“Truth And Consequences”

“Truth And Consequences”

Text: John 18:28-38

© November 26, 2006 by C. Edward Bowen

It was a foggy night off the eastern coast of Canada. The tanker ship was completing its crossing of the Atlantic, just a few miles from its destination. But thick fog had cut the visibility to almost nothing. All of a sudden one of the ship’s mates shouted to the captain of the tanker and pointed to an intermittent speck of light in the distance, directly in the course of the mighty ship.

Immediately the captain commanded his radio operator to contact the source of that light and to order it to change its course. The radio operator sent the message, but no reply was received. So the first mate went over and spoke into the radio set: “This is the S. S. Excelsior, one of the largest ships afloat on the sea. You are in our path. I order you to change your course.” A reply came back this time. A voice said: “I am not so large, but I will not move. You change your course.”

The light was getting closer now. So the captain himself went to the radio: “This is the captain of the S. S. Excelsior, a 1,000,000-ton tanker, traveling at full speed. All the ships of the sea yield to me. I command you to move out of my path.” The voice replied: “I weigh only about 100 tons. But I will not move. And I strongly recommend that you change your course. Because I am a lighthouse.”

Instead of always expecting other people to change their ways to suit us, when necessary, are we willing to change our ways? When Jesus was put on trial during what we call Holy Week, to a large degree, that was the issue. As the religious leaders and as the Roman governor Pontius Pilate heard more and more about the truth that Jesus was speaking, the more they came to realize that if they took Jesus’ truth seriously, there would be consequences. And those consequences, they knew, would have to involve them making some significant changes in their lives.

But as they looked at things, they didn’t want to make any changes. As they looked at things, they liked things just the way they were. After all, the religious leaders and Pontius Pilate were the ones who got to make the rules, they were the ones who had all the power, they were the ones who pretty much had it all. Sure, they abused their power now and then. Sure, they maintained their positions by intimidating and threatening those beneath them. Sure, they took advantage of people. But even so, the religious leaders and Pontius Pilate had absolutely no interest whatsoever in making any changes. And here in this scene in the Bible we find that they decided that they’d stop at nothing to make sure that they didn’t have to change, even if that meant they’d have to kill Jesus in order to get rid of him and his annoying truth.

Change – any kind of change – can be a difficult thing for us to have to deal with. It’s like the town of Hazleton, over in the Pocono Mountains in the eastern part of the state. Ever since it was first founded, Hazleton has always been a town that has been almost exclusively white. But in recent years, the number of Hispanic people living in that community has risen dramatically, with many Hispanics moving in to work at the unskilled, low-paying jobs in the new nearby factories.

But not everyone in Hazleton is thrilled with that change that’s been taking place. And so recently Hazleton made the national news because they passed a series of laws with the goal of driving the Hispanics out of their town. Officially, the local authorities there say that what they’re trying to do is get rid of all the illegal immigrants in the community. But on 60 Minutes this past week[1], they were interviewing the mayor, and they asked him what made him think that the Hispanics moving into Hazleton were illegal immigrants – what facts or statistics did he have to back that up? And the mayor had to admit that they don’t have any facts or statistics to prove that the Hispanics moving in are illegal.

And so it seems to me that what has the people in Hazleton so worked up is not that there might be people who are violating the federal immigration laws, but that there are people who are moving into their town who don’t look like them, who don’t talk like them, who have different ways. And they don’t like those changes. They don’t like it one bit. And they want to do what they can to get rid of those people.

But that sort of thing isn’t happening just in other places, it’s happening right here as well. For instance, less than a mile from here, up in Crafton Heights, for a couple months now a man has been flying a Confederate flag on his front porch. No, he’s not doing it because he’s a Civil War buff. No, he has that Confederate flag out in plain view for one reason, and one reason alone – to make sure that black people know that they’re not welcome on his street.

And that’s not just some theory I came up with out of thin air. No, a couple of weeks ago one of the local TV stations interviewed him and that’s what he said. He said that his street and his neighborhood have always been white, and as far as he’s concerned, he’s going to do what he can to make sure that things don’t change. And so that’s why he has that Confederate flag on display – as a way of saying to everyone: if you’re different, stay away – you’re not welcome.

You know, one of the things that make Americans unique is that we are about the only country on the face of the planet where most people know how to speak only one language – English. Children in Germany learn not only German, but also French, English, and maybe even another language beyond that. In Korea, young people learn not only Korean, but also languages like Chinese, French, and English.

But here in the United States, although 44% of American students take a foreign language course at some point before graduating from high school, very few people ever become fluent, so that they would have the ability to actually carry on a conversation with someone from a different country. Usually within a few years of taking a foreign a language, all that most Americans can say in another language is “Como esta, senor?”

