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Rev. Wayne Irwin
June 3, 2007
Text: John 16:12-15
Goethold
Ephraim Lessing, 18th century
German
philosopher, publicist, art critic . . .
and
preachers’ kid . . . became a playwrite
whose works
served as prototypes
of the later
developed German drama.
His plays
became templates for German theatre.
And he used
one,
entitled, ‘Nathan
the Wise,’
to make a
dramatic plea for religious tolerance.
And in so
doing, he penned this:
If an angel were to appear to me
and one hand would hold ‘The Truth”
and the other “the Pursuit of Truth,”
and if I were offered the choice,
I
would not hesitate for a moment
to choose “The Pursuit of Truth.”
Because
the one who believes
he ‘knows-it-all,’ learns nothing more.
The one who learns the most in life
is the one who “pursues the truth.”
Goethold
Ephraim Lessing.
Declaring
that Truth is not static.
Not something
that can be captured,
encapsuled .
. . and gift-wrapped.
But rather .
. . Truth . . .
an unfolding
revelation.
An ongoing,
more-than-lifelong quest.
Our text
today from the Bible says as much:
in words
attributed to Jesus:
“The
Spirit of truth
will guide you into
all the truth.”
All four
gospels,
Matthew,
Mark, Luke and John,
make it
abundantly clear
that even the
disciples, in hearing,
in
participating in . . . and in absorbing
the words and
works of Jesus,
in actually
living with him,
did not
thereby gain
a complete
and final grasp of the truth.
The whole of
their testimony about Jesus
came later.
When they
looked back.
When they
reflected.
The whole of
their testimony about Jesus
was given
in the light
of their experience.
After the
Spirit was stirred within them.
After
Pentecost.
And even then
they found
the content of their testimony
to be
evolving, changing, growing,
developing.
And it was
the Spirit, the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of
God’s Love, lively within them,
that was
leading them . . .
leading them
into the truth . . .
leading them
along the path
that they
were being given . . . to walk.
The
disciples, now called apostles,
were meeting
completely new situations,
new peoples,
new cultures, new structures,
new political
circumstances . . . new problems.
And in those
meetings they were finding
it was not
helpful for them
to simply
mouth the words of Jesus.
Words that
had been spoken
in some other
situation . . . long before.
And Jesus
said so.
Told them
that the
Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit,
would reveal
to them along their way
what their
word would need to be,
what their
walk would need to be.
A word, an
action . . .
appropriate
for the moment . . .
relevant to
the circumstance.
When I
arrived in my first pastorate,
I was fresh
from school.
Fresh from
exams.
Fresh from
cramming all kinds of things
into my craw.
But what the
folks in the congregations
to which I
had been sent
were needing
from me
had little to
do
with the
particulars of my studies.
And what the
people wanted to know,
were things
that had not
been part of my curriculum.
And the
things I did know,
the people
really had little interest
in knowing.
But my
preparation in seminary
had been
appropriate, nevertheless,
because it
had completely unseated me.
Every one of
my early-life concepts
of who God is
and of what
God desires of us
had been
challenged.
And my
training had forced me
to rework
every detail of my own theology.
Everything I
had thought to be true,
what I had
been taught in Sunday School,
had turned
out to be questionable.
There were
other theories.
And I had
been taught to ask the questions.
The hard
questions.
And
consequently the only thing I found
during my
training,
to which I
could positively cling
was my trust
that God was Love.
My trust, in
Einstein’s words:
that the
Universe is friendly.
All the rest
of it was truly “up for grabs.”
But when I
tried to preach out of what I knew,
to teach the
concepts
that would
lead the congregants forward
in their
theology, no one was interested.
They wanted
nostalgia. Sentimentality.
They did not
want the pursuit of truth.
Everything
they needed to know about God,
and about
God’s yearnings for them,
they believed
they had already learned . . .
in church
kindergarten.
Thus, many of
them remained angry with God,
frustrated
with their lives,
unable to get
a grasp on the meaning of tragedy,
resentful of
the seeming unfairness of life.
