Proper 27B
In the name of the God of truth: help us find your truth. Amen.
The theatre where Michael and I have found our creative home over the past few years, down in Cranford, just recently closed a production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Though I will freely admit that I have some theological issues here and there with some of the ways Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice chose to tell the story of the last days of Jesus’ life, it’s still a show we both really love.
We didn’t have a huge hand in the production of this show like we have for many others, but the lighting was particularly complicated, and it required someone with a honed sense of musical timing to make it work, so Michael was enlisted to run the light board and its some 400 light cues. And partly because all that complicated lighting was simply so beautiful, I volunteered to take the production photos for the show. I’m certainly no professional photographer, but I have invested in some decent camera equipment, and I do have a pretty good eye for framing a shot, so I enjoy supporting shows in that way.
One of the things I’ve learned about the practice of photography – as amateur as I am – is that one of the real skills a photographer needs to have is to imagine a visual layout that you can’t directly see. For example, from any given perspective, if we’re going to try to capture the most beautiful, representative images that best help to tell the story we’re trying to capture, we have to be able to see what’s in front of us, and use it to imagine how it might look different from a different angle.
Every image captured by the camera is true. But different images point us to truth differently. Different perspectives highlight different aspects of the same story, and sometimes even leave us with different ways of looking at the world.
In the story of Jesus, in the scene where Pilate interrogates Jesus, Jesus says, “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.” And Pilate astutely responds, “What is truth?” A rhetorical question that’s left hanging in the uncomfortable silence. A question that can have no answer from our limited perspectives, but one that we, who encounter Christ, must keep asking.
In many ways, the whole point of the Gospel lesson that we read today is about truth. It’s about recognizing that truth isn’t always as it appears, and that a lot of the time, what the world insists is truth, is really pretty far from it.
One of the biblical commentaries that I read this week as I was preparing had an interesting insight that I had never really considered. It reminded us that in the languages of the ancient world, punctuation didn’t exist like it does today. So, whenever we see punctuation in the scriptures, it was put there later by translators. A lot of the time, punctuation represents a kind of interpretation of scripture. This particular commentator specifically called into question the comma in that first sentence that we read in the gospel this morning. “Beware of the scribes, [COMMA] who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect at the marketplace, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets!”
I always feel a little backhanded by the irony of being a religious leader and reading those words standing here in long, expensive, ornate robes. Jesus is saying, beware of people like me. At least, that’s what that comma implies.
But the writer of the commentary advised us to consider reading the sentence without the comma. “Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and to be greeted with respect…” and all the rest. In other words, beware of the ones who use these tools of religion to puff themselves up. Beware of the ways that it distracts us all from the real purpose of the practice of faith.
Without that comma, the gospel isn’t unilaterally denigrating a whole group of people but advising caution around the ones who use their power only for themselves, and not for the greater good.
With just a comma, or not, our whole perspective changes. A different truth emerges.
And that perspective serves up the story of the widow’s mite through an entirely different viewpoint. This is a common story for churches to use in their stewardship seasons. It lifts up as ideal, the woman who gave everything she had to support the religious institution of her time. The implication is clear: we should all strive to be like her. Give more. Give everything.
But in the context of the now-absent comma above, maybe the story is a little more complex than that. In the warning about the scribes, we’re told to recognize that just because something looks holy, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is holy. In the story of those who gave before the widow, we’re told to recognize that just because something appears generous, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is generous. And the widow shows us: just because something appears insignificant, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is.
The stories are, as much as anything, about questioning the reality that seems the most obvious. Sometimes, with a simple shift in perspective, we can see that a clearer path to “truth” is somewhere else.
I haven’t watched the news much this week. But the little bit of commentary that I have heard has been a call to action for the political leaders of this country to hear the clamoring majority. It’s clear, many pundits say, we have to shift our behavior because the majority has spoken.
The thing is, I’m not so sure it is clear. It’s maybe – and really, only maybe – a bit clearer what the majority of those who voted said, but even so, Americans are notoriously apathetic when it comes to making our voices heard at the polls, and this year was no different. In fact, that apathy was actually worse than it sometimes is. Both parties received fewer votes than they did last time. Some 16 million fewer people voted this year than did four years ago.
A poet that I follow on social media shared one of his poems this week and it included the line, “I don’t know if the devil exists / but if there is one / his name is apathy”.
I don’t really know what the polls showed us this week, but one thing that seems pretty clear is that they showed us that apathy is still very real. It is an evil we still have working against us.
The other thing I know, is that in the context of Jesus’ teachings about scribes being puffed up and widows’ gifts, we have to acknowledge that truth may not be as easy or straightforward as we’re led to believe. So, when you’re happy with the result of an election, be careful about being too puffed up. We don’t really know what was said. The first thing we think we’ve heard isn’t usually all that was said. And, when you’re upset by the result of an election, be careful about discounting your influence too much. We still don’t really know what was said. You may not be as representative or as insignificant as you think.
And I’m glad that theology and the word of God aren’t interpreted by pundits looking for soundbites and quick answers. Because today’s gospel shows us that “truth”, in the world of Christ, takes so much more discernment to understand and appreciate than do those easy answers that are pressed onto us by the powerful.
The powerful are almost always far more interested in securing their own power than they are about thinking of the rabble that got them there.
When I went back to the 18th chapter of John to reread the interaction between Jesus and Pilate that brought me here, a curious thing stood out to me for the first time. At first, Pilate met the crowd outside to hear them out. But when he wanted to go deeper, he summoned Jesus inside. The religious leaders wouldn’t go, because doing so would have rendered them unclean according to Jewish law, and there wouldn’t be time to deal with it before the Passover.
But Jesus was summoned, and went inside.
So, according to the religious leaders of his time, Jesus was unclean at the time of his death.
Even so, the workings of God happened. Ritual defilement couldn’t stop Resurrection. The gospel was still shared with the women and the church of Jesus Christ was born.
Those priests and rabbis knew the teachings of the faith, and their perspective on truth was firm. But God, through Easter, helped us to see a different perspective. Pilate dared to ask, “What is truth?” What, indeed?
We just know, because Jesus teaches it again and again, that
truth isn’t easy. It takes work. It takes prayer. It takes a willingness to try to see the
world from a different perspective. “Easy
truth” is almost always a mirage – that is, when it’s not outright deception. Faith in Christ is calling us to see
differently. Amen.
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