God is Still Speaking … Truth to Power
Sushama Austin-Connor – March 5, 2006
The denial of Jesus on three separate occasions by the disciple Peter is startling.
When asked the first time by the attendant whether he was one of Christ’s disciples, Peter lies and says, “I am not.”
Asked again as he stood around the fire, Peter again says, “I am not.”
Finally, one of the high priest’s servants actually recognizes him and asks, but “didn’t I see you with him in the olive grove?” Peter denies Jesus for a third and final time. And as Jesus had predicted, at that moment a rooster began to crow.
Further on in John chapter 18, verses 37-38, Jesus responds to Pilate’s mocking saying, “You are right in saying that I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”
To which Pilate replies, “What is truth?”
I find story this so relevant. We discover this question pertaining to truth again and again in contemporary culture. There are numerous examples of how apparently complicated truth can be. What is truth?
Essentially, Bill Clinton asked ‘What is truth’ when he uttered the now-famous phrase “It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is.” By asking what we mean by ‘is,’ he was challenging what we understand to be truth or truthful leaving us, the American public, to wrestle with interpretation.
As I am sure you’ve all heard—a couple of weeks ago, Vice-President Cheney shot his buddy on a hunting trip. And he proceeded to allow ambiguity to reign supreme for a good three days before issuing a still even more unclear apology, which in turn left the public with the important work of figuring out what truth was.
One of the more obvious examples is the Iraq war. The truth about why we went to war, we still don’t know. Was it weapons of mass destruction? Saddam? Terrorism? Links to terrorism? Oil? Or all of the above? We have been forced to dig through all of the vagary to get to some piece of the truth. What is truth? For example, exactly how large is our national deficit? Who exactly is entitled to health care? And, for what do judicial nominees (now confirmed judges) really stand?
In January, author James Frey’s memoir, A Million Little Pieces, came under fire for being mostly fiction and less fact. Frey admitted to some untruths in his book. At first Oprah, who had picked the book for her Book Club, defended Frey fervently. However, a few days later retracted her support, saying ‘I left the impression that the truth is not important. I am deeply sorry about that because that is not what I believe.” She added, “the truth does matter. ‘
And it does. A great deal.
When we reside in ambiguity, we do not have to deal with uncomfortable truths.
Dealing in ambiguity does not provide the necessary grounds for engagement and discussion.
In my church visits all around the country, I am blessed to meet many amazing pastors and congregations. In one such visit, a pastor upon seeing me said, “I didn’t know you were black when I invited you.” She left me to do the work of figuring out what her true meaning was. Would she have told me not to come if I let her know I was black just as I was boarding the plane? Is she saying something to me about just how liberal she is that my race didn’t matter? What was the meaning?
And though the stakes aren’t as high, I can think of times that I have come home from the hair salon with a new hairstyle. Ladies, we’ve all been in a situation where we have to ask our husbands that all important question—How does it look? And he says unenthusiastically, ‘it looks nice.’ He’s left me to do the work of interpreting what he really means.
Even within our own UCC, we are confronting certain ambiguities and having to hash out essential truths about our denomination. We are compelled to speak truth to power. In the broader sense, this truth extends to revealing our identity—branding ourselves so that our mission is immediately recognizable and accessible.
In a more focused way, this calls for an extreme makeover…not of our ideas, but of the telling of those ideas; not of our theology, but of the true enactment of that theology; not of our members, but of the inclusion of new members; not of our history, but in the shouting and telling and RE-telling of a grand history…with an energy yet to be realized.
This brings us to the Stillspeaking Initiative. The Stillspeaking Initiative is the branding and identity initiative of the United Church of Christ. We cannot let potential congregants or new members take on the heavy work of interpreting our identity and history on their own. Stillspeaking Initiative is challenging notions about the UCC and seeking to remove the cloud of ambiguity to make our mission clear.
The United Church of Christ is a good place. But even in the midst of all the good works that congregations like First [Congregational] are doing, the UCC is facing new and serious challenges. And this is a good thing. We are struggling with the way to make our church even more vibrant today, even more relevant; we are struggling to unlock those truths about our mission and what we stand for that have to be shared with the world. And, as a result, paving a way to ensure our own future.
In 1620, when our UCC spiritual forebears prepared to leave Europe for the New World, their pastor, John Robinson, sent them off with this historic charge: "God has yet more light and truth to break forth out of his holy Word."
The Rev. Dr. Arlene K. Nehring notes in a theological reflection for Stillspeaking, that, in this powerful sentence, “Robinson explained that God's revelation could not be confined to scripture, to a creed, or to a catechism, neither could it be attributed exclusively to a pope, a particular religious body, or to a unique event or period in history. The word of God is more expansive than all of these.
