"Truth and Consequences"
The truth about Jesus and ourselves is revealed
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Text: Mark 14:53-65
Imagine that you have just been driving through an area that has very mountainous terrain and a sharply-curved road. All of a sudden, you come upon a sign that says “Dangerous Curve Ahead.” When you approach a sign like that you have a number of choices to make. You can either obey the sign, slow down, go through the curve gently and get to the other side, or choose to completely ignore it. You're free to disobey the sign, speed up, drive like an idiot, and decide which funeral home will bury you at the other end.
The fact of the matter is, when a sign is up you have a choice. You have the freedom to decide what you are going to do, and you have to decide speedily. Despite that freedom, the truth is that there is a dangerous curve ahead. No amount of free will or declaration of independence on your part will change the immutability of the dangerous curve. You can either decide to accept the sign that warns you of it, or you can use your freedom improperly - probably for your own demise.
Very often, we human beings, who have been given this great freedom to decide on many things, actually deceive ourselves. Even though there is a sign right in front of us, we declare for ourselves how we are going to respond. For example, in the matter of health, very often there are signs that something is wrong with us. So often, we ignore these signs. We pretend the symptoms will go away, we will be fine tomorrow, and everything will work out. Believing the little pain in the chest, arm, or stomach is just something that is going to go away, we do not listen to the signs we are given.
As a chaplain at the psychiatric hospital in Nova Scotia, one of the problems I ran into with patients was that many of them deceived themselves into believing they didn't need their medication. Part of the problem I faced was trying to get people, of their own volition, to take the medication that would make them better. Many were so self-deceptive that, believing they were okay on their own, they dismissed it, and often reverted to their illness.
Collectively, we do the same. Take, for example, the environment. The signs have been around for a long time. The research has been clear that there has been global warming and that we have a problem on our hands. But we have deceived ourselves - maybe just hoping for the best - and made choices that sometimes have been destructive to the environment, which has been crying out to us. Only now are we beginning to read the signs a little more clearly, and deciding to bring our behaviour in line with what they have been telling us.
Likewise, self-deception can affect matters of one's own soul. Sometimes, we believe that we are not sinful. We believe that we are perfect, everything is fine, and the relationship between God and ourselves is perfectly wonderful. We do not see the signs in our own behaviour, our attitude toward others, or our lack of commitment to God that, in fact, there is something wrong. Oh, we've had the freedom to make choices all right! But, sometimes, we self-deceive, which can be very dangerous.
I was reading some time ago about John Cage, a very famous musician who pushed the boundaries of music. He believed the world is totally random, with no truth and no objectivity. He designed his music around the principles that everything is subjective and happens by chance. During the 1960s, Cage was very much in vogue because he was sort of counter-cultural. His work broke the mold, the tradition and the structure upon which music is based.
In his piano piece, Four Minutes and Thirty-three Seconds, a musician sits down at a piano for exactly four minutes and thirty-three seconds, plays nothing, then waits for the applause of the audience. The kind of job I would like, actually! Do nothing and get praise! I love it!
It wasn't music. It was just this sense of randomness, and doing your own thing: Contravening all the idioms structures of culture just for the sake of it.
But, there was a catch. As Francis Schaeffer noted, John Cage's hobby was mycology, which is the collecting of mushrooms. He was once asked whether or not he applied his theory to this hobby by eating random mushrooms. Cage said, “No, of course, you don't!” When asked why, he replied, “Because, if I ate one of them I might die.”
So when it came to a matter of life and death, the world was no longer random, and his choices were based on truth, research or something meaningful. You see, although freedom of choice may be an inalienable, God-given right, there is still truth to which we must adhere and signs we need to watch.
In Mark's Gospel, we have a classic example of truth and consequences. The trial of Jesus is an amazing story. Through Mark's eyes, it is obvious that this is the one moment in Jesus' life where the situation is beyond his control. The target of false accusations and finger-pointing, he is trapped by those who, in an insidious way, will manipulate the truth as they see it for their own purposes. All the while, Jesus has his life on the line!
When I look at this text, I realize it makes a powerful statement about the nature of truth, and the consequences of failing to read the signs it gives. Each protagonist in this story reveals the problems of ignoring the truth, and the dangers of our own subjectivity.
