The Truth: the whole truth, nothing but the truth. (John 14:1-9)

INTENT: Christ as Truth

I am the Way, I am the Truth, I am the Life.

I am the Truth -- not, "I'm telling you the truth." I am the Truth.

And it is "the" Truth – not, "a" Truth -- "the Truth", implying the only Truth. And as usual: I have issues.

How many times have you heard people – sincere and otherwise smart people – say that his or her path is the One True Path. It is like they’re saying "My religion is right, and everybody else’s isn’t."

But we have so many truths, and so many of them want to be The Truth. Christianity probably has more of this than any of the other major active religions. But Christianity isn’t the only place you find it.

Years ago, I was talking to a Nichiren Shoshu priest, who told me that only his branch of Buddhism teaches the "One True Way" to enlightenment. He used that very phrase, and said that absolute trust in the practice of Nichiren Shoshu and its mantra -- Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo – was all that was needed. The phrase roughly translates: "I devote myself to the mystic law of the truth of the lotus." It’s a nice thought: the lotus produces its beautiful flower, but it only blooms in the mud. It is this beauty from the slime that has made the lotus an important religious symbol from Japan to Egypt. Nice thought, and maybe true. But I don’t think it is the only thing that’s true. Don’t they cross the line when they say it is the only truth? I need to stress (in case you don't already know) that most Buddhist groups don't take this "my way or the highway" attitude. Most Buddhists are Live And Let Live kinds of people. What Nichiren Shoshu teaches... isn’t it similar to today’s Christian televangelists, only the names are changed to protect whatever.

I told the priest that if I went down the street to the local Assembly Of God, the preacher would tell me something very similar. He would tell me that the Assembly Of God is the One True Way.

And Christians have a trump card. I’ve heard Christianity called the "gambler’s religion." There is no goal more glorified than the Christian’s heaven with its pearly gates... no other religion has a good that is more good than that. And there is no bad that is worse than the fires of hell... no other religion has a bad that is badder than Hell. It is the baddest thing around. If you accept The Truth – the One True Way – you get the good. If you screw up, you roast for eternity.

"no man cometh unto the Father, but by me" -- and when I read this in the readings for today, I started to plot a way to get back at the person who scheduled me to preach. Then I remembered that I was the one who did the schedule for October. Oops.

Okay, let’s see if we can make all this stuff lay down and behave. It really seems like that’s the main problem. We have some mutually exclusive ideas, and each wants to be called "The Truth."

• Are we punished with eternal damnation if we pick the wrong Truth?
• Are we sent back in a reincarnation, in a kind of ontological mulligan? That’s a golf term: if your ball goes haywire, you can ask for a mulligan... another playing ball, without penalty. I think that’s how some people see reincarnation: I don’t, but that’s another sermon.
• What happens if you pick the wrong truth? What happens if you’re flat-out wrong?

There was a little boy who went to his father and asked "Where did I come from?" The father braced himself... the kid asked for the truth... the time had come for That Discussion... the Father told him (nervously) about the birds and the bees. The boy listened. He thought about it for awhile, and then he said: "Oh, okay... Susan said she came from West Virginia, so I was just wondering." Oops.

In Zen Buddhism, the master gives a student some kind of impossible riddle, called a koan: "What’s the sound of one hand clapping?" The question can’t be answered, not by the intellect. It doesn’t matter if we understood the question or not, it can’t be answered.

The Zen master is trying to get the student to go beyond words and ideas and concepts. In typical Zen fashion, the master uses personal experience, rather than explanation. If he explained the purpose of a koan to the student, it would have less of an impact than personal experience. The purpose of a koan is to cause an intellectual implosion in the student’s head, and what’s left is enlightenment. After a Zen student sits and thinks about the assigned koans for some period of time, his head implodes on itself.

I love Mark Twain's explanation of learning by example. He said that there are two kinds of education. The first kind is reading about carrying a cat home by the tail. But he said the other kind of education offers lessons unlikely to grow dim with time.

Zen masters are full of contradictions. Many come off as rude. But it’s okay because everyone knows they’re just messin’ with you. It is a kind of spiritual judo, and you know that you’re going to end up face down on the mat before the lesson is learned. It’s their job: they don’t hate you personally.

