Real truth, real freedom

“Truth” and “free” get thrown around a lot in our public discourse. Do we really know what they mean? Jesus embodies these words in a very particular way.

John 8:31-36

31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered him, “We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, “You will be made free’?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Dear people of God, grace to you and peace from the God who frees us by grace through faith in Christ Jesus.  Amen.

Usually on Reformation Sunday, the preacher uses the Romans text to teach us all a little bit about Luther and how that passage was the one that was so earth-shaking to Martin that he just had to speak up.

But today I want to look at the gospel.  And I hope the irony does not escape you of the presence of two words in this gospel that are red-letter words today.

Truth, and free.

TRUTH.  What other words do we hear around that today?  Fake.  Truthiness, to quote Stephen Colbert.  Honest.  The question of the year is really Pilate’s question: “What is truth?”

The word “truth” appears in John’s gospel 21 times.

And then there’s FREE.  Usually rendered in our contemporary context as “freedom.”  Which carries a cargo-load of baggage as to its meaning.  It might sound like “I have a right to…” or “it’s a free country.”

But both of these words operate differently both in Jesus’ context and in what he is trying to get across to his disciples and anyone else who might listen.  And I suspect that the number of times each word appears might be able to tell us something.

The Greek word translated here as “truth” can also be understood as meaning “revealing reality.”  That’s a good and basic understanding of truth.  We should all be able to agree on that.  But let’s think of how Jesus uses this word through the rest of John’s gospel – I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life, for example.

Jesus is saying that HE is revealing reality.

And if we think about how Jesus acts, what he says and does as he moves through his amazingly short time on earth – that’s exactly what he always does.

If we go all the way back to his birth story – we see that he reveals reality in the conditions of his birth.  Across all of history, people of little means have struggled to safely bring a child into the world.  This continues to this day; the infant mortality rate in the US among people in low socio-economic circumstances is significantly higher than those with ample economic means.

Every public thing Jesus does reveals a part of our shared reality of which far too many of us may have neither knowledge nor experience.

And the struggles of folks in Jesus’ time aren’t really that different from those of our own time.

But in revealing these realities, Jesus does the next step as well: connecting with those involved.

He who reveals the truth of the world around us, then steps into that truth to name it and accompany us through it.

Luther called this “the theology of the cross.”  We call a thing what it is; we don’t try to sugar-coat it into something it’s not.

Luther’s contrast was “a theology of glory” that would try to make the evil actually look good, and vice versa.

On the surface, that might make us say, well, who would do that?

But history is overflowing with examples of those who have cast their horrific deeds in terms that make them seem necessary.  For the common good.  Or to keep us all safe.

For Luther, being a theologian of the cross means we don’t cover things up.  We tell the truth about whatever is on the table.  If it’s bad, we own that.  If it’s good, we give thanks to God.

Being a theologian of the cross means being a truth-teller.  Not popular – but a truth-teller.

And this is what Jesus spent his entire ministry doing: telling the truth about the world, about who God is, and about who Jesus is.  And about what that means for God’s beloved creation.

When you tell the truth, there’s no guarantee that it will be pretty.  But as I instructed my son when he was little, telling the truth means you never have to try to remember the lie you told last time.

As Lutherans, we confront the truths of this world because that is where God meets us.  Particularly in the places of suffering.  God does not magically whisk it away; rather, God walks with us in the pain.

And then there is the word “free.”

A word that in our American context, is loaded with more baggage than a UPS aircraft these days.

I am becoming increasingly aware that what I’ve always thought of as “free” is actually nothing of the kind.  If “free” means that I can do whatever I want, then I’ve come to realize that this is becoming a slave to myself.

If I insist on doing whatever I want, then the potential for self-destruction is staggering.

Not to mention the destruction of others.

So what does Jesus mean here, when he says “free”?

I don’t think it’s quite the same as we Americans think when we hear the word “free”.

Rather, I will use the words of theologian Robert Capon:

St. Paul had not said to you, “Think how it would be if there were no condemnation”; he has said, “There is therefore now none.” He had made an unconditional, not a conditional statement — a flat assertion, not a parabolic one. He has not said, “God has done this and that and the other thing, and if, by dint of imagination, you can manage to put them all together, you may be able to experience a little solace in the prison of your days.” No, He has simply said, “You are free. Your services are no longer required. The salt mine has been closed.”