Trusting
absolutely what is not absolute.
Trusting
platitudes.
And never
ascending to the core of their being
to enter into
relationship
with the
quest for Truth.
So, at least
we know what year this is . . . 2007.
That’s the
truth. Right?
The obscure Roman monk,
Dionysius Exiguus,
who created our calendar
split the years into B.C.
(Before Christ)
and A.D. (Anno Domini, the year
of our Lord).
But the concept of zero was not
yet invented.
Not for another 600 years.
He had no zero to work with.
So the calendar went directly
from 1 B.C. to 1 A.D.
Which meant that, 20 centuries
later,
two thousand years did not run
out
on December 31, 1999.
The new millennium actually
started
on January 1, 2001.
So this is actually 2006 . . .
maybe.
Maybe not.
In August in
1835, (or was it 1834?)
(and was it
really August?)
a long
article appeared in serial form
in the New
York Sun newspaper.
A report that
listed
a series of
stunning astronomical breakthroughs
that it said
had been made
by famed
British astronomer Sir John Herschel.
The article
declared that Herschel
had
established a new theory of comets,
had
discovered planets in other solar systems,
and had
solved or corrected
nearly every
leading problem
of
mathematical astronomy.
And almost as
an afterthought, it also stated
that
Herschel’s most stunning achievement
had been his
discovery of life . . . on the moon.
All of this
accomplished
by means of a
new telescope
(quote) of
vast dimensions
and an
entirely new principle. (end of quote)
And the
report went on to offer elaboration,
including
description of fantastic sights,
such as
lilac-hued quartz pyramids,
herds of
bison wandering across
the plains of
the moon,
blue unicorns
perching on its hilltops,
and
spherical, amphibious creatures
rolling
across its beaches.
The highpoint
was a report of intelligent life –
of a
primitive tribe of
hut-dwelling,
fire-wielding biped beavers . . .
and a race of
winged humans . . .
all living in
pastoral harmony.
The series
was an elaborate hoax.
Herschel was
a legitimate scientist.
But he was
not involved.
He had not
observed any of this.
Had not
accomplished any of the breakthroughs
credited to
him.
Was not even
aware that such discoveries
had been
attributed to him.
The author
was actually a reporter,
in the employ
of the paper –
Richard Adams
Locke his name.
Who never
actually owned up to it.
Never
confessed to the hoax.
And
meanwhile,
The New
York Sun newspaper
sold
thousands upon thousands of copies,
to an eager
audience, the gullible public,
willing to
believe anything
if it was
sensational.
Even folks at
Yale.
18 years
later, the story was told.
How the
literati, the students, the professors,
the doctors
in divinity and in law at Yale,
awaited each
chapter in the paper, each day,
with
insatiable impatience,
no one even
entertaining a doubt
as to the
truth of it all.
And why? . .
.
Why did they
say that they believed it?
Because it
was in print.
Because it
was in print in a newspaper.
Where does
one look for truth?
Why . . . in
the newspaper.
In
yesterday’s Spectator
there is the
story of Gael Matheson,
and the
Presbyterian Church being ordered
to pay her
more than 600,000 dollars
after the
P.E.I. Human Rights Commission
ruled that
she was mistreated by the church
because she
was a woman.
And the paper
goes on to say
that mainline
churches in Canada
have allowed
women to be ministers
since the
1960's.
Is that true?
No.
We’re a
mainline church.
The United
Church of Canada has had women
in ministry
since 1935!
A quarter of
a century earlier!
Women in
ministry.
Consider the
story of John Anglicus
who served as
Pope
between the
reigns of Benedict III
and Nicholas
I . . . in the 850's.
In an article
in US News and World
Report
Lewis Lord
writes
that while
riding in a procession
this pope
suddenly went into labour
and delivered
a baby.
She was
subsequently dubbed Pope Joan.
And her story
was told in Catholic circles
for centuries
. . .
until the
Reformation, until the 17th century,
when the
Vatican began denying it.
Is it true?
What is
truth?
