Truth, Political Hearings, and Defiant Dignity
The bible text for this week’s sermon can be found at https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=515563468
When we’re kids, we often figure out pretty quickly which adult we can go to, to get the answer we want. We know which teacher is most likely to give us a hall pass, which parent or aunt or uncle to bring our complaints to to get the biggest payout of sympathy, spoiling, or whatever other perk we have in mind. We also begin to develop an awareness that asking the question in a certain way will also help corner others into responding in the way that best serves us. I don’t believe that we are born as conniving manipulators, but we are immediately steeped in a world order where we see and so we learn…that this is the kind of behavior that gets rewarded.
We don’t have to look much farther than the past week to witness the prevalence of bad faith lines of questioning that have more to do with political posturing than any actual truth. From public hearings, to social media threads, and dinner table conversations that you know are going nowhere good…there’s a lot around us that feels like Pilate’s courtroom.
Ironically the room seems full of those trying to assert their power and at the same time avoid responsibility. While we can easily think of others who embody this all too well, we also do the same thing ourselves. Convincing ourselves that we can maneuver the world that this is for the best, no matter who gets hurt along the way, convincing ourselves that harming others is an unfortunate inevitability of an imperfect world and nothing to do with any of our choices or actions. Avoiding our own pain by placing it on others. I don’t say this to shame or to give you a bigger club to beat yourself up with. But exposing the real truth is how the healing begins.
There are all these plays at power and yet they can not overcome Jesus’ power displayed in dignity. They can not take away from him the Spirit of Truth with a capital T. Systems of power need things to be unrealistically simple, black and white, reduced to a one-dimensional object that can be labeled, analyzed, and conquered. Jesus quickly messes up that system by responding with a different kind of answer. Like a good rabbi, a faithful servant of God and of the people, he asks more questions. Turning the expected power dynamic on its head as now Pilate seems to be on trial.
They can try to characterize him but they do not define him, nor exercise ultimate authority over him. Even as heartbreak and death draw near, there persists a defiant promise that these things do not and indeed can not own Christ, nor us as we too are God’s beloved children. While situations and others may try to convince us asserting our power OVER others is the only way to protect ourselves, that try to lure us into acting like caricatures of ourselves or play on our worst inclinations out of survival, that’s not who we are, not truly.
Even when hope seems to have vanished from the Horizon, Jesus creates one as he speaks of what lies beyond what we can even see. The kind of world that is already unfolding around us - one where we stand alongside those threatened by empire, one where truth can freely be shared and embodied without being weaponized, one where healing is so pervasive that we no longer need to invent lies or convince ourselves of half-truths to save ourselves. A way of the world where people are drawn together for liberation - this is the kingdom, the KINdom of God.
What if we rooted our sense of belonging here? What if we answered first and foremost to this way of being? What would we need to leave at the gate? What would we be drawn to fight for? Heartache and hurt are real, but the healing, liberating, and saving gospel in Christ is true. Amen.