[He goes on:]  It is essential that you see this clearly. The Apostle is saying that you, and Paul, and I have been sprung. Right now; not next week, or at the end of the world. And unconditionally, with no probation officer to report to. But that means that we have finally come face to face with the one question we have always thought we were aching to hear but that we now realize we have scrupulously ducked every time it got within a mile of us. It was the question…[that] has been lurking all along: What would you do with freedom if you had it? Only now it is posed to you not in the subjunctive but in the indicative: You are free. What do you plan to do? [pp. 117-118]  (Robert Capon, Between Noon and Three)

This is a freedom that I’m not sure any of us can really comprehend within the confines of our American legal system.

What kind of a freedom releases us completely to ourselves, but then wants to know what we will do next?

God’s freedom.  The freedom God pours out on us in Christ.

For is we are truly freed in Christ, then the power of that freedom can never be contained; it must be shared.

When we live to ourselves, we turn in on the self.  We end up living a life that is tied only to the span of our life, and has no tether to the God who spans the endless life span of the universe.

But when we embrace this freedom in Christ and begin to live for others, the years that we are given don’t matter as much.  When we live for others, time loses its boundaries and our lives become, as the scripture says, “hid with Christ in God.”

Our lives do not disappear; rather, they join with the lives of countless others across the ages who have poured themselves out for the life of the world.  For the in-breaking of God’s peaceable realm.

If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

If the Son makes you to understand the truth about freedom, you will understand that it means you are freed in ways you never knew existed.  You will understand that you are freed to live life fully, beyond the boundaries of your self and into the boundless place of all of God’s creation.

For all this, may we be truly thankful.

Amen.

In _________ We Trust

In which Jesus puts money in proper perspective. Many thanks to the ongoing work of the Working Preacher website and to one of its primary contributors, Rolf Jacobsen, whose work I loosely quote throughout.

Matthew 22:15-22

¹⁵Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap [Jesus] in what he said. ¹⁶So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. ¹⁷Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?” ¹⁸But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, “Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? ¹⁹Show me the coin used for the tax.” And they brought him a denarius. ²⁰Then he said to them, “Whose head is this, and whose title?” ²¹They answered, “The emperor’s.” Then he said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” ²²When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

Dear friends, beloved of God: grace to you and peace this day from the God of the universe, through Christ the teacher.  Amen.

Show me the money.

With his own version of this phrase, Jesus one-ups the Pharisees yet again.  Not for the express purpose of one-upping them, but to continue to bear witness to the true nature of the reign of God.

A little context: Jesus has triumphantly entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, likely very close to the same time as Pilate was entering another gate of the city in a similarly triumphant procession.  The difference, of course, being that Pilate’s parade was merely a show of power; Jesus’ entrance was meant to upend the assumptions held around power.

Upon his arrival in Jerusalem, Jesus proceeds to the temple, where he spends many days preaching and teaching.  And this is where we find him in our story today.  And the things he’s been saying haven’t exactly been the party line of the powers that be.

If anything, they stand in direct opposition to those powers.  And so the Pharisees have joined forces with an unlikely crowd – the Herodians – to try to trip up Jesus so that they have a reason to bring charges against him.

The Pharisees are the ultimate law-keepers of the Hebrew people.  The Herodians are more of a Herod fan club.  What they have in common is a desire to maintain their power.  And so they approach Jesus together, in the temple, asking a question that is meant to trip him up.

They ask a question that has both civil and religious undertones: is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor?

They are hoping that his answer to this question will brand him as a radical firebrand who is out to overthrow the Roman occupying force.  After all, that is the picture of “Messiah” that they’ve held onto for a long, long time.  That’s the answer that will give them the evidence they need to haul him in front of the Roman authorities.

In other words: it’s a trap.

Jesus is quite aware of their motives, and in his handling of their question he reveals their hypocrisy around the entire topic.

Taxes in Jesus’ time were more of a means for Rome to maintain control and keep the local population subdued.  Taxes were no more popular then than they are today, though their character was certainly different.  Taxes were a tool of corruption and oppression by the occupying empire.  This is a distinct part of the story, although this story is absolutely NOT about the separation of church and state.  Such a thing wasn’t a concept in Jesus’ time.

