"Truth Will Make Us Free," the senior sermon of Richard Kidd, Class of 2008 from the Arkansas-Oklahoma Synod, given on October 30, 2007, in Christ Chapel

John 8:31-36 31 Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." 33 They answered him, "We are descendants of Abraham and have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean by saying, 'You will be made free'?" 34 Jesus answered them, "Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. 35 The slave does not have a permanent place in the household; the son has a place there forever. 36 So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.

Let us pray: God of Truth and Mercy,

May your Word not return void but accomplish what it was sent to do in our lives.

In the name of Jesus our liberator Amen

This week Lutherans celebrate Reformation Day. First, I think it is important to let all of you know that I came into Lutheranism as an outsider. My context was in the Bible belt of the Deep South and my liturgy was the Bible only with no written creeds or confessions just whatever the pastor told us was the truth. Their truth was that they had it while everybody else did not. The Catholics, Orthodox, and the other churches like the Episcopalians, Lutherans and even the Methodists were treated as second class Christians with the smell of smoke on their clothes…just barely making it out of hell. So you can just imagine what they thought about other faiths. Canadian singer Bruce Cockburn explains this type of preaching/thinking in his song the Gospel of Bondage by singing,

You read the Bible in your special ways
You're fond of quoting certain things it says -
Mouth full of righteousness and wrath from above
But when do we hear about forgiveness and love?

An Augustian monk named Martin Luther was wondering the same thing. How can I find a gracious God when all he heard was God the Judge pointing right straight at him. This is what the Church of his day taught. This was the main reason I protested and finally left my religious context to a faith community that was focused on grace. This is why I am passionate about Reformation Day and it’s meaning for people of all faiths.

Reformation was the day Luther nailed his 95 theses of protest at the Church door. He took on a powerful economic, political and religious institution that was making God into a stern taskmaster who demanded a pound of flesh. A God that demanded you had to work for your place in God’s kingdom. The Church in Luther’s day was selling indulgences for people to earn themselves or their loved ones a place in heaven. All the money went to the building of St. Peter’s basilica on the backs of the poor, which made Luther mad.

There was a popular song or ditty from a traveling preacher named Tetzel that went “as soon as the money clinks into the money chest, another soul flies out of purgatory”. Tetzel the forerunners of the tele-evangelists! You know what I’m talking about those smiling salesmen on your TV that beg you to send money to get a blessing from God. Modern day Indulgences! Luther rightly said that a better deed would be to give to the poor or lend to the needy then to buy indulgences. God as the Almighty demanding Judge was considered the Truth in Luther’s time. Luther realized that he could not work his way to God’s good graces. He hated God for this but then he heard the liberating word, which was from our second reading from Romans today that God’s love, and acceptance is a gift, the true treasure and that was the gift of God’s Son freely given. Trust in God alone is what matters. Luther realized what was considered the popular Truth was a lie.

In the 2003 movie “Luther”, Shakespearean actor Joseph Fiennes plays a GQ Luther. Many of us are used to another picture of Luther-one that drank a lot of beer. There was one scene in that movie that really spoke to me. There were several scenes that were great but this one I can still see it. The scene was not totally historically accurate but was in the spirit of Luther’s view of God’s unconditional love and acceptance… what we call grace. The scene involves a young boy named Thomas who hangs himself. The Mother is screaming and everyone is beside himself or herself while Luther and Thomas’s father are running up to the boy to cut the rope and hold him. Luther is with the family in this time of pain with no words just dead silence. Thomas’ father says, what does God say father for suicide? Luther is there with the saddest and most disturbing look on his face because he knew what the Church believed as truth about suicide..he knew that their truth was that it was an unforgivable sin and a sure ticket to hell. He was silent.

The next scene, Luther is in his room mad at God, mad at the devil, mad at the church’s version of the truth. He yells, I never said that I had all the answers. The scene changes quickly with Luther with shovel in his hand digging the grave at the churchyard while the others are watching and crying at this most unbelievable act of mercy and grace. Luther says, some people think that according to God’s justice that this boy is damned because he took his life. Is this child anymore to blame than the despair that overtook him? He is like a traveler overtaken by a robber in the woods.

They carry the body of the young boy Thomas to the grave and Luther cried God must be mercy. He holds the boy while looking at his cross saying God is mercy. He takes off his cross and lays it on the boy in the grave doing the sign of the cross. Luther is basically saying that those who see God as angry, judgmental, and vindictive …do not see God rightly. God must be mercy!