Robinson's assertion continues to be the hallmark of UCC beliefs. That is why in our tradition we read the Bible, we study, and we look to the wisdom and guidance of individuals and faith communities throughout history and across cultures—but it is also why we never let ourselves believe that we have read or heard all that God has to say, or all that God may be calling us to be and do.”
We must have the courage, then, to deliberate and to reveal our truth even in the midst of doubt, mystery and uncertainty. This summer, for example, the United Church of Christ passed a same-sex marriage resolution supporting equal marriage rights for all; this forces each of us to know that God truly has ‘yet more light and truth’ to reveal. God is still speaking….Truth to power.
The Stillspeaking Initiative is asking us to know and be challenged by our denominations essential truths as we consider more and more ways to extend an extravagant welcome to everyone, more ways to get the voice of our organization heard so that we can continue to be a beacon of hope for all people, even as we find ourselves at a time when that voice is not always popular.
From the reading this morning, John 18:15-18 and 25-27 and through John Robinson’s quote "God has yet more light and truth to break forth out of his holy Word,” it is clear that the UCC are keepers of an astounding truth; a truth that must be shared.
The good news of our church, the rich history of our church must be communicated.
Our message and our identity can not be lost in the grey areas of political and theological discourse. Our framework for inclusiveness and our notion of extravagant welcome has to be passed on. We must share it. Our truth must be told.
I’m even going to go out on a limb here and use the word, evangelize, the ‘e’ word. Today’s popular definition, running amok forcing people to believe as we believe and its relationship to ‘evangelical’ has made us run, rightly so, from its use; However, our meaning is an open invitation to experience the extravagant welcome of the United Church of Christ. This redefining is deliberate and necessary in today’s political and cultural climate.
The Stillspeaking Initiative has created a framework and a way to share our accomplishments and history, while at the same time teaching us how to take what the UCC has and make it even stronger.
It has given us an opportunity to be unambiguous.
So why am I so hopeful about our initiative? Well, as a relatively young member (I’m hanging on to 32 with all my might), I am humbled and energized to know that God has still more to say; that God’s words and actions and deeds are fluid; and that God continues to guide each of us to speak truth to power.
The essential truths about the Stillspeaking Initiative are these: it offers congregations a way to combat an ever-growing dissatisfaction with organized religion; it offers an extravagant welcome to all people who have no church home; and it beings a sound inspiring theology to the national discussion.
I’d like to quickly share just a few statistics with you about the initiative.
Ladies and gentleman, there is a nation and a world outside of our church doors yearning for more information about our theology and our spiritual journey.
So, then, what are the truths God is asking us to reveal? So often we complicate the matter.
God is asking us to reveal the truth that we must protect and support women, minorities, and other often disenfranchised people.
God is asking us to reveal the truth that we must strive to achieve peace even as we pray for our young soldiers.
God is asking us to reveal the truth about poverty--- that we must fight it… not only around the world, but in this very nation, in New Orleans, in our own backyards.
God is asking us to reveal the truth that we must see the fight for equity and justice as the urgent religious tenet that it is.
God is asking us to reveal the truth that to remain open and loving and progressive even in the face of homophobia, sexism, racism and intolerance—is patriotic.
God is asking us to reveal the truth that we must be visionary as we practice faith and politics in our country, not pitting one against the other but somehow making sense of both to help and care for people.
And we recognize by this list that God is asking a lot of us. This adds a level of complexity to the issue. Many Christians and people of various faiths have so many different interpretations of what is being asked. With each of the ‘wedge’ issues that divide this country, for example, the interpretations of what God is asking denies many biblical precepts and ignores many obvious truths.
This tension exists in so many ways. Certainly God is not asking us to ignore natural disasters because, somehow, God’s wrath is upon us.
We as UCC members cannot bury our history under a heap of humility.
We can’t be ambiguous when speaking truth to power.
We can’t be known for ambiguity.
I am so glad that God is still speaking. I can hear the whisper and then the roar… God is still speaking, asking us to share our truths, our history and our successes…And only in doing so will we are become better at interpreting those truths for ourselves and for others. I can hear the whisper and then the roar….God is still speaking, saying… move forward, even in spite of ourselves and all of our worst fears…we are being called to speak truth to power.
Let me remind you that Jesus said to Pilate ‘everyone on the side of truth listens to me.’ And we are all constantly motivated to be on the side of truth. For the UCC, our historic firsts and our enduring courage speak to always being on the side of truth. For us, the challenge is to share this message with as much vigor.
"God has yet more light and truth to break forth out of his holy Word."
Amen.