Considering the fact that China is becoming one of our major trading partners, isn’t it somewhat amazing that there are only 5,000 students in kindergarten through grade 12 in the entire country that are studying Chinese? And what’s perhaps even more troubling is the fact that even though the greatest tensions in the world today seem to be between the United States and Middle Eastern countries, like Iraq and Iran, where they speak Arabic, there are only 426 kids in all of the United States right now who are learning how to speak and write Arabic – in other words, there are only about 8 kids per state who are gaining the ability to communicate firsthand with the people who we have our greatest disagreements with.[2] What’s wrong with that picture?

For most Americans, though, those kind of facts and statistics don’t trouble them. For most Americans, they figure, “Hey, we’re rich. We’re powerful. We’re the ones setting the rules in the world. And so if other people who are different from us want to have dealings with us, don’t expect us to learn their language or make changes to accommodate them – no, let them make the changes to accommodate us. And if they don’t want to do that, to heck with them.”

The Christian holiday that we observe today – Christ the King Sunday – was first celebrated back in 1925. And the reason for its creation was because in 1925 that was a time when groups like the Nazis were just starting to emerge and have an effect. And the basic message that the Nazis proclaimed was “Germany is for Germans. So if you’re different – if you’re a Jew, if you’re a gypsy, if you’re mentally challenged – we have no use for you. If you’re different – if you speak a different language, if you look different, if you have different ways – we have no use for you in our world, and we’re going to do what we have to do to get rid of you.”

And so Christ the King Sunday was created as a way of speaking out against that kind of mindset. Christ the King Sunday was created as a way of reminding people that despite what we might think, the rulers we set up to preserve our way of life are not the highest authority. Despite what we might think, the governments we establish to make sure that outsiders don’t get too close to us don’t have the final word. Despite what we might think, the leaders we empower to make sure that our way of life doesn’t ever have to change have a higher power that ultimately they’re accountable to – namely the King who rules over all the earth, Jesus Christ.

And one of the key truths that Jesus came into the world to impart to us is the truth that all people belong to God. That’s not a new truth. We find that message in the very first chapter of the Bible, in the very first chapter of Genesis, where we are told that God created humankind, God created all of humankind. But that’s a hard lesson for us to learn. Not only does God love us and people who are like us, but at the same time God also loves those people in the world who are quite different from us.

As we struggle with that truth and the consequences it has for us today, maybe there’s at least a little consolation in knowing that even those first Christians struggled with that truth as well. For example, in the book of Acts, in the New Testament, we read about one of the first major crises the Christian church had. You see, at first all Christians were Jews. After all, Jesus was a Jew. The original twelve disciples were all Jews. So it was fairly natural that the first people who were added to the church were Jews as well.

But eventually non-Jews, what we call Gentiles, asked if they could be Christians too. And that’s when a huge fight broke out. Some of those first Christians said, “Over my dead body are we going to let those Gentiles into our church. Why, they’re not Jews – they’re a different nationality. They don’t speak our language, they don’t speak Hebrew – they talk different languages. They don’t even know the Ten Commandments and all the other ways that we hold so sacred – they’re used to other ways. How can we and people who are so different from us all share the same faith together?”

But fortunately, in the end they decided that welcoming those Gentiles – welcoming those people who looked different and talked different and acted different – was what Jesus wanted them to do. They decided to welcome those Gentiles because they believed that Christ was King – that Christ was not only their King, but the King of all people.

I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to say that in the world today, how we choose to deal with those who are different from us is the biggest and most pressing issue we face. We read in the newspapers about the differences that Iran and Israel have. Are they ultimately going to settle those differences by lobbing nuclear missiles at each other, or is there some way to help those two countries to realize that despite their differences, God loves them both?

Or some of the most fierce conflicts in the Middle East right now aren’t between Muslims and Christians. No, some of the most fierce conflicts in that region are between Sunni Muslims and Shiite Muslims. Those two groups share so much in common, but by focusing instead on their differences, each side is caught up in a never-ending cycle of attacks against the other side. Is there a way to help those two factions to realize that despite their differences, God loves them both?

And that kind of bitterness doesn’t just exist out there in other far-off countries. No, you find that same kind of bitterness and hatred among Americans, and perhaps especially among American Christians. We divide ourselves into camps of liberals and conservatives, and each side seems to refuse to be content until the other side is destroyed and obliterated. Is there some way to help people come to see that despite our differences, that God is not just our God, but that God really is the God of all people?

The truth is that Jesus Christ is King. The truth is that Jesus Christ is King over all creation. The consequence of that, what that means, is that in our dealings with other people, we have an obligation not to try and get other people to change so that they can be just like us and do things exactly the way we want them to do. No, in our dealings with other people, we have an obligation to work together to see what changes we all need to make so that all of us can become more fully the people that Jesus wants us to be, and so that all of us can live together in the peace that Jesus wants us to have.