Posts Tagged ‘least in the kingdom’

The truth will set you free

November 21, 2015

Christ the King – 2015

John 18:33-38a

Marian Free

In the name of God who alone is truth. Amen.

Yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald reported “a genetically engineered fish has been approved by the United States regulators as fit for consumption”. The fish in question is a salmon that grows much faster than its unmodified version and is therefore ready for sale much sooner. A photo shows two fish the same age. The modified fish appears to be four times the size of its unmodified sibling. Despite the obvious advantages and the fact the the FDA has “thoroughly analysed and evaluated the data and information” provided by the company that developed the fish, consumer groups and environmental groups are arguing that many independent scientists are among those who oppose the decision and are adamant that the fish should not have been approved.

The controversy around genetically modified food is just one example of the way in which scientists can draw different conclusions from studying the same phenomena. Scientists disagree with regard to the effect of the mining of coal seam gas on underground water, and they draw different conclusions as to the relationship between human activity and global warming and on it goes. Absolute truth seems to elude us.

In trying to determine what is true and what is not we have a number of methods available to us – the adversarial, the investigative and the scientific. These methods are not restricted to barristers, the police or to scientists, nor is their use limited to court rooms, detective’s meeting rooms or laboratories. Every one of us consciously or unconsciously, applies these techniques every day as we interrogate the variety of information before us and try to determine whether or not it is to be believed.

The adversarial method of determining truth is that of argument – the stronger argument being given the weight of truth. Our legal system allows both a prosecutor and a defendant to put forward the best argument they can to prove that a person did or did not commit the act for which they are on trial. A jury then decides who has the strongest case. In much the same way we often make decisions by putting a positive and a negative argument side by side to see which is the most convincing.

In other legal systems there is no argument. It is the judge who investigates the crime in order to come up with a judgement. Investigatory analysis might also be carried out by police officers or journalists who collect information before drawing a conclusion as to the most probably scenario given the facts they have gathered. We might apply this technique when we are trying to assess wither our teenager is telling the truth about being late home.

The scientific method of determining truth is usually considered the most objective and reliable of the three. The questions asked are more specific and the methodology requires not only that the information is gathered and observed, but also that it is measured and rigorously tested.

No method however is a guarantee that the truth will really come to light – innocent people are sent to jail, the gullible are taken in and apparently objective research can lead to contradictory conclusions.

John’s gospel is particularly concerned with “truth”. From the beginning when we are told that the Word became flesh “full of grace and truth” (1:14), truth is given priority. The Jesus of John says: “you will know the truth and the truth will set you free” (4:23-24) and “I am the way, the truth and the life” (14:6). It should come as no surprise then, that Jesus makes a claim about truth when he is brought before Pilate: “I came into the world to testify to the truth” (18:37). Pilate, puzzled, bored, frustrated, curious or furious asks what is perhaps the most important question in the New Testament: “What is truth?” (18:38).

As the Procurator, it is Pilate’s task to determine the truth of the matters presented to him – in this case an internal dispute among the Jews. Jesus – who looks nothing like the truth of which is being accused – that he is King of the Jews – is brought before him. He has none of the distinguishing characteristics of royalty – he is poor, he is vulnerable and his supporters have deserted him. Pilate must have found it hard to take the dispute seriously. How could the Jews possibly accuse this man of claiming to be a king? How could the man before him be considered a threat to Rome?

Jesus does not deny of challenge the charges against him. On the contrary he claims that his kingdom is not in direct competition with Rome. His kingdom is very different: “it is not of this world”. Pilate understands this to mean that Jesus is a king, but Jesus’ response is confusing: “You say that I am a king. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice” (18:37). Jesus’ kingdom is like no other. It is a kingdom in which truth is proclaimed and in which truth is believed.

The truth Jesus proclaims is unexpected and controversial. It is a truth that gives union with God priority over all other relationships, that understands that true freedom lies in complete submission and that truth is revealed only when we stop seeking and begin receiving the truth that the Holy Spirit instils in us. Jesus is a king, but the kingdom over which he has dominion bears no resemblance to earthly kingdoms. Jesus’ kingdom is one in which power, status and wealth have no place. It is a kingdom in which surrender takes the place of striving, service replaces leadership and vulnerability is valued over being in control.

All of this Jesus has modelled in his life and he models it again in his trial. Paradoxically, by surrendering himself entirely to God Jesus finds himself in complete control of the situation. He doesn’t have anything to fear from earthly authorities and he has nothing to lose because he has placed himself in God’s hands knowing that God alone has power over heaven and earth. The truth that Jesus lives, the truth that Jesus reveals, the truth that has the power to set one free cannot be found by argument, investigation or research but only by listening to Jesus’ voice, following Jesus’ example and in giving up the pretence that we can know anything or achieve anything by our own efforts. The truth that Jesus teaches, the truth that Jesus models is that of complete surrender – becoming one with God, allowing God to work in us and through us, so that what we know and what we do is God’s truth and not our own poor understanding of what truth might be.