In Today’s gospel, Jesus is challenging the religious leaders version of the truth and their bondage to it. Tragically, the gospel of John has been used for anti-Semitism and a weapon against the Jews. Sadly, this harsh rhetoric against the Jews was in Luther’s later writings because he could not understand why the majority of Jews could not see Jesus as their Messiah. Lutherans have rightly condemned these later writings of Luther. One such Lutheran was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who gave his life for standing with the Jews and standing against Hitler’s death regime in Germany. He knew truth was not the possession of a particular race but truth was encountered in all races and cultures.

A majority of scholars believe that the gospel of John was written within the Johannine community, who were put out of the synagogues for their belief that Jesus was the messiah. The gospel was written within a community that was marginalized so that is part of the reason for such harsh rhetoric. The main point is that Jesus was not a Christian but a devout Jew. This was not a debate between Jew and non-Jew. This was a dialogue between Jews on their interpretation of the truth-a family dispute! Jesus told them if they would continue in his Word then they would be his disciples and he was talking to some Jews that had believed in him. The word Jesus was talking about was his interpretation of Torah. This was Jesus’ Halakah, His Midrash! The gospels and epistles were not even written yet and all they had was the Hebrew Law, prophets and writings and the commentaries so this was Jesus commentary on Torah.

Then Jesus made this shocking statement …you shall know the truth and the truth will make you free! This made them very angry because this was an insult. They believed because they were born Jewish that they were the only chosen ones so they believed they were slaves to no one. What Irony? Doesn’t the Torah in the Book of Deuteronomy say Remember you were slaves in Egypt? What about Assyria and Babylon? The truth was that their own people have been slaves to many empires and now Rome. Many of the religious leaders were denying God in practice by neglecting the poor, widows, and orphans going against the teaching of the Law and the Hebrew prophets. They totally ignored the Torah’s call for justice and mercy. Now before we start pointing fingers at the Jewish religious leaders we must remember our own past and look at our own contexts.

The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard wrote that “ Let us be honest about it. We are more afraid of the truth than of death.” The Greek Word for Truth is aletheia {al-ay'thi-a} meaning what is authentic, trustworthy and real. There is nothing hidden! LSPS theologian-in-residence Dr. Eliseo Perez-Alvarez points out in his book We Be Jammin that the word comes from two Greek root words: a-no and lethe-forgetfulness. So we are not to forget the truth about our past and ourselves. If we forget then we are not abiding or following the truth.

The truth is that the Jewish people were not the dominant power but we as Western Christians since the time of Constantine in the fourth Century were born and raised in this notion of Christian Empire. We have had a past history of inquisitions, conquest and destruction of whole civilizations all in the name of God and the truth.

We have never been slaves to anyone because we are good Lutherans or you can put in your own faith tradition in there as well. We have been baptized, confirmed, we have Jesus, the truth, and the gospel all figured out. We even baptized and bless our own country to the exclusion of all others. We are just like the religious leaders of Jesus’ day except we have the power like Rome did. Jesus disarms the religious leaders claim that Abraham was their Father because they did not follow Abraham as we don’t follow Jesus today. We are slaves to the false gods of death-elitism, wealth, affluence, idolatrous patriotism, racism, sexism and religious triumphalism. These are all theologies of glory that steals our allegiance to the one God- the God of life who is in suffering solidarity with the poor and the oppressed.

We are not very good at what Luther calls calling a thing what it is. Our old Adam or Eve doesn’t like the truth about our human condition. We don’t want to die to our old ways and be resurrected into the new. Luther was looking for a gracious and merciful God instead of the false gods that disappoint and leave us empty. The false gods tells us that our security is more important than welcoming the stranger from our borders and into our communities and churches. The false gods that keep us in fear is constantly being fed to us on our radios and televisions. This is passed off as conventional wisdom and truth. This kind of propaganda is nothing but lies.

The Truth is not something you can buy, manipulate or possess. Truth has nothing to do with maintaining the status quo. The Truth can be painful and uncomfortable. Truth is not something just stuck in our heads but involves our whole being with others. The good news is that Truth is a gift to be shared with others. Luther believed that God sets us free so we can love Christ by loving our neighbors. God is not the angry judge up in the heavens judging us but God who has come down in flesh and blood to live, suffer and die and be resurrected in the world in which God has created and continues to create all things new! Jesus is the Truth, the way of Life and whom the Son makes free is free indeed. God is mercy! Amen.