Covenant
United Methodist Church
Sunday School 9:45 Worship 8:30 & 10:45 am
Pentecost 9 John 18-28-40-Searching For the Truth
Have you heard the story of the man who operated a small grocery store in the town of Sheridan, Arkansas, in the 1940’s? A lady down the street from the grocery store was having company the next day so she went to the store to buy what she needed for her meal preparation.
She told the man she needed a "large chicken" since she was having a lot of visitors. He pushed his hand down in the bin of ice where the chickens were kept and came up with a chicken. When he put it on the scale she stretched to see the weight and declared, "I need one larger than that!"
So he put the chicken back down in the ice and fumbled for another. To his chagrin he had no other chicken, so with that he pulled out the same chicken and to the weight of it he added a hidden finger on the back side of the scale.
When she eye-balled the scale she confidently declared, "I'll take both chickens!"
Now the reason we laugh is that we have all been caught in that kind of dilemma before haven’t we… where we fudge a bit on the truth.
The truth is pretty important to us isn’t it. When we find truthful people we are find people we can trust… That is what makes truth so important. Truth and trust are tied so closely together. That brings us to our scripture lesson today. It is a scripture lesson that talks about kingdoms and truth…
Jesus has been led before Pilate, before Jesus is crucified. He and Pilate have a little conversation. The jewish leaders want Jesus dead, but their laws won’t allow them to put him to death themselves so they ask Pilate to do it for them. Pilate asks Jesus if he is king of the Jews. Jesus answers, “ You ask if I am a king for this I was born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate answers, “ What is truth?” And there is silence… Jesus doesn’t give an answer. You and I are left out in the cold, along with Pilate. Jesus in that last moment could have told Pilate as he told his disciples, “I am the way the truth and the life.” But Jesus is silent. I have always wanted Jesus to speak out. I want him to clear the air and let us know exactly what truth is so that I can better understand it… don’t you…
It is hard to know what truth really is in our world today. Have you heard about a recent survey that asked, "Is there absolute truth?" Amazingly, 66 percent of American adults responded that they believe that "there is no such thing as absolute truth; different people can define truth in conflicting ways and still be correct." The figure rises to 72 percent when it comes to those between the ages of 18 and 25.
Sandy and I bought a car not to many weeks ago. We went to three different car dealers… after they heard I was a preacher they proclaimed they were good Christian people and all of them told me long detailed stories about their churches…At all three places we looked at the very same car. There was a $5000 dollar difference in the first “Deal” for the car we purchased and the last place we went… What is the truth?
Pretty soon we will be having elections again. We will get a lot of promises from a lot of politicians from all parties. They will tell us just how disgusting the other candidates are… What is the truth?
Sometimes it is hard to figure out the truth…
In our scripture lesson today Jesus is silent… but I believe in non verbal communication… I’m a counselor I see it all the time, the smile changes a bit or a tear in the eye, lets you know the truth about someone… I think Jesus sent some non verbal communication Pilate’s way that day. Why else would Pilate wash his hands of the whole affair? Why else would he become afraid? Why else would he put the inscription “King of the Jews” over his grave? He looked into the eyes of Jesus, and he saw pure self sacrificing love. Love willing to go to the cross for Pilate and those Jews who hated him for the masses and for you and for me…
Real truth in this world is found in God’s self sacrificing love. It is found in the statement, “Greater love has no man than this that he lay down his life for a friend.”
When you and I show that same self sacrificing love to the world around us we share in the greatest truth the world has ever known…
Let us go into the world and show God’s self sacrificing love.