"WHAT IS TRUTH?"

2 Samuel 23:1-7; Rev 1:4b-8; John 18:33-38

The BBC reported this week

that Sir Elton John

has called for a ban on organized religion.

"Organized religion lacks compassion

and turns people into hateful lemmings,

he told the Observer.

But the musician said he loved the idea

of the teachings of Jesus Christ

and the beautiful stories

which he had learned at Sunday School?.

his solution would be to ban religion completely,

even though there are some wonderful things about it."

What is truth?

Doctor Steven Weinberg,

a Nobel laureate in physics,

said recently at a forum on science and religion

that "the world needs to wake up

from its long nightmare of religious belief."

He went on to say that

"Anything we scientists can do

to weaken the hold of religion

should be done,

and in the end

may be our greatest contribution to civilization."

What is truth?

The online encyclopedia Wikipedia

says that "common dictionary definitions of truth

mention some form of accord with fact or reality.

There is, however,

no single definition of truth about which scholars agree,

and numerous theories of truth

continue to be widely debated.

Differing opinions exist

on such questions as what constitutes truth,

how to define and identify truth,

what roles do real and acquired knowledge play,

and whether truth is subjective, relative,

objective, or absolute."

What is truth?

Kathleen Norris says

that truth for small children

seems to exist only in the literal.

What is truth?

David Lose says that

"?perhaps the most damaged item in our [current] postmodern fray

is not so much a unified sense of the truth

(was there ever really one?)

but the very possibility of speaking about,

let alone asserting,

a truthful description of our physical and moral world?

Amid the relativistic free play of postmodern transgression,

therefore, the one thing I cannot speak about

is the truth."

What is truth?

Jesus says,

"For this I was born

and for this I came into the world,

to testify to the truth.

Everyone who belongs to the truth

listens to my voice."

And Pontius Pilate said,

"What is truth?"

-----------------------------

This is my one time to get to preach on my fiftieth birthday.

But instead of feeling entitled to say whatever I want,

I am especially conscious of what I say

because when I look back on it,

I want to know

that what I had to say today was truthful.

But a musician

who has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth

and a scientist who has won a Nobel Prize

and been written up in the New York Times

tell me I'm wasting my time anyway.

And, they would add,

so are you.

And a self-professed postmodern theologian,

and an online encyclopedia,

which in itself is very postmodern,

both say that truth can't be ultimately defined

even if we wanted to.

Far be it from me on my fiftieth birthday

to be held back

by rock stars and Nobel prize winners

and postmodern theologians.

I'm going to try and define it anyway.

Truth, I believe,

is that which makes us wince.

That has to be it.

The truth is what makes us wince.

The truth can't be only what we make of it.

If you and I believe that the truth you hold

is just as good as the truth I hold,

even though they have nothing in common,

then where is the truth?

Is it "truth" just because you and I say so?

There is none //

if it's just anything you and I decide it can be,

especially if we decide independently of each other. 

Neither can the truth be

just what someone else tells us it is.

That would make us nothing but gullible,

and subject to whatever the prevailing wind might be.

We certainly can't rely

only on what religious leaders tell us that it is,

present company included.

There's a whole megachurch full

of people inColorado this morning

who are trying to put their spiritual lives back together

after they found out

that the pastor in whom they had invested everything

hadn't quite been truthful with them

for a long time.

No matter how good we think the other person is,

we can't assume that the truth

is whatever they tell us that it is.

Nor can the truth be

just whatever happens to be most politically expedient.

That would mean that the truth is slippery.

We cannot exactly say

that we are honoring the truth //

just because we do nothing to hinder it.

If we believe that the truth

depends on what the definition of "is" is,

we have for sure missed the boat.

So, that has to be it.

Truth has got to be

that which makes us wince.

We know that we are a little closer to the truth

when what we thought was the real article

gets exposed for the impostor that it really is.

C.S. Lewis wrote a fictional account

of what he thought heaven must be like

in his book called The Great Divorce.

And he said that when residents of Hell

are allowed to come up to Heaven

for a one time, "get out of jail free" visit,

even just the grass in heaven seemed so real

that it hurt their feet to walk on it.

The truth makes us wince.

It shines the light on all our pretensions.

It causes you to look in the mirror on a bright Sunday morning

and say,

"Whoa, today must really BE my fiftieth birthday!"

It is the wake-up call

which rouses us from our dreams of always getting our way.

It is absolutely real.

-----------------------------

No wonder Pontius Pilate didn't have a clue.

He was definitely a man of his time.

Pilate was an officer of the Roman Empire,

and he was charged

with carrying out the Emperor's idea of justice

among what he and the Romans considered to be

the unenlightened Jewish community.

But Pilate was far less concerned with justice

than he was with the politics of the day.

He didn't want to do or say anything

that would put him in a bad light,

whether it was the right thing to do or not.

He was much more concerned

about how something would make him look.

And so to make sure his bases were covered,

he was heavy-handed in his dealings with "justice"

and mean-spirited in his interactions with others.  

We meet up with him today

after Jesus has been betrayed and arrested

and brought before him for sentencing.

Pilate tried to navigate the conversation with him

in such a way

that Jesus would declare his own guilt,

so that Pilate could not be held responsible

for what happened to him.

Pilate tried to get Jesus to declare himself king.

But all that Jesus declared was the truth -

and Pilate winced.

Then he asked the question

that has to provide one of the most pregnant pauses

in all of scripture:

"What is truth?"

His question hangs out there like a railroad crossing arm,

and Jesus just lets it hang.

--------------------------------------------

Over these last two thousand years,

we haven't gotten a whole lot closer to discovering the truth,

so it seems.

Rulers still value political expediency

over anything which might cause them to wince.

And politicians, of course,

have expediency down to a fine art.

Most of us

prefer our own fantasies of wisdom and power

or even our fantasies of innocence and blamelessness

over having those fantasies exposed for what they really are.

There are so many stories out there jockeying for first place,

that we wouldn't know the truth

if it looked us in the eye.

But friends,

truth has looked us in the eye.

Truth has a name,

a definition,

and a purpose.

For this he was born,

and for this he came into the world,

to testify to the truth.

Indeed that truth will make us wince

as we see our shortcomings brought to light

and realize what will be required of us.

But the One who declared himself

to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life,

also said to his disciples

that we shall know the truth,

and the truth will set us free.

And that is what we celebrate

this Christ the King Sunday.

Christ's kingdom is not of this world.

That means that Nobel Prize winners

and rock stars with titles

and even postmodern theologians

are all only pretenders to the throne.

The life, death and resurrection of Jesus

is not only true,

it is THE truth.

You and I know it.

And because that is so,

the truth has already set us free.

Thanks be to God!

Amen.

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Sir Elton John's views on religion may be accessed on the Web at http://news.bbc.c.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6140710.stm

George Johnson's article in the New York Times "A Free-for-All on Science and Religion," was one of the most accessed articles of this week at the Times.  It can be accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/science/21belief.html

Wikipedia's article on "truth" may be accessed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/truth

Kathleen Norris chimes in on truth in her book Amazing Grace, page 377.

David Lose's views on truth in our day can be found in his book Confessing Jesus Christ, page 27.