The Pharisees were hoping for an answer proclaiming that one should pay taxes, thereby giving them reason to condemn Jesus for heresy.  The Herodians, on the other hand, were hoping for Jesus to tell those assembled NOT to pay taxes, which would give them what they needed to get the Roman authorities involved.

Jesus responds to their question by asking them to show him the coin with which they would pay said taxes.  They readily produce a coin with the emperor Tiberius’ image on it and wording that says “Son of the divine Augustus” – essentially, the son of God as far as Rome was concerned.

Keep in mind, this is happening in the temple.  The reason there were money changers at the entrance to the temple is that these coins, with graven images, were not allowed inside the temple.  Monetary temple offerings had to be converted to temple currency without any such images – and like most currency exchange houses today, there was a significant fee charged for such conversion, usually a pretty outrageous one which is why Jesus got mad and threw those tables over.

So by the showing of the Roman coin, the Pharisees and the Herodians have already broken the law that they claim to be so very concerned about, that prohibits graven images and anything that claims to be superior to the God of Israel.  An interesting sidebar to this whole story.

So what are we to make of Jesus’ answer, give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s?

Well, let’s take a look at some of our own currency, our own US currency.  I have a few coins, and I have a one-dollar and a five-dollar bill.

On the face of each of these appears the image of a US president – Lincoln, Washington, and Franklin Roosevelt.  There are other identifying marks, like a serial number and the Treasury seal.  On the reverse of the bills, there is the Lincoln Memorial on the $5 bill, and both sides of the Great Seal of the United States on the $1 bill.  The imagery used for that seal has some interesting origins; look it up sometime.  And on each piece of currency, whether it be coin or bill, is the US slogan “In God We Trust”.  Each one also features the previous US slogan, “E Pluribus Unum”, Latin for “Out of Many, One.”  It was replaced in 1956 around the same time “Under God” was inserted into the pledge of allegiance.

The coins we carry are not all that different than the coins that the Romans carried.  They have pictures of our Caesars, and the inscription “In God We Trust.”  Yet are those words an empty promise? In what do we truly trust?  Theologian Brian McLaren has commented that “We write ‘in God we trust’ upon the god we truly trust”.

Are we to assume that this money belongs to God because it has “In God We Trust” on it?

Or should we assume that everything, even this paper money and coins, comes from God?

(I’m reminded of a sign in a pizza parlor where I grew up: “In God We Trust. All Others Pay Cash.”)

I suppose we could also look at our currency and conclude that it all belongs to our modern-day Caesar, the federal government.  After all, it does say “Federal Reserve Note.”

But I think Jesus is looking to teach a deeper lesson.

“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s” is neither a condemnation of taxes nor capitulation to the authorities of Caesar.  It is a reminder that the coins they produce have no value in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Maybe the question we might be moved to ask here is, if the determining factor is what image is on something, what has God’s image on it?

Dear people, that is you and me, and all of humanity, and indeed all of creation.

If we are completely God’s – and we say this in our prayers, and sing it in our hymns all the time – then Jesus is calling us to give ourselves completely to God.

What does this say about allegiance?

Is Jesus saying that we owe nothing to a false God like Caesar and should reserve all things for God? 

Is he inviting us to recognize that while we may, in fact, owe the emperors of this world some things — like taxes — we owe God other things — like our whole selves? 

Is Jesus instead inviting us to avoid giving our allegiance to the material and temporal things of this world that our coins can buy (and that seem to delight emperors) and demanding our ultimate devotion go to God? 

Is Jesus saying that we should capitulate to governmental leaders, because it is only God who ordains their power?

All of these answers are plausible.  It’s not an easy choice to say which might be right.  Jesus calls us to think about these things; to consider them through the lens of the gospel.

What is God’s?  If the answer seems easy – “all things,” the implication is anything but easy.  What does it mean to render all things to God?  

Jesus never makes this easy.  But Jesus does challenge us to think broader and act bolder as we journey with him on this road of life.

On the face of this story, Jesus is catching his adversaries in their own trap.  But in the deeper analysis, Jesus calls us to look deep into our own hearts, into our own lives, and ask ourselves:

What does it mean, what does it look like to dedicate our whole selves to God?

