“What is Truth?”
John 8:31-36
Scripture:
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.
Introduction:
For those of you who listen to Pop radio or pay attention
to the R&B charts, you may have heard of the 21 year old artist Tinashe. Her debut album Aquarius has proven to be a bit of an
oddity within this year’s R&B releases. In an interlude entitled, “What is
there to lose” she asks the question, “What is reality? What is truth, if truth
is subjective?” As the Brooklyn critic Meaghan Garvey suggested, this question
can sound like a “dorm-room stoner koan.”[1]
Pundits of all genres have notched countless publications,
if not whole careers, to their resumes in the critique of such seemingly
foolish questions. Many might believe that such thoughts are best left to the
late-night haze of the dorm rooms of yesteryear. Yet, this question has plagued
many. Philosophers like Edmund Husserl and Mathematicians like Kürt Gödel have
changed the way academics think about the question. Likewise, in the 1950’s and
60’s we saw an outpouring of these sorts of ideas and questions beyond the
doors of the ivory tower. First came the beatniks and then the hippies. For
many, society seemed to be unraveling.
At the heart of all of this was a fundamental question.
“What is truth?” Many may believe that the answer is obvious. Many others have
dedicated their lives to the study of this one question. When Pastor Mayra
assigned me today’s text and topic, she gave something akin to both a blessing
and a curse. I could not ask for a topic that intrigues me more. Yet, I also
have to be honest with you. Humanity has been wrestling with the details of
this issue for thousands of years. My efforts, here this morning, will be but a
modest attempt to bring the significance and application of John’s thoughts on
these issues into your hearts and minds.
This sort of question is not something to be easily
answered. Rather, like Jacob’s wrestling with God, this is a question to be
tried and journeyed.[2] So
it is with a mixture of enthusiasm and trepidation that I approach you with
today’s sermon. The topic before us is both lofty and academic, but also
immensely practical. It is perhaps the question at the heart of all questions.
So let us journey together with John this morning and see where the Spirit
might be leading us.
What
is Truth?:
In the text we encounter this morning Jesus is speaking to “the
Jews who had believed in him” (8:31). What follows is a progressive unraveling
of what these followers believed. Rather than providing some smooth messages of
assurance, Jesus rattles the perceptions and sensibilities of his listeners. He
suggests that they are enslaved (8:32) – something they wholeheartedly want to
reject (8:33). Christ’s point was that the whole world is enslaved to sin
(8:34). Luckily, Jesus also adds a message of hope. Through the Son, who is
Christ, we can find freedom from our entrapment, from our slavery (8:35-36).
We also find that Jesus is making a big claim. "If you
continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and
the truth will make you free" (8:32). This phrase, “continue in my word”
is more than the belief his audience had based upon his words. Jesus is now
asking those who believe to ‘follow’ him (8:12) or ‘walk with him’ (6:60) in
the sense of giving him their allegiance.
So when we look at this passage, we find that Jesus is
telling us some very important things. For one thing, humanity is being held
captive. But that captivity is not the end of the story. Instead, God has sent
a person who can break us out of that captivity. God has sent us the Truth.
The fundamental issue at hand, when we look at this passage
of scripture, is that God has sent Godself – in the form of the Son Jesus
Christ – to liberate us from our captivity. And it is this captivity that
limits us, chains us, and isolates us. When we ask, “What is truth?” in
relation to this passage of scripture, we are also asking what is not truth?
We find that sin and darkness are the opponents of Truth in
this passage, but their meaning extends well beyond the lists of “You shall
not’s” we find elsewhere. Instead, sin is “a state of alienation from God […]
that precedes all human acts.”[3]
Sin is the category in which the world exists apart from God – it is
separation. People are naturally centered upon themselves and what they can
perceive about their own worlds.
It is this separation from God that enslaves us. It
confines us to what we can see and makes us blind to the “signs” of God’s work
that the Gospel of John makes such a big deal out of. But just as importantly,
our separation of God is a separation from the Truth.
If you remember, I quoted Tinashe’s question earlier. She asked, “What is truth, if truth is
subjective?” In response I ask, “but what if Truth is not subjective?” By that
I don’t mean to be snarky or critical of her question. I embrace it! Instead, I
concede that OUR truths are subjective. Each of us is limited by our context,
our limited range of experiences and knowledge. But God is not.
