JEREMIAH, JESUS AND THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
A sermon preached by
Rev. Dr. Randle R. (Rick) Mixon
First Baptist Church, Palo Alto, CA
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Text: John 14:15-21
I am not a fan of Jeremiah Wright. Admittedly, I have only heard him preach once and I was not taken with his strident tone or his brash presentation. But this is a comment about my taste more than it is about substance. It is clear that over 35 years of ministry at Trinity Church in Chicago, Rev. Wright has performed a remarkable ministry of service to his community. It has been maddening to try to unravel the controversy swirling around him and his ministry in this political season. One minute I have been drawn to condemning some of his views and rhetoric, the next to defending his radical and prophetic voice. One article picks at some seemingly outrageous comment he has made to the press or in the pulpit; the next fits his words into a context that makes good sense to me.
One interesting aspect of all this brouhaha is that this is the first time in a long time that a preacher and the church have garnered so much public attention. It depends on whom you read or listen to whether or not this is deemed beneficial publicity. Unfortunately, Wright and his message have become pawns in a political process that has much less concern for the spirit, let alone the letter, of truth than it does with the expediency of getting someone elected. It does seem to me that the demise of an intimate and important relationship between a politician of rare vision and his mentoring pastor began when the candidate opted for politics over principle by disinviting his pastor from praying at the ceremony in which he announced his candidacy. You cannot allow political expediency – that is, advisors who say your pastor is too controversial to associate with if you want to get elected – to trump the spirit of truth – that is, this is the man of God who helped to shape your faith and your conscience – if you mean to be a person of integrity.
I know I may be wading into a morass here, but no headlines have grabbed my attention more than these in recent weeks. To me this controversy raises crucial questions about what it means to be a truth-teller, one who is shaped and moved by the spirit of truth. Of course, Paul’s adage about speaking the truth in love comes into play here. How does one frame the truth in ways that it can be heard and not just flung in the face of the hearer, whether willing or not? How is the truth spoken so that it builds up, in love, the body of Christ and its witness in the world? The press has said that Jeremiah Wright comes from a tradition of preaching they label prophetic preaching, which they say is common in the black church in the USA. In my experience this makes sense. I imagine in the context in which Rev. Wright made some of his most outrageous and controversial statements, his hearers understood that those words were spoken in love, at least a love for righteousness as Rev. Wright understood the right. That may be jarring for some of us outside the original context. Perhaps it is a jarring we need to help us remember that racism and economic disparity are insidious realities all too alive and healthy in our land. As people of privilege, we don’t want to hear the prophetic word anymore than the hearers of that other Jeremiah so long ago who warned the people that if they didn’t change their ways and return to God, they were going to find themselves conquered and dragged off into captivity.
I will say that in the little I have heard from Jeremiah Wright, I miss the clear prophetic word that Jeremiah and the other Hebrew prophets uttered at the beginning of every proclamation – “Thus says the Lord.” The true prophetic word comes from God, through the prophet; the prophet only speaks truth when he is rooted and grounded in God. And when one dares to speak truly for God, I cannot imagine how that one can speak in any state but utter humility. The great risk in prophetic preaching is that you get so caught up in the rightness of your cause and the passionate sound of your own voice that it becomes an exercise in self-righteousness with a whole lot more emphasis on self than on the rightness of the word. I cannot fairly accuse Rev. Wright of this error, because I know so little, and hear such conflicting stories of the breadth and the depth of his ministry, but I do wonder about some of what I have heard. It is troubling that the controversy has become about him and his ministry in ways that seem to take the focus from God and the spirit of truth at a time when we could use more of each in the political process and culture wars.