Where are the places God is calling me into, and for what purpose?

Does my devotion to another god – whatever that is – get in the way of dedicating my whole self to God?

And in my own pondering, I have come to the conclusion that the God to which the bills and coins in my purse bear witness is not the God of the cross.  It’s far too great a contrast.

So what are we to do?  As Luther put it, “how then shall we live?”

It seems to me that Jesus’ words: “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s and give to God the things that are God’s,” at once free us to live with the emperor BUT to live for God.  

The kingdoms of this earth are all around us and trap us in their sickening realities.

But the kingdom of God—which is not of this world—is even now breaking into this world and freeing us to live lives of faith in God and love of God and neighbor.

In whom do you trust?

Amen.

How Not To Kingdom

This gospel story is really off-putting at first, but diving deeper was fascinating. What is Jesus trying to tell us? More than one thing, I think.

Matthew 22:1-14

1 Once more Jesus spoke to them in parables, saying: 2 “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding banquet for his son. 3 He sent his slaves to call those who had been invited to the wedding banquet, but they would not come. 4 Again he sent other slaves, saying, “Tell those who have been invited: Look, I have prepared my dinner, my oxen and my fat calves have been slaughtered, and everything is ready; come to the wedding banquet.’ 5 But they made light of it and went away, one to his farm, another to his business, 6 while the rest seized his slaves, mistreated them, and killed them. 7 The king was enraged. He sent his troops, destroyed those murderers, and burned their city. 8 Then he said to his slaves, “The wedding is ready, but those invited were not worthy. 9 Go therefore into the main streets, and invite everyone you find to the wedding banquet.’ 10 Those slaves went out into the streets and gathered all whom they found, both good and bad; so the wedding hall was filled with guests. 11 “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing a wedding robe, 12 and he said to him, “Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding robe?’ And he was speechless. 13 Then the king said to the attendants, “Bind him hand and foot, and throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ 14 For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Dear beloved of God, grace to you and peace this day from God the Provider through Christ the Shepherd.  Amen.

One of the things we pastors are taught about preaching is that we should always ask of the text, “what’s the good news here?”

That question might be a little difficult to answer today, of our gospel reading.  At first reading, it seems to be lacking in good news.

Jesus tells a story about a king who seems pretty impulsive and extreme.  This king wants things done his way, and when that doesn’t happen, his reaction tends to be one of violence.

The “A” list of guests doesn’t win any prizes for good character, either.  They either ignore the king’s invitation or quite literally kill the messenger.

The king then sends his servants out to invite folks from off the street – what we might call the “B” list or even the “C” list.  And in the midst of this, one guy shows up without a wedding garment, which in Jesus’ time would have been a robe reserved for special occasions.  It was worn to show respect for one’s host.

The king (not surprisingly) doesn’t take this well, and ends up having the guy chained up and thrown out.  Lovely story.

Not only is this story off-color, but its interpretation over the centuries hasn’t fared much better.  It’s been used in countless situations to justify violence against someone who offends whoever is in charge.

It’s been seen as an allegorical representation of God’s kingdom, with the king as God, the rude non-responsive guests as the Jewish religious leaders of the time, and the “B” and “C” list guests as the Gentiles and other Christians.  In this reading, the violent destruction involving the “A” guest list is seen as God using Rome to destroy Jerusalem and the temple in 70 AD (something Matthew’s audience would have just been through).

This is problematic on a number of levels.  The framework of “God is love” is at distinct odds with a king who throws violent temper tantrums whenever he doesn’t get his way.  It’s also very prone to interpretation as “supersessionism” – the idea that Christianity supercedes and is superior to Judaism, a way of thinking that continues to this day and has been responsible for literally millions of deaths of Jewish people around the world.

So why are we reading it?  Fair question.  Let us look at the broad scope of what’s going on in this story.

As a parable, it’s a story with a lesson, maybe even several lessons.  One of the lessons that rises up for me is in the odd situation with the guy without a wedding robe.

This parable uses a paradox – being invited, and having an obligation in accepting that invitation – that is widely understood as illustrating that God invites all to the banquet – to discipleship – but then there are behaviors or actions that are expected.

