November 23, 2003

Thanksgiving Sunday 

John 18:33-38

Truth Be Told

     Today is known by several names, at least - Thanksgiving Sunday for one, and Dedication Sunday, the day when every last pledge comes in and we celebrate financial bliss with an overflowing church bank account that will carry us without a care all the way through 2004!  OK, maybe that’s a little overly optimistic, but trusting in Christ, anything is possible, right?  If Christ is the King of our lives, won’t we be able to accomplish great things?  Absolutely!  So then, today is also known as “Christ the King Sunday“. 

     Church calendar-wise, this is the last Sunday of the year, believe it or not.  I know, most people start their year on January 1, but there has always been this other calendar, the church calendar and it begins with Advent.  We begin the Christian year looking forward to Christ’s birth - not a bad place to start.  We conclude the year today proclaiming Jesus Christ is King.  That’s the reason for today’s reading from John.

     This is not, however, the sort of story we might expect on Thanksgiving Sunday or even when a day has been set aside to honor Jesus as King of Kings and Lord of Lords, to borrow a phrase from the “Halleluiah Chorus“.  There is no mention here of Christ’s coronation or of his sitting on a throne of power.  Rather, he is being tried for treason.

     It was a brief trial, no witnesses, no lawyers, no jury, just a judge, one man of absolute power determining the fate of a powerless prisoner before of him.  No pomp, no parade, no trumpets sounding a king’s entry, and yet, this is the story we have this last day of the year.  It is the last word on the life of Christ. 

      “Are you the king of the Jews?”  Pilate asked him sarcastically, or perhaps sincerely - we do not know.  Jesus didn’t seem to answer directly; “My kingdom is not from this world.”  Pilate scratched his head: didn’t this man know what was at stake?  Jesus was evasive, or so Pilate thought, speaking of truth when Pilate knew full well that with so little evidence to go on, the outcome of that brief trial would likely have little to do with the truth.  Pilate had the power and he could do what he pleased with his prisoner’s life.  That was about as much truth as Pilate needed.   

     I wonder if Pilate was a caught off guard when Jesus spoke of truth just as it was being denied?  His clumsy, rhetorical, final question echoed in that hall; “What is truth?” 

     A taunt?  An honest question hidden beneath a sick joke?  Down through the centuries, that tragic question, haunts us still.  It is the unanswered question of the lost.  Pilate spoke it for himself.  He spoke it for us.  He spoke it looking into the eyes of truth, missing it altogether.

     How many times have you heard it said or perhaps said it yourself, “If only I could have been there with the disciples, to see Jesus, to walk with Jesus, to hear Jesus, to meet him face-to-face - surely then, my heart would be filled with faith!”  But there was Pilate, looking into those eyes, eternity‘s eyes, looking into the heart of God, seeing nothing, nothing but a man with a price on his head, another nut-case itinerant preacher that stirs up crowds, a dead man walking, seeing no hope there, no light and God knows, no truth.

     When Matt and I traveled to Haiti a few years ago we saw unimaginable poverty.  We saw people living under tarps and in tin shacks and on the street. We walked in sewage.  We saw abandoned cars everywhere, roads rutted and potholes big enough to live in.  We saw desperation as far as the eye could see, misery all around, no hope, no light.  At first it was all we could see and it would have been easy to push it aside and leave it at that, but unlike Pilate, we couldn’t make a snap judgment and just walk away because our return flight wasn’t for a week!   We had to live with it for a while. 

     I confess that my first reaction was, “O my God, what have I gotten us into?”  It was like waking up in the middle of some Armageddon movie after the bombs have dropped and all that is left are tattered remains and hollow-eyed helpless souls scratching in the dirt for survival.  Except this was not a movie, but reality.  It was a bad dream and we were wide-awake.

     But what we think we see and know at first often deceives us, doesn‘t it?  We so easily miss the truth.  Truth is, there really is hope and light in Haiti.  In spite of what you hear on the news, in spite of what your eyes may see (or not see), it is there and very much alive.  We felt it almost immediately, as soon as we allowed the initial shock to give way to the fact that people were looking out for us, keeping us safe.  They sheltered us, housed us and fed us.  They laughed with us, played games with us and worshipped with us. 

     There are many good people in Haiti, many faithful Christians, many caring parents and many bright-eyed, delightful children.  Life is very difficult there, but there is faith there and it sees them through.  We saw signs of it everywhere, literally, on walls and cars and houses, words of praise for Christ the King.

     One trip to Haiti and you will know that the Kingdom of which Jesus spoke of is not from this this world.  There’s something more to it than poverty and hunger and wars and grief.  Limited as we are by sin and utter humanness, we cannot produce the Kingdom of God.  Jesus was right, it is not from here. 

     But beyond here, there is something more and from that place hope and light come.  There is a greater truth that human hearts can know even when human eyes cannot see it.  As we prayed with the Haitian people, laughed with them, got to know them, listened to their stories, it was there, right there in that unlikely place, true as all get-out.  The Kingdom was not from them but it was certainly with them.

     When I managed orchards for the Musselman Company twenty-some years ago, one of the migrant families that worked for me was from Haiti.  They were the first Haitians I ever met.  I couldn’t speak their language, but they seemed nice and they worked very hard. 

     The apple harvest came just once each year.  It came in all at once, over a two and a half month period.  But for this Haitian family, and so many other migrant families from places like Mexico and Puerto Rico, the harvest never ends.  They move from place to place and keep up with it.  After apples, they head south for grapefruit and then oranges and strawberries and watermelons and peaches and then apples again.  For them, the harvest never ends.

     We pause but once per year for Thanksgiving, to remember the harvest of God’s blessings.  It makes sense to us that as leaves turn brilliant colors and the air becomes cool and crisp and pumpkins and fall fruit appear in farmer’s markets that the harvest has arrived, that Thanksgiving time has come.  We don’t see what migrant workers see - that the harvest really never ends.  They know the goodness of God’s creation is always coming in.

     And maybe that’s the truth of which Jesus spoke in that brief inquisition - that the harvest is always coming in, that light and hope, the blessings of God’s Kingdom are always here for us. 

     His Kingdom is not from this world.   Truth be told, this world is from his kingdom.  So, there is always light and hope even when we mess things up, even when we fail to live in peace with one another, fail to act for justice, fail to make this world a more equitable place where there is food and shelter and basic human rights for all.  Even when we fail in these things, hope remains because the Kingdom isn‘t from this world.  It is here for us by God’s good grace, Christ’s realm of saving love, Christ’s dominion over sin and death.  Even when the world seems out of control, God remains in control.  Truth be told, there is always light and hope.  The cross of Christ is proof of this.