“Truth, Justice, and the…Way” Vance L. Toivonen
READING John 18:33-37
Then Pilate entered the headquarters again, summoned Jesus, and asked him, "Are you the King of the Jews?" Jesus answered, "Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?" Pilate replied, "I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?" Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here." Pilate asked him, "So you are a king?" Jesus answered, "You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."
READING Abandonment to Divine Providence, Jean-Pierre de Caussade
The will of God has nothing but sweetness, favors and treasures for submissive souls; it is impossible to repose too much confidence in it, nor to abandon oneself to it too utterly. It always acts for, and desires that which is most conducive to our perfection, provided we allow it to act. Faith does not doubt. The more unfaithful, uncertain, and rebellious are the senses, the louder faith cries: “all is well, it is the will of God.” There is nothing that the eye of faith does not penetrate, nothing that the power of faith does not overcome. It passes through the thick darkness, and, no matter what clouds may gather, it goes straight to the truth, and holding to it firmly will never let it go.
SERMON
In the spring of this year Superman returned once again to movie screens. Some of us may have actually read the comic books that first gave birth to this superhero. Of course, my first experience of Superman was the syndicated airing of the television program starring George Reeves. It was the early 60s, and the Cold War was in full swing. I didn’t understand all that at the time, but there were definitely political overtones in those words reprised each week by the voice over.
After the “faster than a speeding bullet,” and the “more powerful than a locomotive,” and the “able to leap tall buildings in a single bound,” there came those words describing Superman’s mission statement, of sorts, that he was all about “truth, justice, and the American way.” But Superman is a fictional character, and the American way, whatever that might be, is open to debate.
Truth is something we would likely all suggest is preferable to falsehood, and yet difficult at times to nail down. What were once dearly held beliefs are eventually thrown on the waste heap of humanity’s so-called knowledge. For instance, the world is no longer flat, but an orb floating in a seemingly endless sea of space. Even Jupiter has been thrown out as a planet, a truth we were all prescribed to believe in school. As we evolve and grow as a species, our awareness grows, and we see the world, and our lives through new eyes.
Truth is an emerging reality. Truth evolves with us. Truth is not static. Truth is not encased in a book or a document of any kind. There are truths that we are told, in the Declaration, are self-evident; but even that truth is not a truth, for the original Declaration of Independence read, “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable.” Thomas Jefferson wrote “We hold these truths to be self evident” in his rough draft of the Declaration of Independence.
I sort of like “sacred and undeniable.” Perhaps that’s how we know truth is ultimately truth. Truth emanates from a divine source, and is undeniable when we are faced with it. Truth be told, that is the genesis of truth. Truth emerges when we are willing to look at ourselves in the mirror, see ourselves warts and all, and begin a process of taking responsibility for our way in the world. Truth emerges when it is no longer about some enemy out there, but the enemy within, the fifth column plotting and scheming in our hearts to make sure that someone, anyone besides us, takes the fall.
Jesus tells Pilate, “I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Listening to the voice of Jesus, the voice of Buddha, and the voices of others who have achieved a higher level of divine consciousness than we have, is just one way of discerning this truth within us, and of mustering the courage to take that difficult and painful look inward to discover the falsehoods lurking there, dispelling them with prayer and meditation on the grace and mercy of a loving God.
Justice is something we also want in our world, but something we know is sorely lacking. We are not always sure how to mediate this justice. The blindness and insatiability of the human species cause us to fall back upon traditional forms of justice; soldiers and police officers, lawyers and judges populate the landscape to meet out justice on our behalf. We are reluctant to accept that justice might require anything of us, so we are content to let others take care of it, the old fashioned way.
Jesus told Pilate, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” This suggests that there may very well be another path to justice, the path of the coming kingdom, the kingdom we pray for in the Lord’s Prayer. But the path of this coming kingdom is not courts and prisons. The path of God’s kingdom come, is us. It is the transformation of our lives into loving and just vehicles for God’s grace and mercy that will facilitate the coming of justice into this world. Which is why Jesus says the kingdom of God “is not from here.” It has divine roots, and those roots lie deep within us.