Jesus is a king, but his kingdom is not of this world. He knows that truth is not to be found in things that we can see, and touch and feel. Jesus knows that the only truth is God’s truth and that true freedom lies in complete submission to God.

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Keeping up

December 14, 2013

Advent 3 – 2013

Matthew 11:2-11

Marian Free

In the name of God who breaks into our lives and changes them forever.  Amen.

There are some events that irrevocably change the course of history, some ideas that change our lives in a way that is irreversible and some experiences from which it is impossible to recover. When Martin Luther nailed his ninety-nine theses to a church door, he had no idea that the church of which he was a part would never be the same. He had no thought that after his death his followers would break away from Rome and form their own church and no notion that the ensuing Reformation would divide the church in a way which continues to have repercussions today. Much later, Darwin’s Origin of the Species shook the world and the church causing people to revisit the stories of their beginnings and to reconsider the nature of humanity. For many of us, our concept of who we are and where we came from changed forever. There are many such events or discoveries that interrupt the direction in which the world is travelling and sends humanity on a completely different and often unexpected path.

The same is true on an individual level. Our view of the world and of ourselves changes – sometimes radically – as we grow and learn and have both positive and negative experiences. Over time we learn for example, that our parents do not know everything, that clouds are not made of cotton wool, that there is no “man in the moon”. Sadly, there are more sinister ways in which our world is changed. A child who is abused by someone whom they trust loses their innocence, their sense of themselves and their ability to trust – often forever.

In the first century, this who came to faith in Jesus, believed that his life, death and resurrection formed one such seminal event. From their point of view the stream of history had been irreversibly interrupted, the time space continuum disturbed. They believed that God in Jesus had broken into history shattering the connection between past and present.

It is this attitude to the world that explains Jesus’ apparently dismissive words regarding John the Baptist. “The least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” How can Jesus say that? It was John who called people to repentance, John who drew “all Jerusalem” to him, John who announced Jesus and John from whom Jesus sought baptism. It seems an extraordinary claim that John rates lower than the least in the kingdom of heaven. How can this be?

For the gospel writers it is clear – history has been divided into two – before Jesus and after Jesus. From their point of view, John does not belong to the new dispensation, he belongs to the time before Jesus, a time that had not been affected by Jesus’ breaking into the world. No matter what John the Baptist had contributed to Jesus’ ministry, he was not a part of this new world order. He had not made the transition from one time period to another. John belonged in the past as the last of the prophets, firmly situated in the Old Testament culture and experience and cannot bridge this dramatic disruption in time.

It is possible that John was relegated to the past simply because he did not live to see what was happening.  He was executed at about the same time that Jesus began his ministry so it was impossible for him to participate in what was happening. However, it is also possible that John was stuck in the past because even while he lived he was unable to see and join in what was going on. John’s announcement of Jesus indicates that he expected something different from what actually happened.  He predicted a fiery Saviour who would come to judge the world. Let me remind you what he said: “His winnowing fork is in his hand and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”  (Matt 3:12).

As we know, the reality of Jesus was vastly different. John’s question from prison demonstrates that it is not clear to him that Jesus is the “one who is to come”. He remains open to the possibility that they might have to “look for another”.

John was not confident that Jesus was the one sent by God because his vision was clouded by the image that he (and many of his compatriots) had developed of a Saviour or Redeemer.  On the basis of some prophetic ideas he and they, it seems, had built up a picture of someone who would come with power to judge the earth, who would separate the wheat from the chaff, the good from the bad. In the process he and they had failed to take note of other prophetic ideas – those from Isaiah in particular – which spoke of a “suffering Servant” whose programme would be to heal and liberate rather than to condemn. They were unprepared for a Jesus who did not fit the image that they had created.

There is a warning for us here. It is very tempting for us to give in to our need for certainty, to scour our Bibles and to try to draw conclusions about the nature of God and the nature of God’s future. However, God is always doing surprising things, the most surprising of which was Jesus who did not conform to any preconceptions and who suffered a shameful, God-abandoned death. For this reason, we should not try to second-guess God, to read into our scriptures things that may and may not be there or to try to tie God down to something someone wrote two thousand years ago.

If we do this not only will we fail in our attempt to define and categorise God but we are in danger of blinding ourselves to who and what God is and we will  – like John – be unable able to see the new things that God is doing in our time.

A vulnerable child, a crucified Saviour – what will God do next and will our eyes be open and our hearts ready for whatever it is that God will reveal? Advent is a time of anticipation and waiting, of preparing ourselves for God’s coming. Let it be a time in which we let go of all our expectations so that we are ready for God, no matter how God comes.

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