November 22, 2015 – John 18:33-37
John 18:33-37
What is Truth?
Christ the King – Lectionary 34B
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
On Christ the King Sunday we look forward to the day when
Christ and his love will reign over all creation and he will bind all things together
in a loving communion.
And we look for signs of the reign breaking forth among us even now.
But in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Paris last week those signs can be hard to see.
And in the wake of all that has happened since that can be hard to see.
In Canada we daily read now of Muslims being the targets of abuse.
We read now of Muslims being left notes in their mailboxes telling them that
Canada doesn’t want terrorists and that they should “go home.”
We read now of Muslims being pushed and targeted on subways in Toronto.
This is, of course, exactly the reaction that ISIS is looking for in the wake of the attacks.
It seeks to polarize and create division.
Even though ISIS itself has killed way more Muslims than anyone else,
it will use the abuse Muslims have been taking here and elsewhere as a means of
stirring up anti-western sentiment, of being able to show new recruits
how much the west hates Islam and Muslims.
This is a big part of the reason that when ISIS took responsibility for the Paris attacks
it called it a “blessed attack” which God “facilitated” through a faithful group of
“soldiers of the caliphate.”
Those of you who have been following the progress of ISIS know that, unlike al Qaeda,
ISIS seeks to establish an Islamic State, complete with territory,
under the leadership of a caliph.
You will know that a caliph was appointed in June, a fellow who goes by the name of
Al-Baghdadi and that he is the administrative and political head of
the Islamic State they seek to create – and that he oversees the caliphate,
an institution which came to an end with the end of the
Ottoman Empire and the establishment of the modern state of
Turkey in the wake of the First World War.
They believe they are righteous.
They believe they have come to know the truth about the Qur’an and Islam.
They believe they have come to know the truth about the mind of God.
And that God has blessed their attacks and their murder and even their hatred.
That is a dangerous truth.
When Jesus tells Pilate he has come to testify to the truth,
Pilate just looks at Jesus and asks, “What is truth?”
That is a key question for us today – and every day.
I usually read that as a cynical comment on Jesus’ claim to be a witness to the truth.
As if the truth about God and about our world and about ourselves can be known.
Pilate only knows the brutal practicalities of being the administrator of
an unruly little province of the vast Roman empire.
The historical Pilate was not a nice man whose violence and ruthlessness
even Rome took exception to.
He may very well have asked Jesus “What is truth?” as a cold-hearted
administrator who had a job to keep order and do it by any means possible –
including intimidation and ruthlessness and crucifixion.
And yet, this week I’m thinking that maybe I have some sympathy for Pilate’s question.
Having a healthy skepticism about whether or not you know the truth is
not a bad thing for religion and for religious people.
It’s when you think you know the whole truth, it’s when you think you know everything,
that you are most likely to do the most damage.
It is zealots and fanatics who think they know the whole truth and so think that
it is okay to impose it on whoever it needs imposing on.
ISIS thinks it knows the truth.
At the very least Pilate knows enough to question whether that is even possible.
As a political administrator he is probably afraid of religious fanatics who think they
know the whole truth and who are willing to impose it at all costs.
It’s easy to think in the wake of all that has happened that we know now the truth about
Muslims and the truth about the Qur’an.
Truly ISIS is composed of people who quote the Qur’an and seem to
sincerely believe they are being faithful Muslims.
But that doesn’t make them true Muslims.
And before we start pointing fingers, Jesus is always there to reminds us to
take the log out of our own eye before we take out the speck in another’s.
Sure: there is fanaticism in the Qur’an and in early Islam.
It was born in an extreme situation.
But guess what: the Bible is full of fanaticism too.
In our own scriptures God commands the Israelites to kill every man, woman and
child among the Amalekites. Really.
And that is just one instance among many.
And so you have to ask yourself: did God really command that?
Or did someone just think God commanded that?
And on what basis can we decide with any sort of integrity?
Others will point to Christianity and Islam as being inherently violent and
point to the peace loving Buddhists.
But of course there are violently fanatical Buddhists as well – just ask the Hindu Tamils
and the Muslims of Sri Lanka, who suffer at the hands of Buddhist monks.
At least part of the truth is that religion, at its worst, can spawn and nurture the
hatred within us.
