Sunday's Sermon

 Listen to the Truth

November 22, 2015 

John 18:33-37New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus answered, “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?”  Pilate replied, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?”  Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”  Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. 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.”

What is truth? Pilate asked.  

That’s a pretty good question and one we still attempt to answer. 

Exploring the Scripture:

The reading from the Gospel of John is not a “happily-ever-after” close to the Christian year. Good stories often end with a sense of resolution. Loose ends are tied up and things are fitly framed together. Not here. In this story we are transported back to Holy Week and are in the room with Jesus and Pilate as they discuss Jesus’s role. 

In our story, Pilate, the potentate of political power, holds Jesus’ fate in his hands. Pilate, evidently intrigued by Jesus, undoubtedly sensed the innate wisdom and personal power of Jesus. He might have been fearful of the authenticity of Jesus so unbearably close to his own inauthenticity and duplicity. But Pilate’s heart appeared to be ruled by a commitment to keep the peace, Pax Romana, at all costs; to weigh his decisions on the scales of his own political career. Pilate was not the merciful potentate we are led to believe in the gospel of John. Indeed! His reputation as described by his contemporary writers was a cruel inhuman ruler who often executed people even without trial. The writer of John has softened him for the sake of his story.  

Let’s stop right here and look at the historian and scholarly point of view:

For many decades now there have been scholars who have been convinced that the Gospel of John is based, in large part, on a written, but no-longer surviving, “Signs” source.   It is much debated whether the author of John relied on the Synoptic Gospels for any of its stories, or whether in fact its author had ever read or even heard of the authors of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John was written much later…close to or even after the year 100.  It was written in a time when many “Christianities” were available and the writer of John evidently was trying to prove Jesus was God to his congregation. 

Why? Because there are very few verbatim overlaps between John and the other gospel writers, and outside of the Passion narrative there is not a lot of overlap in any of the stories he told.  Somewhat like the Synoptic Gospels John does have the healing of a Capernaum official’s son, the feeding of the 5000, and the walking on the water – all told in strikingly different ways.  John’s other miracles (which he doesn’t call miracles, but instead… “signs”) are unique to his account, the turning of water into wine, and the favorite of most Hollywood screen writers, the raising of Lazarus.

Moreover, the teachings of Jesus are highly distinctive in John.  Almost nothing that Jesus teaches in the Synoptic Gospels can be found in John (there is not a single parable in John!) and almost nothing of Jesus’ teaching in John can be found in the Synoptic gospels.

Most scholars think that the author of John probably had not even read the Synoptic Gospels.  That doesn’t mean, however, that the gospel called John was without its own sources. One source that scholars have isolated is called that so called “Signs” source.   It would have been the source that John used for his accounts of the miracles of Jesus…. a written account in which Jesus’ spectacular deeds were not called miracles, but signs.  Signs of what?  Signs of who Jesus was ….the king of God’s kingdom.

In the earlier Synoptic Gospels, Jesus flat-out refuses to do signs in order to demonstrate his personal identity.  In Matthew 12:38-42, the Pharisees request a “sign” from Jesus; from the context it is obvious what they mean: they want a physical demonstration – a miracle – to prove that he is the messiah sent from God.  Jesus refuses to do a sign, and tells them that “no sign will be given to this adulterous and sinful generation” 

Jesus insists he will not do any signs to prove himself.   He will not perform a miracle to prove his identity.   And so Jesus’ miracles are not called signs in the Synoptic Gospels.

That is striking, because, as indicated, Jesus’ amazing deeds are not called miracles in the Gospel of John but are precisely called “signs”.   They are called this for a clear and certain reason:  in this Gospel, unlike the Synoptic Gospels, Jesus engages in spectacular deeds – seven of them (the perfect number remember!) – precisely in order to “signify” who he is.  

For a variety of reasons it is widely thought this final chapter was an addendum added either by the author himself or, more likely, by a later editor.  Here is how the book originally ended in the earliest documents:  “Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples that are not recorded in this book.”  

The miraculous deeds, then, are miraculous proofs that Jesus is who he says he is: the messiah.   It is important to note, that Jesus spends his ministry talking almost exclusively about his identity in the Gospel of John.   He does *not* do so in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.   In John Jesus declares that he is a divine being, and he does miracles to prove it. This is a very, very different Jesus from the one found in the earlier synoptic Gospels.  So, when someone asks – as conservative Christians often do – whether Jesus was who he said he was,  one always needs to ask “in which Gospel?”

In short, the miracles of Jesus, for John ….and only for John, are meant to convince people in John’s congregation that Jesus’ claims to divinity are true.  That is why Jesus does his “signs.”

But let us look at the truth of our own lives…one we know for sure. Without condemning one another or ourselves we must confess that in our yearly journey with Jesus we have often chosen to live with Pilate in the “kingdom of this world.” In the beauty and possibility of “my kingdom that is not from here” (v. 36)—which Jesus said is right next to us, right now—but we still don’t get it! 

We often judge worth and value in the many ways Jesus asked us not to. We narrow the definition of “neighbor”. We prioritize by what is practical and politically expedient. We place first things first. We’re all for “onward and upward” and “more, better, and faster.” We emulate “kings” and rulers but dismiss or overlook servant heroes disguised as people who are wounded, flawed, or…. just like us.

All the while Jesus kept saying and doing his Truth right there in the scriptures. “It’s right here. Move this last-place person to first, Move that priority from the bottom of the list to the top, listen to the persistent whisper below all those prominent voices until you hear it more and more clearly. Now, can we see and hear?”

Here’s the Truth on which to end the Christian year: You and I and all creation belong to the Truth. Like Pilate, however, many of us negotiate our lives inside a “kingdom of this world” that is often—at best, a flat, fuzzy image of the rich depths of God’s kingdom. It’s not real. 

The Truth is this: the reign of God is as close as our breath and as real as the world outside our windows. But, we’ve got to change our perspectives to see it and we have to learn to live it. 

So, let us put the servant on a pedestal. Now, we start preparing to be uncovered and discovered by the Truth once more. We don’t look where we normally look. We need to seek out our lonely neighbor. Step through the door at the local laundromat, hangout, or social service center. Let us be a disciple! And I’m a great one to tell you that. I still haven’t invited my neighbor to church!

At the end of the Christian calendar year, it is time for us to remember the truths Jesus taught throughout his life. As we look back on the Christian year, we are called to confession in order to move forward into Advent. .Jesus’ Truth lifts up very different priorities from the daily cultural truths and messages we hear. So, how does it feel to end the Christian calendar year with this unsettling tension-filled passage of scripture? What message from the scripture helps put into context the end of another yearly journey with Jesus’ message in the here and now?”

 We are invited to gather under the sanctuary of God’s peaceable reign, but we sometimes choose other painful, often death-dealing ways. As we reflect on this year’s journey, let us also ask ourselves, “Where has God’s Truth been manifest in our lives, the church, and the world?