Thomas J Parlette
“What is Truth”
John 14: 1-14
5/10/20
Believe it or not, there used to be a theological debate that raged in our society. And it played out in a most unusual arena. This debate was not in some ivy-covered institution of theological learning; nor was it a subject for the television pundits. No, the debate occured on the backs of people’s cars.
It all began some years ago when people began to put a small fish symbol on the back of their cars. As you all know from our baptism ritual, the early Christians used the sign of the fish as a secret mark to identify their meeting places. Those early Christians were living in a time of great persecution and they needed to identify each other without giving themselves away. The fish symbol served that purpose perfectly, because the spelling of the Greek word for fish, “ichthus”, also formed an anagram which means “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior.” So every time those early christians used the fish symbol, they were making a statement of faith – Jesus Christ is God’s Son and my Savior.
A few years back, a number of Christians started putting the fish symbol on the backs of their cars. Nothing very controversial about that, hardly the basis for a heated debate – although it did give rise to a pretty good “Seinfeld” episode where Elaine yanks the fish symbol off her boyfriend David Putty’s car. But the story didn’t stop there. The bumper stickers evolved. Some Christians began to display fish symbols, not with the word “ichthus” inside, but with the word “truth” instead. Often, these were the same Christians who appeared before local school boards insisting that creationism be taught in school, side by side with the theory of evolution. And suddenly the bumper sticker debate swung into high gear. That initial non-controversial fish spawned an entire school of fish. One of them featured a similar looking fish, but this fish had little feet and inside the fish was the word “Darwin.” Still another fish had a little dome over it’s head and inside this fish was the word “Alien.” That, it seems, was someone’s humorous suggestion of how human beings first came to Earth. Even our Jewish brothers and sisters got into the act. Some bumper stickers appeared in the shape of a fish and inside was the word “Gefilte”, as in gefilte fish.(1)
But the bumper stick debate went to new level when one appeared which featured two fish, a big fish with the word “Truth” in it, and a small fish with the word “Darwin” in it. The big fish was devouring the small fish. In other words Truth- as faith defined it - was devouring science. In the great battle of the bumper stickers, biblical truth went head to head with scientific fact, and in the end one claim would devour the other. But does it really have to come to that.
Rev. Albert Butzer, once wrote that if he were in the bumper sticker business, he would design one with two fish of equal size. One would have the word “ichthus” and the other would have the word “Darwin.” But he would have these fish facing each other, maybe even kissing – not devouring one another. For the truth claims of the Bible and the truth claims of science need not be mutually exclusive. Rather, they can co-exist, side by side, because the truths they proclaim are not contradictory, but rather, complementary.(2)
While there lots of Christians who argue that the Bible is historically and scientifically accurate to every last detail, there are many other Christians, including most mainline Protestants, who believe that the Bible is not a scientific text at all. For example, Walter Brueggemann has written - “Creation, as understood in the Bible, seeks to explain nothing. Creation faith is rather a doxological response, a hymn of praise, to the wonder that I, that we, that the world exists.”(3)
The point of the creation story is not to explain HOW God did it – but to simply point out that it was done. God created all that is – the world and everything in it, including us. Science tries to figure out the recipe and the sequence. But religion identifies the Source – God.
Joseph Sittler, a prominent professor of Theology who used to teach at the University of Chicago, was both utterly serious and wonderfully whimsical when he wrote- “In the creation story we are told who we are. We are given our identity, and if we could understand that, we would stop worrying about whether the antelopes or the cantaloupes came in a certain order.”(4)
The problem for many people, Christians included, is what do we do with the other truth claims in the Bible. If, as some conservatives believe, we are going to disregard the facts of the Creation story – how are we going to stand by the other claims the Bible makes, claims about how we should live, how we should treat one another and whether Jesus was the Son of God, our savior, risen from the dead? If we don’t take the first story in the Bible as the literal, scientific truth, where do we go from there? How should we understand the rest of the truth claims in the Bible? Doesn’t Pontius Pilate speak for many of us when he asks, “What is truth?” How should we reply?
In one of his books, Canadian theologian Douglass John Hall offers this helpful distinction. He says that the essence of our Christian belief is not that the words of the Bible are true in and of themselves. Rather, what is true is that to which the Bible points.(5) In it’s own way, the Gospel of John – the book of the New Testament that has the most to say about truth – draws the same distinction.
The sixteenth chapter of the Gospel of John affirms that the “Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth.” Notice that the text does not say that we have all of the truth already in the Bible or elsewhere. Nor does it claim to be the truth itself. Rather, the text affirms that the Spirit will lead us or guide us into the truth.