The first of these characters, Peter, is what I would call the audience. Mark tells us that Peter came into the scene very early on, and sat to the side rather than going into the trial with Jesus. Mark actually says Peter “sat at a distance” with the Roman guards who surrounded the courtyard and warmed his hands.
Now, why is Peter here in the first place? We know that this is one of the most central moments in his life. All of the Gospels cover it, and there is no question that Peter attended Jesus' trial. Mark probably even used him as the source of his story.
Scholars agree this is the moment in which Peter reveals himself for who he is. It is the prelude to his denial of Jesus three times. The fact that he is “standing at a distance” tells you Peter doesn't want to be too closely-associated with Jesus. He doesn't get involved, or commit himself. He is just there, ostensibly warming his hands.
I read a delightful story a couple of years ago about a young girl in Grade Two who went to her friend's house for supper. When she got there, the mother of the host came to the little girl and said, “Would you mind if we had buttered broccoli with the meal?”
The little girl said, “Oh, I love buttered broccoli! I love buttered broccoli!”
The mother said, “Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?”
The little girl said, “Sure, I love buttered broccoli.”
Finally, the meal came, the vegetables were passed around, and the little girl didn't take any broccoli. She just passed it on. The mother of the host said, “But you told me that you loved buttered broccoli.”
The little girl said, “Yes, ma'am, I love buttered broccoli. I just don't eat it.” Well, Peter loved Jesus, but when it came down to the actual crunch, the moment of decision-making, he didn't eat the broccoli! He didn't want to be there! He didn't want to commit himself!
The word that comes to my mind when I think of Peter in this circumstance is ennui. There is a sense in which he is bored by Jesus, and disinterested. He had three years with Jesus, but now that the going gets tough, as the real issue of Jesus' ministry reaches its climax, Peter is nowhere to be found. This trial not only exposes other things, it exposes Peter! It reveals to him who he really is.
My friends, when we put ourselves in that story, and place ourselves at that trial, the question remains. Do we in fact sit at a distance like Peter does? Do we warm our hands, make sure we are okay, and sit safely detached? Or, do we go with Jesus right into the heart of the most difficult things? The great indictment of our faith today is that we have many Peters, but few broccoli-eaters. We have people who sit “at a distance” and are not truly committed. The sign of Peter is a statement to us all.
The second protagonist in this story is the accusers, who are the religious leaders. Scholars debate whether or not this was an actual trial held by the Sanhedrin, or an impromptu trial brought together by those who simply wanted to accuse Jesus. Most agree it was probably the latter. The High Priest, religious leaders, and many other powerful people held a private trial of Jesus. They wanted to trick Jesus into saying something that he didn't want to say.
What is amazing about Mark's account is just how clear it is in its facts, and how straightforward it is about the life of Jesus. We are told that these people who were putting Jesus on trial were actually seeking testimony. Four times, Mark uses the word “seeking” or “sought.” In other words, they went looking for something. They were looking for the word “marturia,” meaning “testimony.” They wanted to find people who could say something bad about Jesus.
Even though they found people to accuse Jesus, we are told by Mark that all the testimonies were inconsistent; that there was no justice here. Even though Jesus denied the accusations that were made against him, they continued to badger him, push him, and even spit on him.
Jesus' accusers said he was going to destroy the Temple in Jerusalem. They said he was insidious, a terrorist, and that he was going to destroy this magnificent house of God and replace it with something else. Jesus never said that. He said it would be destroyed, but not that he would destroy it. They were trying to create false testimony to accuse him of saying something that he did not say. They bore false witness in testimony against him.
The great Jean Jacques Rousseau in his Treatise on Education said, “The first reward of justice is the consciousness that we are acting justly.” Now, if Rousseau is correct and we turn this all on its head, then we have in this case the exact opposite: The reward of injustice is the consciousness that we are acting unjustly. The Sanhedrin, no matter how much they tried to trick Jesus, acted in an unjust way. Their frustration, spitting, abuse, and the eventual rending of the garments of the High Priest suggest they had even become conscious of this. In the presence of Christ, they saw the sign which pointed back to them that they were unjust, and they didn't like it. They felt threatened. There are dangers, my friends, when you don't read the signs. There are dangers if you question the truth and push it to one side.
