OCT. 29, 2006 PASTOR SCOTT FULLER
JER 31:31-34; PS 46; RO 3:19-28; JN 8:31-36
Prepare our hearts, Lord, to receive your Word. Silence in us any voice but your own that in hearing we believe and in believing we obey your will revealed to us in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Dear friends in Christ: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
You will know the truth and the truth will make you free… What a positive pronouncement…what an optimistic assertion…what a beneficial benediction! I wonder, though…what does it mean? Because the truth is that we know a lot of truths that don’t necessarily make us free.
Studies confirm that tobacco use can cause cancer…
does knowing that truth set people free from chewing or smoking?
Countless lives have been ruined by alcohol-and-other-drug-abuse…
does knowing that truth set people free from drinking or using?
The labels prove that some packaged foods are bad for us…
does knowing that truth set people free from unhealthy eating?
Experience shows that berating someone for making a mistake
is not the best way to help them improve…
does knowing that truth set people free to encourage?
We Americans live to consume, while so many others just struggle to live…
does knowing that truth set people free to serve their neighbors in need?
Each of these questions can be answered with the same two words: not necessarily. So you and I are forced to ask, How is this saying is true?
Well, let’s start with the Gospel lesson when Jesus speaks to the Jews who had believed in him. The first thing to note is that most of Jesus’ followers, like the Lord himself, were Jews – that almost goes without saying. But here in John’s Gospel, the phrase the Jews means: all those in the Jewish hierarchy who became opponents of Jesus. And at this point in the story, his negative numbers are growing – because Jesus refuses to play nice and insists, instead, on speaking the hard truth of God’s Word.
We can see the tension flare. When Jesus says to his audience, You will know the truth and the truth will make you free, that offends the ears of his hearers. They jump to the abstract notion of political freedom and declare, We’ve never been enslaved to anyone! Perhaps they forgot about that little episode down in Egypt…and maybe they thought that all those Roman soldiers were just…tourists who happened to be well-organized and very well-armed. But enslaved they are, and in more ways than one.
And as Jesus got into trouble back then so he gets into trouble with us…he refuses to let us hide in the abstract, in our excuses, in any unhealthy diet of half-truths that we heap upon our plates.
Jesus’ point, I think, is that sin is like a many-tentacled octopus. Each arm can claim its own victim and for a variety of reasons – but the result is the same. From those who suffer a weakness of will to those who see them-selves as somewhat superior: says the Lord, Everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. Weekly you and I acknowledge that struggle when we confess together that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves.
So, how do we get out of it? How do we escape the abstract and embrace what’s real? How are we to deal with the sin that separates us from God and from one another?
Pastor Ann Larson describes a poster she once had of a rag doll caught in an old ringer-washer. Believe it or not, my freshman year of college we had to use ringer-washers. And though I never saw a doll stuck between the rollers, I did see a number of hands and arms get caught in those contraptions.
Anyway, her poster showed the rag doll similarly trapped. Underneath were printed the words, The truth shall set you free. But first it will make you miserable (www.homiliesbymail.com/Special/Reformation/sermon5.html).
And, you know, there’s something very true about that. It’s kind of like the classic good news/bad news joke – except without any humor! For the truth this saying conveys is no laughing matter.
When we’ve hurt someone’s feelings and have to apologize…the truth will
make us free…but first it’ll make us miserable.
When we stand before a group at AA or NA and say, Hi, I’m an alcoholic or
addict…the truth will make us free…but first it’ll make us miserable.
When the doctor says those dreaded words: You have cancer, but here’s my
plan…the truth will make us free…but first it’ll make us miserable.
So it is in so many settings when the Word of God meets the suffering of the world: in the same room, across town, throughout the country and around the world. God calls, equips, and sends us forth to speak and serve and suffer in the name of Christ.
In the movie Jakob the Liar, Robin Williams plays a reluctant rabbi in a Jewish Ghetto in Poland near the end of WWII. Hopelessness and despair reign supreme. Shut-off from the world, the people are left to wonder and worry about loved ones, news of the war and their own dismal future. Some give in to the oppressive weight of depression, and the grief of the others is compounded.
One day, Jakob, on a visit to the police station, overhears a radio broadcast that the Russian army is only 400 km away. He shares his news back in the Ghetto without revealing his source. People speculate that he has a forbidden radio and start pressuring him for more news. That is when Jakob starts to lie – and amazing things start to happen. He sees the shroud of despair disappear, the notion of hope reborn, the spark of their spirit start to soar, so he feeds them truths…from his imagination. The Secret Police eventually arrest him and he is killed…but the people know the truth and that truth has made them free to live.
So what do you and I do with it? How is this saying true for us? Well, I think the best thing we can do is greet each day as God’s new creation and dare to live as if God’s truth will make us free. We greet each day as students of God’s Word and dare to live as if that truth will make others free. We greet each day as God’s beloved children and dare to live as if the good news of that truth will make us and all people forever free. Amen.