Certainly we have seen this principle at work in the world of science. For centuries humans believed that the sun revolved around the earth. But in the 16th century, a polish astronomer named Copernicus said just the opposite – the earth actually revolved around the sun, the earth was not the center of things. Less than 100 years later the Italian scientist and inventor Galileo supported the Copernican view of the universe, a position that earned him the wrath of the Roman Catholic church. Although Galileo considered himself a loyal catholic, the church did not. They tried him, found him guilty of heresy, and confined him to house arrest. It took the church some 350 years to repent of it’s mistake and restore Galileo to his position as one of the pioneers of modern science. For years the church had clung to a truth claim that turned out to be false, and ultimately the Spirit led Galileo, and later the church into truth.
We can see that in the life of faith as well. On more than one occasion, we Christians have changed our minds as the Spirit has led us to discover some deeper dimension of the truth. Consider for example, the issue of slavery. For hundreds of years many Christians believed that slavery was a God-given and biblically justified right – says so right in the Bible, “Slaves be subject to your masters.” But we’ve changed our minds about that as the Spirit has guided us into truth.
For hundreds of years, Christians believed that women should not have any leadership roles in the church – some denominations still believe that. But many have changed their minds about this too as the Spirit has led them into truth, and as a result our denomination, the PCUSA has a great many ordained women as pastors and elders and deacons.
All of this by way of saying that the Bible continues to point us towards the truth that is still our ahead of us in the future. That truth is bigger, more complex and more mysterious than any book – yes, even the Bible – can contain. There are some Christians who worship the Bible. We Presbyterians and most mainline Protestants do not worship the Bible. Rather, we worship the One to whom the Bible points. And that leads us to the other claim that the Gospel of John makes about the truth.
In this passage from John 14, we have a conversation between Jesus and the disciples, in which Jesus says he is the truth. He doesn’t say that he points to the truth, although his life may be the most truthful life ever lived; nor that his teachings sound like the truth, although many of them do. Rather, the scripture makes the staggering claim that Jesus himself IS the truth. Do you remember the setting for this claim? Jesus is preparing the disciples for his departure. Soon he will go to the cross. He tells them he is going to prepare a place for them in one of the rooms of God’s house. He assures them they know the way. Thomas pipes up “Lord we don’t know where you are going. How can we know the way?” And Jesus says to him, “I am the way, and the truth and the life; no one goes to the Father except by me.”
What are we to do with that claim, particularly in these pluralistic times of tolerance in which we live? After all, many of the people we encounter in daily life don’t identify God with Jesus as we do, but with Buddha or Mohammed or the God of Abraham or someone else. Can we continue to believe that Jesus is the truth, especially in a world of many legitimate religions?
As we saw with the debate about the fish bumper stickers, people tend to take sides and fall into one category or the other. On one side of the debate will be those who insist that Jesus is the truth and that he is the only way to God. They will point to the words of this text and insist that all other religious truth claims are false. Follow Jesus or risk eternal damnation, they say, because he is the only way to God. While there is a great deal in that position that may be true, if we allow that belief to turn into arrogance, the result might just be the perversion of the very Gospel we proclaim. In the past, such a triumphant, exclusive approach launched the Crusades, burned heretics at the stake, and oppressed religious minorities – none of which seems consistent with the Jesus the New Testament proclaims as the truth.
The other side of the debate insists that Jesus was but one prophet among many, that ultimately all religions lead down the same path, that in the name of tolerance and inclusivity, we must never insist that Jesus is the only truth. But as Douglass John Hall asks, are these the only choices available to us – on the one hand to extol Jesus by excluding everybody who doesn’t name that name; and on the other hand – to minimize Jesus’ place in the Christian faith in order to appear more accepting and inclusive?(6) Are those the only choices?
Leslie Newbiggin was a minister of the United Reformed Church of the United Kingdom who spent many years as a missionary in South India. Listen to what he has to say about Jesus and truth:
“The Church proclaims that Jesus is Lord. He is Lord not only of the Church but of the world, not only in the religious life, but in all of life, not merely over some people but over all peoples… And yet, we do not know all that it means to say that Jesus is Lord. We still have to learn as we go along… We are missionaries, but we are also learners. We do not have all the truth, but we know the way along which truth is to be sought and found.”(7) For us, that way is Jesus.
So what is truth? What is the truth about Jesus? For Christians, it is that Jesus himself is the truth. He lived the truth. Jesus is the way. He lived the way. And Jesus is the life. He lived the life God intended. We don’t for sure everything that means yet, especially as it pertains to other religions with valid faith claims.
But we do know that if we follow the way in which Jesus guides us and live the way Jesus taught us – we will be led by the Spirit into the truth, and eventually to our place in God’s heavenly mansion.
May God be praised. Amen.
1. Homileticsonline, retrieved April 24th, 2020.
2. Ibid…
3. Ibid…
4. Ibid…
5. Ibid…
6. Ibid…
7. Ibid…