God is all-knowing, and only God exists apart from the
created order. So ‘absolute truth,’ beyond the boundaries of subjectivity, (beyond our human capacities) can only
exist with God. Since God is the only one who exists outside of context, only
He can be called Truth. This is what John means when we read words describing
Christ as the “Word.” Christ is God’s plan of deliverance. Jesus came to bring
us back into a relationship with God the Father.
Truth
as Relational – God:
So when we ask, “what is truth?” and reply that it is God,
we are acknowledging that it is only through our relationship to God that we
encounter ‘Truth’ beyond context, beyond subjectivity, beyond us. God’s truth
can break through the confines of our limited perspective and bring us into the
Kingdom of God, where new things are possible.
In other words,
when we lose track of our relationship to God, we limit ourselves and the work
God can do through us. We frequently here lists about the problems of society
from our musicians, artists, and poets. At points we all experience humanity as
cold, hurtful, and selfish. Yet, amidst all the problems that face our human
race, perhaps what we really need is a change of focus!
We need focus less upon who we are, and more upon WHO GOD
IS! We all know that we are limited and finite. We are each subject to the
contexts of culture, ethnicity, health, family, language, and psychology. But
God takes us beyond all of that. And that is Good News! I believe that the
Truth, is to be found in one’s relationship to God. Only God can claim to be
absolute truth, and as a consequence our relationship to truth comes through
our relationship to God.
Truth
as Relational – Humanity:
When we lose track of our relationship to God, we begin to
focus more upon what we can perceive – what we think. We start places people
into the boxes we make with our heads. When we categorize people we often fail
to grasp the significance of their experiences and context. In other words, we
fail to be empathetic because we fail to get beyond ourselves.
All the categorizes that make us different from one-another
begin to pile up until we have completely dehumanized another person. This is
often done unintentionally, but is often done all the same. When we let our
differences pile up so much that we stop trying to even attempt to put
ourselves in each other’s shoes, we have forgotten what is most important.
We don’t have a grip on the Truth. It is not something we
can control or mold to our will. Instead, when we place ourselves into
discipleship, the Truth can take hold of us. God is the Truth, and through his
help we can begin to see a bigger universe. The categorizes that confine us to
our little dominions begin to disappear and we begin to see a whole human race
crying out for help – longing for a savior, longing for something that can
release us from our slavery.
Some of you may
remember the Five Man Electrical Band
song, “Signs.” In it, the lyricist famously sings, “Long Haired Freaky People Need Not Apply.” The
artists are referencing a hippies attempt to get a job. But as you can guess
the long-hair and look the hippy carries make this difficult because they
brought about an immediate judgment. Even little things like hair or clothing
inhibit us from being able to walk a mile in another person’s shoes. These
categories let us place people here or there, all the while diminishing from
who those people might really be.
We do this because we are small and we
do not understand. But we have Good News. God is big! And God knows each and
every one of us intimately. God has been there with you through every pain and
trial. While other people may not always get it, God does. And it is perhaps
from this empathy that God shows us, that we can begin to show empathy towards
one another. We may not always understand what another person may be going
through, but we can have faith in our God – who is the way, the truth, and the
life. Through Him we can find our liberation.
Conclusion:
Before I wrap up, I just want to summarize a few things. We
are limited, but God is not. Instead, God is the absolute Truth. In God’s son
Jesus, humanity is brought back into relationship with God and reborn. In
earnest supplication we need to go to God each day with a prayer for empathy. We
need to be reminded that although we often fail to relate to other people’s
situations, God knows everything. Through His strength and guidance we can
begin to go beyond the things that separate us from one another, and show the
love that God has shown us to others.
Let
us pray before we sing:
“Lord, send out your light and truth among us. Let it lead
us and bring us into a deeper commitment to you and to others. Let it soothe
our souls and give us peace. In the name of you son, our Lord, Amen.”
[1] See: Meaghan Garvey, “Tinashe,
Aquarius” on Pitchfork Reviews, www.pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/19910-tinashe-aquarius/
[2] Jean-François Lyotard’s
incredulity toward metanarratives is something to be embraced, rather than
feared. It pushes us to recover the narrative character of the Christian faith,
rather than understanding it a collection of propositions or ideas. Lyotard
reminds us the confessional nature of our faith narrative. See: Jean-François Lyotard,
trans. Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi, The
Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 1984).
[3] Wolfhart Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, vol. ii (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991-1998), 262-263.