with you:

There is a sacredness in tears.

They are not the mark of weakness, but of power.

They speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues.

They are the messengers of overwhelming grief,

of deep contrition and of unspeakable love.

            We are in a time when there is much to weep about.  Our world is not what we would want it to be.  We are frightened and scared about the violence happening in the Ukraine, about the decision to deal with things through violence at all, with the greed and the claiming of power that this represents.  We feel helpless in the face of such wrong behavior.  And on top of that we continue to struggle with COVID.  We see people almost always through masks, we distance from people we would like to be spending time with, we all have lost people and lost a sense of “normalcy”.  And this has been going on now a LONG time.  Next week we will have been under the tyranny of the pandemic for two years.  Two long years.  Do we see a light at the end of this tunnel?  We think we do and then that light moves to being farther off.  And the reality is we will never return to what was.  Times have changed.  We have changed.  There is sadness to be felt, there is grief to go through.  This is our truth.  This is the reality of the times.  And while we trust and look to a God of resurrection, a God of new life, a God of hope and joy, we aren’t there yet.

            This is the first week in lent: and in this first week of lent, we are walking towards the cross, not yet towards the resurrection.  And we are called to look, to see, to be honest about where we are and how we are and where we are going.  And we are called, finally, to do what Jesus did.  To grieve, to struggle, to acknowledge the pain, to go through the pain.  To weep.  We know that God knows what this is, that God understands what this feels like.  And we know that tears are a deep gift: the ability to weep, to release our pain, to express our pain: this is a gift from God.  Often, it is only once we have allowed ourselves to grieve, to feel, that we can see what actions we can take to change things, to make the world better.  We are invited into the grief so that we can move through the grief to a new place, a place of hope, of resurrection, of new life.  It will come: that is the promise.  But we must go through the death, through the grief first.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.