Is it what
the Vatican says?
Is it what
the people who witnessed it say?
I was leading
a Bible study a few years back
when I
offered an opinion of interpretation.
And one man
immediately interjected.
“You’re
wrong!” he said.
“And the
reason you are wrong
is because I
have a book at home
that tells me
so.”
End of
discussion.
End of
argument.
End of
dialogue.
If it is
printed in a book,
then it has
to be be true.
If it is
printed in a newspaper,
then it has
to be true.
What if it’s
printed in the Bible?
Well,
friends, just because
it hasn’t
been printed in a book
or in a
newspaper . . .
or in the
Bible,
doesn’t mean
it isn’t true!
Michael
Cremo’s book Forbidden
Archaeology
presents
evidence
that many
people working in that field
do not
want printed in a book.
Evidence
suggesting that humans like us
have actually
existed for millions of years.
Evidence that
challenges
the
mainstream theories of prehistory.
Richard
Leakey,
one of the
leading paleontologists in the world,
is quoted on
the back cover.
Saying: “This
book should be burned.”
In every
field, there are fundamentalists.
Those who
treat theory as if it be the Truth.
And when we
study experience in this world,
carefully,
we observe
that every theory only holds
until its
successor comes along.
The Chinese
Philosopher Meng Tzu . . .
another
culture . . . another time . . .
4th
century BC . . . said:
“Truth . . .
is like a wild goose
flying down
from Mongolia to India.
In esvery
country over which it flies
it has a
different name;
but it is
still the same goose.”
The eminent
20th century Swiss theologian
Emil Brunner
spoke of truth
as being
independent of belief.
What we
believe about the truth, he said,
has no
bearing on the truth.
Truth is
truth whether we believe it or not.
And whether
we name it as truth or not.
Said Brunner,
“Truth is Spirit,
and all who
would know the Truth
must enter
into its Spirit
and allow its
Spirit to enter into them.
“Truth is
Encounter,” he said.
“that happens
on some Emmaus road,
when we are
making our way
through some
personal wilderness . . .
dealing with
a grief, or with a loneliness . . .
or in a
moment when we are reaching out
to help
another in need . . .”
Like the
brightening of the earth at daybreak,
like the
shivering of the trees at dawn,
like the
warbling of the songbirds
as the
blanket of night is shed . . .
we are
awakened thereby
to the joy of
discovering
that we are
not alone,
that a Spirit
Presence is leading us . . .
leading us .
. . into all the Truth.
Said Jesus to
those with him: (John 16:20ff)
“I am the
Way, and the Life . . . and the Truth.
. . . and in
a little while,
you will no
longer see me . . .
And in that
day you will mourn for me,
but your pain
. . . will not remain . . .
Your pain
will turn to joy . . .
because you
will see me again . . .
and when you
do see me
your hearts
will be strangely warmed . . .
and no one,
then . . . will ever again . . .
take that joy
from you. . .”
The Truth . .
. ?
God is Love.
That’s what I
believe . . . is the Truth.
But I don’t
know it to be the Truth.
I only
trust it to be the Truth.
And I use the
symbols of our faith
to renew and
strengthen my trust
that God
being Love is the Truth.
Holy
Communion . . .
Symbolizing
sacrifice of Life for the sake of Truth.
Because of
the world killing . . .
killing Jesus
. . . killing Innocence . . .
in its
enduring effort to be rid of Truth.
And
Resurrection.
Symbolizing
the impossibility of killing Truth.
Said Jesus:
(John 18:37)
“For this I
came into the world . . .
to testify to the Truth.”
The Truth . .
.
We Christians
. . .
we follow
Jesus . . . walk with Jesus . . .
look to Jesus
. . . listen to Jesus . . .
open
ourselves to the Spirit of Jesus
welling up
within us.
And we enter
into Communion with Jesus.
In our
pursuit of Truth.
And our
prayer today is this:
Commune with
us this day, O God.
Commune with
us,
even as we
commune with you.
And continue,
by your Spirit
to lead us
into Truth.
Amen.
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