Truth in the Love Commandment

Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

George Floyd

Today marks day 4 of the trial for Derek Chauvin, charged with 2nd and 3rd degree murder and man-slaughter of George Floyd.

You likely remember the news in the days and weeks following George Floyd’s death as videos became public. In the earliest hours and days after his death, the nation seemed to mourn in unity for George Floyd. 9 minutes and 29 seconds beneath the knee of Derek Chauvin… cries for help… hoarse whispers that he couldn’t breathe… and then silence.

Since then, of course, lines have been drawn. What seemed to be a moment where the nation felt unified in its mourning transformed into a time of division, of blame, of anger at one another, and yes, violence.

How did we get to such a divided place? And what does this have to do with the Maundy Thursday?

Post-Truth Era

In 2004, Ralph Keyes wrote a book called, “The Post-Truth Era.”

Keyes writes, “In the post-truth era we don't just have truth and lies but a third category of ambiguous statements that are not exactly the truth but fall just short of a lie. Enhanced truth it might be called. Neo-truth. Soft truth. Faux truth. Truth lite."

The Post-Truth Era is the idea of taking aspects of the truth and reframing it in such a way that makes sense to the world-view that we want to have or that we want others to have.

It enhances concepts, such as the idea during world war II that Japanese-Americans couldn’t be trusted… that any of them could be spies for Japan because of Pearl Harbor. Or during World War I when German-Americans stopped speaking german and tried to get rid of their accents so that -they- weren’t singled out as being part of some evil race that was anti-American. More recently, we have heard calls that police can’t be trusted because they are corrupt and evil. Or those who support a cause similar to Black Lives Matter must be violent. Or that anyone who votes for Trump must have been a racist. Or that anyone who voted for Biden must love abortions and hate babies. I heard both during the elections.

It is the idea that we can take pieces of truth and turn them to hit an emotional sucker-punch in others, making them believe as we want them to believe. At times it is used to cause hate, other times to offer pride… but almost always, the use of post-truth is self-serving as people rely more on emotions than facts.

This is not a new idea. The idea of a post-truth era has been written about by scholars since the late 1800s at least. But it has become very visible in recent years.

Alternative Facts

In 2017 we were introduced to the term, “alternative facts” when Kellyanne Conway was asked whether the reporting about former President Trump’s inaugural crowd-size was factual, that it was truly the biggest there ever was. The reporter who was interviewing Conway was blown away when she used the term “alternative facts” and responded that “Alternative facts are not facts. They’re falsehoods.” It’s the idea of using “different truths” to get the message out there that we would prefer.

In a similar way, at the beginning of this month, Biden’s administration refused to call the record number of unaccompanied children at the US border a “crisis” and referred to it only as a challenge instead. Again, an instance of using language that we prefer to try to paint a different picture than reality.

We live in a time where our understanding of the world around us are often guided not by the facts (at least not all of the facts), but by emotional pleas using partial truths.

Right now, during the trial of Derek Chauvin, the vast majority of our society has already decided whether Derek Chauvin is guilty or innocent. And so the question in many people’s minds is not what truth will be revealed through this trial… but whether or not the jury and judge will provide justice either for or against the former police officer.

Similarly, we as a society have also made our opinions know about George Floyd himself. These are the three primary opinions I’ve heard voiced:

1) George Floyd was a martyr for civil rights

2) George Floyd made a mistake that indeed was a criminal act but received far more punishment than he deserved

3) George Floyd somehow deserved what happened to him because those are the consequences of our life choices.

And I am not here to make a claim on any of them but rather to point to how we see these issues terribly different from one another. There are many different ‘truths’ that we have come to understand that curiously lead us in such different directions. The set of truths that I listen to and choose to believe may lead me to a different place than what set of truths that someone else listens to. And some of the truths that one side believes conflict with the truths of another.

Why? Many of our opinions tend to become based more on emotional reactions rather than the facts of what occurred. Again, we wait to see if the jury comes to the correct verdict as we see it, rather than trusting that the jury will hear the facts and make an impartial decision after receiving the full evidence.

The news sources that we listen to, the conversations that we have with friends and family, our experiences in life… they all shape the way we see the truth. And so we find ourselves or see others inspired not by facts but by emotional appeals that often contain pieces of truth, but more often than not fail to contain the whole truth.

And so we march forward confident in the pieces of truth we have, certain in our own opinion… and when someone speaks differently it becomes something we don’t like or that doesn’t match up with how we see things that we dismiss it or, worse, dismiss those whom we disagree with. And so it becomes easier and easier to become divided from one another. And to blame the other. To condemn the other. And yes, even to come to hate the other.

Different Truths around the Table

That brings us to our Gospel lesson tonight as we hear Jesus on that last eve’ with his disciples before he would be taken away, put on trial, and crucified.

Leading up to this last supper, the disciples had heard Jesus proclaim that yes he was indeed the Son of Man. And that the Son of Man was to be lifted up. They had heard his teachings of love and care for the poor. They had been present for his miracles. They had also heard him call out the failures of the Church in their day… of how the church tended to serve itself more than those in need.