But here is another thing that is true: the word caliph in Arabic means caretaker.
It simply means steward.
With a capital “C,” Caliph means the one ruling the Muslim community as Muhammad’s
successor, the caretaker or steward of the community in Muhammad’s place.
But with a little “c,” it simply means one who looks after something on someone’s behalf.
It means little “s” steward.
And in the Qur’an, God creates human beings to be caretakers or stewards of all God has made.
To look after the world and all that is in it on God’s behalf.
In Islam, everything belongs to God – the world and its peoples.
And they are to be cared for.
The beginning of every chapter of the Qur’an but one names God as,
fundamentally, the Compassionate, the Merciful.
I would say that that is the deep truth about God divined in Islam.
And I would say that as God’s stewards, human beings are to be caretakers of
this world and all its peoples with great compassion and mercy on God’s behalf.
Today, Jesus speaks of two worlds.
Pilate calls him a King, knowing that the kings of this world establish their reigns
through violence and threat – through fighting.
Ah, says Jesus, my kingdom is not of this world.
“If my kingdom were from this world, yes: my followers would be fighting.”
If my followers were from this world they would be using violence, because this world is
so often a world of violence.
But God’s reign is a reign of love and cannot be initiated through violence.
Yes: sometimes violence is a necessary evil to protect the innocent and vulnerable.
But there are limits to what violence can achieve: because it always spawns a violent reaction.
Which is precisely what ISIS, for example, is looking for.
Long ago now, Martin Luther King, Jr, famously wrote this:
The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. . . . Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out love; only love can do that.
Here is what one man in Paris who lost his wife at the Bataclan concert hall wrote
in response to the attacks; his Facebook post was called “You will not have my hatred”:
I will not grant you the gift of my hatred. You’re asking for it, but responding to hatred with anger is falling victim to the same ignorance that has made you what you are. You want me to be scared, to view my countrymen with mistrust, to sacrifice my liberty for my security. You lost.
What Pilate is ignorant of is that even though he is questioning whether there is truth,
the truth is of course standing right in front of him.
The truth is not a proposition that can be fought for or possessed in one’s mind.
The truth is not a statement about God you are willing to impose on other people,
through violence if necessary.
The truth is that God is love, as we know: for God so loved the world.
The truth is that that statement cannot be fought for.
The truth is that the statement that God is love can only be embodied.
The truth is embodied for Pilate in the person of Jesus standing right in front of him.
The person who embodied the truth of God’s love in his care for the vulnerable,
in his feeding of the hungry, in his forgiving of the sinner, in his love for this world,
the world that will shortly condemn him to death and kill him.
Jesus does not give Rome or Pilate the gift of his hatred.
Jesus gives them the gift of his love.
Because he is the king of love and seeks to bind all things in all creation and
all peoples in all the world in love.
Jesus stands before us again this morning.
With Pilate we certainly question every day what the truth is. It is so hard to know.
But he stands before us and embodies it for us and to us –
And he invites us to take his body of love – and embody the love of God in turn.
In the life of the world Jesus invites us to respond to hatred with the gift of love.
Jesus invites us to be stewards of the God of all Compassion and the God of all Mercy
that we have come to know through him – even as our Muslim friends have
come to know that God through the Qur’an.
He invites us to not need to know the whole truth about God and about everything –
but to embody the truth we have come to know about God in Jesus:
in loving this world that belongs to God, in loving all peoples who belong to God.
In embodying more and more and more love as a witness to light against all the darkness of
a night devoid of stars.
He invites us to be stewards of the love we will receive at this table –
to give it away fearlessly and generously.
There is a good reason we have communion every Sunday:
because the deep truth that God is love is best embodied by
loving actions for the sake of our neighbours – all of our neighbours.
So come to the table and take into your own body the body of love – so you can embody it.
Be a good steward or caretaker of what you receive today as a free gift.
You are not always loving and generous, but you can be more loving and generous.
You are not always strong in love, but you can be more strong in love.
And as we come together in loving communion, let us remember that this loving communion
– where Jesus in love is reigning – is a little glimpse of what God intends for all creation:
the binding together of all things and all peoples in the reign of Jesus’ love.
So together, let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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