I think that all these One Truths... all these contradictions that are in the Bible... all the rules that nobody can hope to follow... are a kind of Christian koan. Christ died and yet he lives. The meek are the strong. The poor are really the rich ones. You have to be twice-born. You have to believe in the Light, but everyone is always in the dark. Why could God make bad things (horrible things) happen to good people? It doesn’t make sense. None of it makes sense. There’s little in this religion of ours that I can wrap my head around successfully and say that it makes sense.

That’s point one: contradictions can be a wonderful tool for growth. Somebody who was in a really bad place recently reached out to me for help. I said "You are in a splendid place in your life right now." Confusion, like: "What are you? Nuts?" Then I explained that when life takes us into spaces that make no sense, or like God has forsaken us... give into the contradiction... give in to God’s koan.... saying "Lord, I’m lost a bit now and could really use some help." That’s perfect. It is the place that the Spanish mystic, John of the Cross, called the Dark Night of the Soul. I told this person: you’re in an awful situation: don’t waste this opportunity. We don’t get into the Dark Night often. (Thank goodness.)

Point two on having so many truths... God is so far beyond words and ideas, that concepts are never very accurate. I just wonder if we see The Way and The Truth in terms we personally can understand. Each person works a path and tries to explain to others what it is like, but each person comes up with different words.

The trouble starts only when we say I have Truth, and you don’t. That kind of attitude isn’t truth: it’s judgment. What seems so correct may be wrong. Susan was from West Virginia... that’s where she came from.

In the early days, our religion had a rich tradition of writings. The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Gospel of Truth. An early church leader, named Irenæus, tried to bring things under control. Irenæus thought people were being too loose with their beliefs... that the religion was sloshing around too much. Father Tony mentioned him briefly in last week’s homily, and frankly he was more charitable toward Irenæus that I’m likely to be. I'm sure Irenæus did what he thought best: he arrested the wild gyrations of the early church. Irenæus said those who accept fewer than four or more than four gospels are heretics. He said there are four directions, classical philosophers note four elements (air, fire, water, and earth), and Christians should accept exactly four gospels. He wanted everyone to burn all but Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. In a very real sense, the decision of Irenæus to limit our gospels to four boxed in the religion, in a four-sided square. The gospels were embalmed.

The Gospel of Truth begins "The gospel of truth is joy." Thank goodness Irenæus protected us from this heresy.

The "I AM" structure appears in several places within and outside of the official New Testament. Here is a sequence from a book from about the year 200, called the Acts Of John--

Point three: visualization. We sometimes think things lay the way they lie because of the words we're taught. Words influence our thinking. Words become the reality.

The words become The Truth. But words are so limiting: words constrict. As we've heard, actions speak louder than words. Here's some more from the Gospel of Truth:

God's word (logos) is The Son... very Zen: showing the word, not saying it. Words change the truth... constrict it.

When I was in grade school, the teachers used the term "melting pot" to describe the USA. All these disparate people came – Irish, Italians, Germans, and French – and they jumped into the big pot, were melted, and were poured out as Americans. The teachers didn’t talk about Africans or Asians. And Native Americans were mentioned only when we beat them up or converted them to the One True religion. And how come nobody much talked about my people – the Swedes (except to say we were murderous Vikings)?

I think the idea of a "melting pot" – this insidious idea that we are all somehow the same, or should be the same – is poisonous. We don't look the same; we don't talk the same; we don't share exactly the same values: none of us. We bring different cultures to the table, and I think that’s a good thing.

Instead of a "melting pot," I like to think of the United States as a tossed salad! We don’t always blend together to make a simple broth. Each of us can retain whatever family or culture-characteristics we had. A tossed salad is a cacophony of different foods: leafy plants, tomato, olive, pine nuts, cheese, and dressing. The idea isn’t so much for the foods to melt together. We want them to stay unique because that’s what makes a salad interesting.

The salad only becomes a problem when things melt together... when the tomato gets a big gush of what is proper and appropriate and preaches that the lettuce must become red and have a skin and seeds. The olives tell the parmesan: Thou mayest be pitted but Thou shall not be grated.

I think my generation would be happier with diversity if we had been taught to use the phrase "tossed salad" instead of "melting pot."

Thank God for the Liberal Catholic rite, that gives each of space to be our own -- whatever that may be.

Point one was that creative tension (or brinksmanship or Dark Night of the Soul) that is so important to spiritual growth. At some point, we will trip and fall... all of us. We will be wrong, missing the mark and falling short of The Truth.