They had ALL been listening to Jesus as their source for information. And yet, even with the same source, they had not all come to the same conclusion. Judas likely comes to our mind first. We know that Judas was with them that night. We know that Judas struggled to believe what Jesus had been teaching. We know that he struggled so much that he chose to turn Jesus over to the authorities. We know that Judas betrayed Christ, to his death based on his understanding that he, that Judas, was so very certain of.

But Judas wasn’t the only one who had gotten off track from Jesus’ teachings. Next we might think of Peter. Of his unwillingness to allow Jesus to wash his feet. Or later of his denial of Jesus three times before the cock crowed twice.

But even then, it’s not just Judas… it’s not just Peter… but as we look around the table for that Last Supper we realize ALL of them were struggling to believe what Jesus was teaching. They had all picked which pieces of truth they wanted to hear from Jesus and then tried to dismiss the rest.

We know that because after Jesus had died been crucified, they all went into hiding. They all cowered away when the truth they had hoped in that Jesus was going to be the new King of Israel died on a cross. They went from imagining themselves in the court of a powerful king to suddenly questioning whether or not they would survive the next few days in Jerusalem.

When it gets down to the brass tacks, none of them agreed with the teachings Jesus had given them, only the pieces they wanted to hear. Whether they betrayed Christ openly like Judas did or stuck around only to flee upon his arrest, they all fell short of understanding the full truth that Christ was bringing. And yet each of them had been so confident.

Judas was confident Judas was right. Peter was confident that Peter was right. James and John, the Sons of Thunder, certainly thought THEY were right. Each of them trusted in their OWN understanding of the truth, their own gut feelings about Jesus, their own emotional hope or fear for what was going on. And so they were divided from each other… and divided from Christ.

As Jesus looked around the table that night, he would have seen the faces of those disciples whom he lived… but whom had their own ideas that were different that his. Whether the disciples realized it or not, they were on a different page from Christ. They disagreed, ultimately, with what Christ was teaching.

I would suspect if we had some conversation tonight, we would find that we too come from different places. That we understand the world differently… that we understand Christ differently. I suspect that we would find that there are places where we disagree with one another on and perhaps places where we struggle with Christ’s teachings as well… even in places where we perhaps feel very confident about.

And we could talk about why we believe differently. We could talk about why we are so confident in what we believe whether its faith or politics or the best toppings for a pancake.

But tonight, what is SUPREMELY important is not why we have the opinions that we do or why we can can become so very confident that WE are correct and THE OTHER PEOPLE are wrong. But instead… I want us to look at what Jesus does in that upper room when HE is faced with not one person who disagrees with him but a room full of people who disagree with him.

Jesus’ response

As Jesus looks around the room, and sees the faces of Peter and James and John and Judas and Bartholomew and Thomas and all of the others… as he listens to their conversations and realizes that after 3 years of them following him around they STILL don’t get it… he does NOT condemn them. He does NOT kick them out. He does NOT belittle them or dehumanize them. Instead, Jesus takes off his outer robe and he starts to wash their feet.

In the face of those he disagrees with, when Jesus KNOWS he is correct and they are wrong not just on a human level but a DIVINE level, he humbles himself to service.

In the face of disagreements and failed understandings, Jesus is persistent in his love to his disagreeing non-listening disciples. In that post-truth moment where everyone at the table had their own understanding that served their own purposes, Jesus points to the TRUTH of God’s love for them and for the world.

And at the end of the evening, when the feet had been washed, Jesus tells them to do likewise. And he gives them the great commandment to love. Not to love only as long as the other party has a partisan opinion that matches our own. Not to only love as long as the other person isn’t a pain in the rear-end.

But that in the midst of disagreement, in the midst of being on different pages where everyone was out after their own agendas with the certainty that their individual cause was the right one… Jesus tells them to love each other.

And what does that look like? What does it look like for Jesus to love a Judas, or a Thomas, or a James, John, or Peter when they are just completely wrong? What does it look like when we find ourselves faced with someone who WE believe are completely wrong?

Well again, let’s start with what he didn’t do. Jesus didn’t force them force them to believe precisely as he did before he loved them. The other person doesn’t have to agree with us before we follow Christ’s commandment to love them. Jesus also didn’t turn and tell Judas you need to stick around at the table if you’re going to get my love… it wasn’t a conditional love… God’s love isn’t shown by waiting for the other person to start making steps BEFORE we love them. No.

The love that Christ shows the disciples is that when they had a need, he cared for them. When their feet were dirty, Jesus washed them. When the people were hungry, he fed them. When they were thirsty, he gave them something to drink. When they were naked, he clothed them. When they felt alone or sick or in pain, he wept with them and he sought to heal their hurts.

This Maundy Thursday, as we find ourselves in what might indeed be a post-truth world where the idea of ‘truth’ is watered down to whatever set of facts we decide to align ourselves with, Christ points us to THE truth of God’s love and calls us to sit around the table and love with our words and actions those whom we do not agree with. Because that’s precisely what Christ did.

He loved served those who were in the wrong. He cared for those who didn’t understand the truth… and who were so certain of themselves. And thank God that Christ calls us to the table even as we come so certain of ourselves and how we view the world.

May we be shaped by Christ’s example of love on that night that he was betrayed not by one disciple but by all of them. Might we march not to the beat of our own drums… but the beat of Christ’s heart.

Peace be with you. Amen.