Martin Luther explained this better than anyone when he said “God has no need of your good works, but your neighbor does.”  While we are NOT saved by our good works – in other words, what we do has no bearing on God’s love for us, God loves us without condition – we ARE called to respond to that love in service to the neighbor.  That is what the wedding robe represents: response.  Going all-in when becoming a disciple of Jesus.

For a number of years now, the American church has been very leery of making this claim.  Too many years of high-pressure tactics to increase church membership have resulted in a rebound of zero pressure.

And “pressure” is really not the right word.  The tactics we might describe as “high-pressure” were really just tactics that benefited the church more than the surrounding community.  They came off more like country-club rules than ways to grow as a disciple of Jesus.

But for the church to react by going to the polar opposite does no one any favors either.  It cheapens the whole idea of discipleship.  We might say “oh, but we don’t want folks to think they have to add anything else to their calendar.”  Well, that’s more of the country-club realm.

Instead, when we invite people to walk with us in a life of service to the community and to the world, we put muscle and sinew on the bones of life in Christ.  To say “I go to Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church, and as followers of Jesus we believe our faith is shown most clearly when we serve others” carries legitimacy in this world.  Try it!  Just last week I was talking with the new Womens’ AA group meeting at our church on Wednesdays at noon.  The conversation came around to the work we’re continuing in the community during the pandemic, and they all wanted to know more and could they be involved when this is all over?

I’ve found this to be true in virtually all age groups.  Church as a calendar item holds far less interest for someone than church as a place and an opportunity to join others in service to the world and in worship of God.

Living our faith out in our daily lives is putting on that wedding robe.  Going the extra step, because Jesus calls us to do that.  It’s costly discipleship – not cheap grace.

Let’s pull back again, and look at the whole story.  We’ve got a king with some control issues.  (Which might give us a good idea of why the A-listers ignored the invitation.)  Equating this king with God can end up normalizing depictions of God as an angry and violent ruler who ruthlessly punishes others; this has the effect of condoning imperial violence—past and present—that operates in arbitrary ways and dehumanizes people at the margins.  We don’t need to look far to see examples of this from ancient and modern history.

If God the ruler is violent, human rulers and humans too can be justified in using excessive violence against others.  It is also a means of allowing ourselves to be violent—through deeds or words—towards our neighbors that are less privileged than us.

Matthew may have used this allegory in his context because it worked for them.  But we need not follow that literal allegorical path.  As I examined the text closely, I noticed that Jesus says, “the kingdom of God may be compared to a king…”

Perhaps Jesus’ words here invite us to ask whether this particular king was fit to rule over his people – because in this story, he emerges as someone who was deeply undeserving of his power and abused it at will.

Perhaps in this lesson, Jesus is showing us that the power we associate with earthly kingdoms is not that of the kingdom of God.  That the power plays of earthly kingdoms have no place in God’s kingdom.  That God shows us true power in the cross, when Jesus surrenders all power but ultimately is victorious over death itself.

We hear in the words of institution that the new covenant is in Jesus’ blood shed for us and for all people for the forgiveness of sin.  If God the ruler is violent, then Jesus’ death on the cross is meaningless; just another revolutionary killed by the state.

But if God the ruler deplores that violence – if God the ruler is a ruler through love and love alone – then this story calls us to live into our baptismal promise to reject the forces of evil and all the things that draw us away from God.  To reject a way of living that relies on violence and oppression, and instead to adopt a way of being in the world that insists, “love is the way.”

Dear friends, I believe Jesus tells this story as a subtle way of communicating what not to do in the kingdom of God, as well as reminding us that as followers of Jesus of Nazareth, we are called to put on the wedding robe and become – as our baptismal words also tell us – workers together in the kingdom of God.

And ultimately, I think Jesus calls us to a new vision of kingdom, one that the late theologian Rachel Held Evans summed up well:

“This is what God’s kingdom is like: a bunch of outcasts and oddballs gathered at a table, not because they are rich or worthy or good, but because they are hungry, because they said yes.  And there’s always room for more.”

Perhaps in this time of COVID, that vision burns a little more brightly before us as the celebration for which we yearn, in the future when it is safe to physically gather again.

Let us pray fervently for that day.

Amen.