Now, this morning, I want to make a confession to you. I don't want it to go beyond these four walls. That is kind of humorous, seeing as I am on the Web and the radio! Even listeners, please keep this to yourselves. You are never to have heard this or repeat it again. When I was at university, in my first year I might add, my friends and I went to Cape Breton Island just before Easter. I took a particular fondness to the Cabot Trail's road signs. They weren't like the ones today, with lots of little pictures. They were really nice ones with lovely scripting and lettering.
I wanted one, and said so to one of my friends. So, at 1 a.m., in the snow, we took one of them down. I kept it, and took it home to Bermuda in my suitcase. I put it up on my wall, and I was so proud of it, only to realize that sign theft is a felony. I could actually go to jail, and could have caused terrible harm. If I returned to Canada, someone might know that I had done this. I went through agony knowing that this sign was in my room. After a while, I began to hate it. But, I kept it. Never said a word!
Years later, when I was a minister, I was talking to the Deputy Minister responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety. In conversation over a luncheon, he said, “Do you know that there are idiots who steal signs in this province?”
“No, really, is that right? What kind of person would do something like that?” I intoned, feeling very guilty! He said, “You wouldn't believe the number of people who steal signs. Take Cape Breton, for example. You don't know how many people get lost because people steal those Cabot Trail signs! You never know where they are going to end up - in Mabu or somewhere like that.”
I felt a little guilty. Then I realized that if you take away the sign, people can get lost. If you take away the sign, and it is a road sign for safety, people can die. Serious things can happen. For the Sanhedrin, for the accusers of Jesus, they had removed the sign, and there was danger.
The real protagonist in all of this is Jesus, the accused. They trap him when they ask him this question: “Are you the Christ, the Son of the Blessed One?” Jesus answers in clear, concise words that Mark gives an account of so clearly. He says, in Greek, “egõ eimi” - I am. Now, I hear scholars and others say that Jesus never claimed to be the Messiah, the Blessed One's Son. That he never claimed to be the Son of God. No, he didn't. They claimed it for him - but he agreed.
This was an unambiguous, clear and absolute statement that Jesus knew he was the Son of the living God. Up to then, his ministry had been an enigma. There had been a sense of hiding. Even in the miracles, blessings, baptisms, wise sayings, and parables, only a glimpse of who Jesus was had been seen. But now, in the passion, the trial, and before the cross, it is revealed: “I am.”
This is, without doubt, the high point of Mark's Gospel. This is the absolute moment of revelation. And here is the irony: Jesus is revealed for who he is at the moment at which he is being accused; when people are putting him down, questioning him, trapping him and belittling him. So often, my friends, I feel there are times in which we feel the truth is just so relative that we can play with it as if it is a game. Sometimes we look at the problems in the world and the injustices that beset humanity. We look at the lack of justice, truth, due process, and the problems of Guantánamo Bay. When we look at the beheadings of innocent people, we wonder, like Pilate, where is the truth? Where is it in this world?
It is then that we are reminded by Jesus that at the moment when we feel that the signs have all been turned upside-down, the truth still remains. The truth does come through, and it is inviolable, because the truth is of God. Jesus knew that he would be vindicated in that truth, and that, despite the trial and his abuse, the truth would ultimately be there. He knew that the consequence of not grasping that truth could be very dangerous. But the consequences of embracing it are life, and the victory of the love of God.
I felt today that as this is St. Patrick's weekend, and that I have a mighty Irishman to my left over here, I should end my words with none other than a great Irishman. Not Roy Keane, not George Best, but St. Patrick, and you can't help but when you hear these words realize the power of that truth from his Lorica:
God's might to uphold me,
God's wisdom to guide me,
God's eye to look before me,
God's ear to hear me,
God's word to speak for me,
God's hand to guard me,
God's way to lie before me,
God's shield to protect me,
God's host to save meFrom snares of devils,
from temptations of vices,
from everyone who shall wish me ill, a
afar and near,
alone and in multitude.
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in the eye that sees me,
Christ in the ear that hears me.
The truth! May we see its signs everywhere! Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.