Sermon by Reverend Dr. John W. Mann | November 24, 2024

John 18:33-38

Nine years ago, we flew into Dallas, Texas, where we rented a car and took a leisurely drive through the deep south. In places that are different to us, we find different cultural reference points. In the south, I had to try gas station boiled peanuts. I also bought a preserved alligator head to send to the grandkids.

There were historical markers as well. At one rest stop there was a marker that told of how it had been the site where hundreds of African American sharecroppers had camped out in tents after they were evicted from their farms after registering to vote. In one town, there was a memorial to Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist who was murdered in his front yard. Along with the picture were his words, “You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.”

We pray to God asking for God to do something about the state of the world. In answer God seems to say, “I have done something about it. Now it’s up to you.”

You can’t stop believing that love is stronger than death.

You can’t stop believing that hope is stronger than fear.

The story is told that Jesus was on trial for his life. He was made to stand before the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate. The Governor was curious, asking Jesus, “Who are you? What crime have you committed? They say you claim to be a king?”

Pilate held the power of life and death. His word could mean either. His truth was power.

In his defense Jesus spoke of a different power – the power of heart and soul. He said, “My kingdom is not from here. My realm is truth and truth is what I speak of. Those who belong to my realm – the realm of truth – they listen to my voice.”

Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” The unspoken question was which truth would prevail, “Your truth or my truth?”

Who decides truth? In thinking about the question, I wrote a parable for today. Imagine that – Once upon a time, a long time ago, in ancient land there were people who lived in families and groups and tribes. They were happy with their lives.

Some of the people lived by the rivers and they were called the river people.

Some of the people lived in the forests and they were called the forest people.

The people would move about from river to river and from forest to forest. In their moving about they would sometimes cross paths with each other.

One spring day the two tribes of people found themselves together on the plains between the river and the forest. They greeted each other with some wariness and also with some willingness to make new friends. They set up camps side by side and people moved back and forth trading goods, sharing stories and finding out what they had in common with each other.

When night came the river people built a fire in the middle of their encampment and the forest people built a fire in the middle of their encampment.

The river people sang their songs and they danced around their fire.

The forest people sang their songs and they danced around their fire.

The next day the river people said to the forest people, “We saw that you had fire and we heard you singing songs.”

The forest people said to the river people, “We saw that you had fire and we heard you singing songs.”

The forest people said, “We sing songs and dance in a circle around the fire.”

The river people said, “We also sing songs and dance in a circle around the fire.”

They all began to say, “Tonight let us build a common fire and we all can sing and dance around it together.”

So it was agreed that a common fire would be built and the two tribes would dance around it together.

The fire makers from each tribe gathered wood for the fire and put it in stacks.

The fire makers from the river people said, “We make fire by rubbing two sticks together.”

The fire makers from the forest people said, “We make fire by striking two rocks together and creating a spark.”

They both agreed that fire was fire no matter how it started, because after all, “We all dance around the same fire.”

When evening came the fire was lit, some of it by rubbing two sticks together and some of it by striking two rocks together. The fire blazed brightly in the darkening night.

The chief of the river people said, “Let us begin the fire dance.”

The chief of the forest people said, “Let us begin the fire dance.”

The two tribes of people gathered around the fire began dancing in a circle.

Only….

The river people had started dancing in a circle around the fire by their right and the forest people had started dancing in a circle around the fire by their left. After a short while people were getting in each other’s way and bumping into each other. Then one river people shoved a forest person who had bumped into him. Soon there was more shoving and even some fighting among the two groups.

The chiefs of both tribes came forward up and called a halt to the singing and the dancing.

The chief of the river people said, “Brothers and sisters, we can’t have this confusion, this shoving and fighting around the fire. We all dance around the same fire here, so let us all dance in the same direction!”

“Agreed,” said the chief of the forest people. “Let us all dance in the same direction!”

And all the people agreed that dancing in the same direction was the way to go.

So the chief of the river people said, “Alright then, circle to your right.”

And the chief of the forest people said, “Um, how about we circle to the left?”

“Well,” the river people chief said, “We have always danced to the right. We follow the way of our ancestors and the sacred dance has always been to the right.”

“But we have always danced to the left,” said the forest people chief. “We follow the way of our ancestors and the sacred dance has always been to the left.”

The people began to mutter amongst themselves saying –

“I’ve never danced to the right…you won’t see me dancing to the left….I’ve always known there was something not quite right about those people who dance to the left….you can’t trust those right dancers….”

“Let’s just dance!” the people began to shout and they danced into the fire circle, some dancing to the right and some dancing to the left. Soon there was more pushing and shoving and more fights broke out. Some people grabbed their clubs and began hitting people from the other tribe. The people fought each other through the night until the fire burned down to embers.

When morning came, the fire was cold and both camps had packed up and moved away. Each took their dead away to be dealt with in accordance with their customs. The wounded were tended to.

The chief and the elders from the river people gathered on the banks of the river.

The chief and the elders from the forest people gathered in a clearing in the forest.

Their conversations were exactly the same –

“We can’t trust those people. They dance the wrong way. We must not have anything to do with them ever again. We must be on our guard against them. We will uphold our sacred traditions. Let us plan as to how we might attack them, avenge their crimes against us and settle this matter once and for all, to make our people safe and secure now and for generations to come.”

And so they did. As the people went their own ways, some of the children amongst could be heard crying out, “But what about our new friends? We were having such fun together. They showed us a new dance…”

In Hebrew mythology God placed the first humans in a perfect garden. They had everything they could ever want. They were forbidden only one thing – fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God told them, “If you eat that fruit you will die.”

Being curious children, the people had to find out for themselves. They ate the fruit and they did not die. Instead, they became self-aware, which is another way of saying they discovered their humanity. But in discovering humanity, they discovered the meaning of death. Death entered the story when one brother Cain in a fit of jealous rage murdered his brother Abel.

So Abel was the first person to die. His death was also the first murder. The argument was over religion – over whose religious offering was more acceptable to God. He would not be the last.

When people read through the stories in the Bible they sometimes say, “God was certainly violent in the Old Testament.” The stories tell of when the people did what God wanted, they prevailed over their enemies. When the people were disobedient to God, God gave them into the hands of their enemies.

But it is the victors who write the stories of history. The residents of Jericho would have a different story tell when the walls of their city came crashing down. The people of Sodom and Gomorrah would see fire from heaven in a different light.

The poets who grasped the courage of God’s presence with the words, “Thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil,” also grasped the depth of human depravity when they wrote, “Would that we might bash their children’s heads against the rocks like they did ours.”

We continue to this day to ask, “What is truth?”

We can look at Jesus standing before Pilate as a way of seeing that power in and of itself is not truth. But truth is powerful.

Jesus did not speak in his own defense because his truth requires no defense –

You can kill the body, but you can’t kill the truth.

You can kill the body, but God holds the soul with a love that never lets go.

Love is stronger than death.

Hope is stronger than fear.

The best thing we can do for our world and the people in it, maybe the only thing we can do is to make that love known and to live that hope. Amen.