For now, let’s lay this controversy aside and look at this morning’s text, this second reading from Jesus’ Farewell Discourse in the gospel of John. The scene is set for Jesus to be in intimate conversation with his disciples; this is not a time for public proclamation. As we noted last week, in the warm afterglow of the Last Supper, he reflects with those closest to him about what lies ahead for him - and for them. Between last week’s passage and this we have two important conditional promises. At the end of last week’s text he tells them “If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.” This is a heady promise, one that can lead to absurd speculations akin to claiming from the genie in the bottle our three wishes, or political powers beyond possibility, unless we understand how important it is to focus on the condition. It is only if and when we ask in Jesus’ name that our desires will granted. This cannot mean simply reciting the words “in Jesus’ name” without being deeply rooted in an understanding of Jesus’ life and ministry, without longing with all our hearts that our requests be perfectly aligned with his.
Later, the writer will have him qualify this promise by restating it, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7.) Here we have one of John’s key concepts, the notion of abiding - “abide in me; abide in my love; dwell in my living presence; center your life in me and the way I have shown you, and wonders will inevitably follow.”
The conditional promise that begins today’s text is of a different order and yet speaks to the same significance to keeping our lives centered in Christ. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Both these conditional statements are important because he is going away, leaving them, returning to the Father. They need to understand, as do we, that even when he is no longer physically available, he will continue to live, and because he lives, we too will live. That is true for those who stay centered in him, who remain rooted and grounded in God. No one is excluded from this promise of life, abundant life, eternal life, but it must be claimed, it must be embraced, it must be lived into. This life is the legacy Christ leaves for his followers and through them, through us, for the whole creation.
The promise of life is for all who love Jesus and keep his commandments, a promise that is open for all who hear and see and follow. Though obedience to commandments is stressed here, John’s gospel gives us no ethical and moral code equivalent to the Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” or Luke’s “Sermon on the Plain.” The ethical code for the writer of John is summed up in chapter 13, verse 34, where Jesus says to these same disciples, “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” Well, isn’t that nice and simple? All we really need is love. But wait, this is no sweet and sentimental love. How has Jesus loved them, loved us? “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you,” he repeats. And then adds this challenging word, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12.) This love is compassionate and self giving. This love always considers the other’s situation and feelings. This love always makes room for others, even as one cares for oneself. “As the Father has loved me,” he says, “so I have loved you; abide in my love.” Again the conditional, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love” (John 15:9-10.)
This passage also contains John’s promise of Pentecost. “I will not leave you orphaned,” Jesus reassures. “…I will ask the Father and he will give you another Advocate…” The Greek word is paraclete; the King James version translates it as “Comforter;” the Revised Standard Version, “Counselor.” All three definitions fit. Someone who will stand with you and speak for you; someone who will walk with you and give you the fortitude to live into your possibilities; someone who will work with you and empower you to do the great things Jesus promises. “This is the Spirit of truth…You know him, because he abides with you and he will be in you.”
What then does it mean to know the “Spirit of truth”? to hold forth in the “Spirit of truth”? to dwell in the “Spirit of truth”? For one thing, it must mean to know, to speak, to live the truth in love. Where is the truth or the love in dissembling in the service of political expediency? Where is the truth or the love in tearing others down in the false hope of building oneself up? Where is the truth or the love if what we know is not rooted and grounded in God, centered in Christ, motivated by the Holy Spirit? Where is the truth if our prophecy is not preceded by “Thus says the Lord” and where is the love if we cannot embrace one another as sisters and brothers?
I know there is a place for politics. I am aware that hard words of judgment must sometimes be spoken in the face of evils like racism and economic injustice. I believe that each of has his or her own calling and unique mandate to witness to the truth as we know it. Still, I can’t help but hope that if we abide in Jesus and his love, if we keep his commandment to love with a love that includes a deep, empathic concern for others, the political process, the practice of prophetic preaching, the promise of eternal life will all be better served. For now, “…God suffers with the people, sheds tears with them, hopes with them, and creates the communion of love here and there…Until the time when the communion of love is firmly established in the world of strife and conflict, of pain and suffering, God moves on in compassion.” As followers of the living Christ, “We have no alternative but to move on with God toward that vision of a community of compassion and a communion of love” (Choan-Seng Song, The Compassionate God, p. 260.) Thus we abide in the love of God, the ongoing life of Jesus Christ and the Spirit of truth. Amen.