Which brings us to the whole “American way” thing. I think it is important for us to at least consider the possibility that the American way and God’s way are at times polar opposites. It is likely obvious from today’s second reading that I wish to lobby for God’s way, God’s will. Fr. Jean-Pierre de Caussade is an 18th century Jesuit Priest whose writings were devoted solely to this subject, abandonment to the will of God.
Now, the will of God is a tricky thing. There will be any number of folks out there seeking to educate us about the will of God. There will be those, for instance, who are absolutely convinced that it is God’s will for us to be at war in Iraq. There are those who will be absolutely convinced that it is not God’s will to be at war in Iraq. There are those who are absolutely certain that a “yes” vote on the marriage amendment was an answer to the call of God’s will, the coming of God’s kingdom. There are those who are absolutely certain that the coming of God’s kingdom is tied to equal marital rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation.
How will we discern the will of God? We know it is difficult, so let me suggest a more seminal question: Do we want to invite the will of God into our lives? Do we really want the kingdom of God to come into our world? Because if the kingdom of God is going to come into our world there is only one path, one conduit, one vehicle for its birth – our very hearts and minds. The world will only be transformed to the extent that we are transformed. Truth and justice and, yes, God’s way will only be mediated through a direct process that runs right through our lives. There is no other way.
Father de Caussade writes beautifully of this willingness to invite God’s will into our lives:
Make it your chief study to conform yourself to the will of God even in the smallest things, saying in the midst of the most annoying contradictions and with the most alarming prospects for the future: “My God, I desire with all my heart to do Your holy will, I submit in all things and absolutely to Your good pleasure for time and eternity; and I wish to do this, Oh my God, for two reasons; first: because You are my Sovereign Lord and it is but just that Your will should be accomplished; secondly: because I am convinced by faith, and by experience that Your will is in all things as good and beneficent as it is just and adorable, while my own desires are always blind and corrupt; blind, because I know not what I ought to desire or to avoid; corrupt, because I nearly always long for what would do me harm. Therefore, from henceforth, I renounce my own will to follow Yours in all things; dispose of me, Oh my God, according to Your good will and pleasure.” (Abandonment to Divine Providence, Jean-Pierre de Caussade).
It is that last line of de Caussade’s prayer that strikes at the heart of the matter; “Dispose of me, oh my God, according to Your good will and pleasure.” Dispose of me?! Oh my God, indeed. Can we even risk praying to God for the very death of our egos? Can we find the courage to let go of the “me” we know so well, and emerge reborn to a new “me,” a God-formed “me?” This is a dangerous prayer; scary, to say the least.
This is Christ the King Sunday in the Church. It is the last Sunday in the Church year, the Sunday that points to yet another cycle of birth, death, and rebirth. Christ is the embodiment, the God energy that permeates the universe in order to mediate God’s will, to facilitate the coming of God’s kingdom into reality. Jesus is sometimes referred to as The Christ, which he certainly was, and is. But he is not the only Christ. In fact, Martin Luther called us all Little Christs, because we have the potential to also mediate God’s kingdom, to be the pathways for God’s will.
The Superman myth is rich with biblical overtones, a great man from another planet sending his only son to earth to save the world. But we all know Superman doesn’t really save the world. The myth lives on, and Superman will always have work to do because the world is not ultimately saved. It is through Superman’s acts of courage that somehow humankind discovers hope and the path to another way. Hearts and minds are changed when Superman does his thing.
We know Jesus doesn’t really save the world either. If anything he empowers us toward that end. When we do our thing, and when our will, our heart, and our desire converge by God’s grace with God’s will, and heart, and desire, then Christ is indeed king, and we begin to prepare our hearts for the emergence of God’s kingdom, a world we have yet to experience, and a light so bright that we will be able to see things we’ve never seen before. As we begin soon our Advent trek, perhaps we can nurture this hope into our hearts and minds, and be willing to let God’s will take a greater place in our lives, and in our life together.