But Is it True?

The Rev. Jeffrey A. Geary
Setauket Presbyterian Church

The First Sunday of Lent
Genesis 2: 15-17 Matthew 4: 1-11
February 17, 2002

During the last four of five months I have had the opportunity to read many of the great stories of our bible with at least sixty different members of the congregation in books groups, bible studies and adult education. It has been an absolute joy.

But at some point in almost every one of the conversations, someone asks "But is it true?" Now I know that what most people are asking is, "Is it a fact?" "Did it really happen?" And ‘truthfully,' I'm reluctant to give a quick answer because an accurate response requires more than an historical answer. Did Adam and Eve really walk the garden at the beginning of time. No, of course not! Did Jesus really go forty days without food? Well now we're in the realm of possibility. But without water? Probably not.

I'm not sure I could understand why we keep coming back week after week to hear the stories again if all they are were historical recitations of facts. These stories are not factual, though there is a great deal of history behind them. They are, rather, invitations to think about and look at the world around us in a new way. The stories invite us to include God's intention for our lives, God's care which surrounds us, God's grace that makes al things new. The Biblical stories are myths in the fullest and best sense of the word. They are stories that orient our lives within a framework of meaning and sense.

Is Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment true? No, not as historical fact, though it's set in the Russia of the 19th century. But it is certainly a true story about the human condition in that it accurately portrays the kinds of struggles we face in life. Is Picasso's Guernica true? Well, it's a representation of the Spanish Civil War, but its intended to disorient, to make us feel dismembered and frantic when we view it. We experience the war as a horrible metaphor - enough to make us pause but not so overwhelming that we are unable to deeply reflect on the horror before us.

Like a great novel or a great painting, the stories of the Bible invite us to enter into our ordinary lives with a new perspective - God's presence. And then they invite us to imagine what our everyday world is like and might be like if we actually sought and joined with God's presence.

The truth of the Biblical stories does not lie in whether they occurred on such and such a date with such and such a person. The truth of the Biblical stories are known when their meanings come alive in our lives - here and now.

I guess what I'm saying is that as Presbyterians, truth is something that we must be or become through the practice of justice, prayer and forgiveness. Or as our Book of Order put it, "truth is in order to goodness": truth is what shapes us in the image of Christ. In his teaching and in the example of his life and death, Jesus provided the pattern for our own lives. By conforming our minds and bodies to his pattern, we will learn something of how the first shall be last and how the true self is found in service. We will see what is real; more than that, we will "know [the one] who is real," our God.

The problem with history is that is only deals with particular truths. As Fred Buechner put it in his book Telling the Truth,

[Particular truths] can be stated in words - that life is better than death and love than hate, that there is a god or is not, that light travels faster than sound and cancer can sometimes be cured if you discover it in time. But truth itself is another matter... Truth itself cannot be stated. Truth simply is, and is what is, the good with the bad, the joy with the despair, the presence and absence of God, the swollen eye, the bird pecking the cobbles for crumbs. What is truth? Life is truth, the life of the world, your own life, and the life inside the world you are. Before the Gospel is good news, it is simply the news that that's the way it is, whatever day it is of whatever year.

We gather in this sanctuary because by looking into the waters of our baptism we see ourselves as children of God, and call that the truth! Because when we gather around this simple table of bread and wine we recognize ourselves as the body of Christ, and know that as the truth! Because through worship of the God who wills our freedom in justice and in peace, we grow the kingdom in our midst - in spirit and in truth! Abraham Joshua Heschel once said that "Worship is a way of seeing the world in the light of God." If that is correct, and I think that it is, then we know the truth about ourselves when we pray confession and sing hymns. We know the truth about God as we recite and remember the stories of God encountered in the history of Israel and through the ministry of Jesus. And we know the truth about our world as we offer our lives to God in service to our neighbor and as we witness to the Kingdom God is creating through us.

Lent is a period of 40 days in which we are invited to pay attention to the work of God in our lives, in our community, and the world in which we live. In doing so, we open ourselves to participate in the continuing renewal God seeks to bring to all creation. We think about how the values of God's reign - peace, reconciliation, forgiveness, and justice for all - can be lived out in our lives and our communities. Are our choices and actions compatible with God's actions? Lent is a time to reflect on our baptismal promises and prepare to renew our covenant relationship with God.

May out Lenten journeys form us as true disciples who see and respond to God's presence all around us.