St. Paul's On-The-Hill Episcopal Church

The Rev. Stephen C. Holton, Rector

15 Pentecost; September 13, 2009

Proverbs 1:20-33

Psalm 19

Mark 8:27-38

TRUTH IS BEAUTIFUL – DON'T HIDE

Truth is beautiful. Wisdom is obvious. Everyone knows it. It cries out in the street – where everybody is. It is at the entrance of the city gates, where people take counsel, and where insiders and outsiders mix.

It's everywhere. If we do not know it, we have no excuse, for God in Wisdom – Proverbs says – makes every effort to get through to us. It has called, and we may have refused. It has stretched out its hand, and no one has heeded.

Therefore, it says, Wisdom will laugh at our calamity. This is not a punishment, but a consequence. We have closed our eyes to truth and reality; so when reality strikes, our eyes will be closed and we will have no warning. It's not that God didn't try. It's not that Wisdom did not seek to inform us. We did not choose to respond to the information.

When we close ourselves to Science, when we close ourselves to Economics, when we close ourselves to Justice and the needs of others, bad things happen. It's not like God hasn't tried to inform us.

Psalm 19 is one long song of praise to Science – and not the esoteric truths known only to researchers, but that which is obvious to all:

The heavens declare the glory of God

and the firmament shows his handiwork.

One day tells its tale to another

and one night imparts knowledge to another.

That's how obvious the truths of God are. They are displayed in nature.

Although they have no words or language

and their voices are not heard

Their sound has gone out into all lands

and their message to the ends of the world.

It turns out you don't even have to be religious to understand this. The truth of nature has gone out into all lands. It sounds like a ringing endorsement of science to me – that truth, God's truth, exists independently of religion and speaks outside of it. So if we are worried about the environment based on the science of it, that is also a religious worry. And if we do something based on the science of it, that is also a religious action.

And God speaks through science – Wisdom speaks through science – just as surely as he speaks through religion. In the same way, Building Codes can be said to be of God, for they too are based on truth and what is safe for people, even if you can't find them in Matthew, Mark, Luke or John. So it becomes a religious activity to abide by them.

We've seen in the past year what happens when people do not abide by economic truths. Wisdom laughs at their calamity. It's not like their actions made any sense at the time. And the calamity is not punishment, but consequence.

So we must speak Truth! Truth is beautiful, and Truth is available to all. It “cries out in the street, in the squares she raises her voice. At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance to the city gates she speaks.”

Truth is not the province of only experts, political or economic or religious, who pat us on the head and tell us to go home and leave it to those in the know to take care of things. It is obvious to all – and anyone can live by it though experts say its not possible.

It is also true, however, that if we do live that way, by the simple divine truths of justice, and mercy for all, and loving and helping our neighbor, why then we'll get in trouble. We'll be called idiots for not looking out only for ourselves, for not being greedy and looking out for number one. We'll wind up challenging institutions and vested interests that are built on greed or selfishness, or the consumer interest that would have us looking out only for ourselves and not for everyone else.

I don't just refer to the current political debates – though there is a lot of noise out there that is not necessarily true, and there are certainly a lot of experts on both sides who are saying that certain things just can't be done and just aren't possible and that the rest of us are too simple minded to know why.

But “Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice.” Yes, wisdom is available to everybody.

Not everybody seeks it.

Down through the ages, not everybody sought it. Down through the ages many have sought only their own safety, only their own comfort, and have avoided the wisdom staring them in the face that says maybe safety and comfort is not possible right now, if you also want to care for your self and other people, as we know God wants us to and, as we know, is what really improves our lives. We know that mutual love is more important than safety and comfort and, in the long run, is a better foundation for a good life for all.

Peter sought safety and comfort.

When Jesus said that his way of love would lead him to great suffering, and that he would “be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again,” then “Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.”

Peter wanted nothing to do with this suffering and death. Perhaps he believed that being the Messiah meant happiness and power! Perhaps he believed that believing in the Messiah meant happiness and power, that being a Christian meant insulation from the ways of the world, and that the church is a lifeboat in which we can ride out the storm, while everyone else drowns.

And Jesus says no, no. “But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter, and said, 'Get behind me Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.' He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, 'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Not divine things, but human things. Perhaps the human things that Peter wanted and shouldn't have, when he asked Jesus not to talk about suffering and death, were the absence of suffering and death, the presence of comfort and happiness always. Perhaps what Jesus wanted, when he talked about divine things, and told the disciples and the crowd to follow him, was taking up our crosses, doing what he taught, challenging the powers that be and ourselves and our life-styles if need be, and maybe suffering for it, and maybe dying for it. Perhaps that's what he means.

In the current political debate, I don't mean supporting the Democratic plan as opposed to the Republican plan. I mean Christians have to be for justice and mercy and care for all even if it makes us uncomfortable. Whether we get there by big or small government, private or public option is a good subject for debate and what way you choose is a matter of choice, but the goal of care for all is not a choice.

Nor can we hide from the debate, for Jesus leads us directly into the debate, just as he leads us into the debate on war and peace, wealth and poverty, and the environment. Jesus does not hide from the world. Jesus came into the world – born of a woman, in a little village, in a small country, in the Roman Empire.

He came and taught, he lived and died, challenging that Empire and how it lived. He built up a new life for himself and his disciples and for those who followed him, and he taught them to live this kind of life and teach this kind of life to others.

There is one other thing he constantly told them. He constantly told them not to tell others who he was. When Peter said, “You are the Messiah,” “he sternly ordered him not to tell anyone about him.”

Perhaps he was afraid they would follow and obey him as a kind of walking, magic talisman. Believe in him and be safe, people might think. Believe in him and stay in our lifeboat church, free from the problems of society.

No, society and its problems is exactly where he wanted to lead us, for, after swearing the disciples to secrecy about his identity, “he called the crowd with his disciples, and said, 'If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

This is what he really wanted them all to know. He made a point of it. He called the crowd! Obedience to God, helping others, will lead to suffering. But it will also lead to change in the world. It will lead to the building of the Kingdom of God – according to good building codes even if everyone else thinks we're stupid.

This knowledge is available freely to all. Its in our Bible for everyone to read. Its in Nature for everyone to see. Its in the average household and leads to happiness there, and its no secret.

Our job is to spread these truths in our towns and communities. Perhaps it is simply to point them out and understand, as the Psalm says, that “Their sound has gone out to all lands,” that we are not the only ones in the know.

God has created all people in his image and likeness. All people are capable of living in that image. We are capable of following the tough road Jesus traveled first, and of changing the world as he did, and loving others as he taught. The only thing we cannot do, must not do, is hide from the world, for he has led us into it. When we hide from the world and its people, we hide from him. When we love him, we love them.