TRUTH

In a dramatic scene in the Gospels Jesus is standing before Pilate who has it in his hands, his power, to do whatever he wants with Jesus. He has to give no explanation for his actions or any justification. He is in charge. He has the power. Pilate thinks, because of Jesus’ accusers, that Jesus has come on the scene to become a king, to usurp power not only from Pilate but also Caesar himself.

On the contrary, Jesus tells Pilate, he has come on the scene, come into the world, in fact, the only reason why he was born was for only one purpose, and that is testify to the truth. Pilate, in his cynicism, asks, “What is truth?” and then drops the subject. Perhaps Pilate does not go down that road because he is afraid of the answer. Pilate, like all of us, is afraid of the truth.

Why? Why are we so afraid of the truth especially when we know, as Jesus reminds us elsewhere, that that the truth will make us free? Walter Brueggemann, the great Old Testament scholar, in commenting on truth, says that where truth operates, poverty turns into abundance, death turns into life, war turns into peace and hunger turns into food. In other words, truth is one of, if not, the most powerful forces in the world.

Think about it: whenever (if we have the courage and the will) we truthfully and honestly address issues like poverty, death, war and hunger, those issues, those realities, can be eliminated from this world. But they are realities because we will not address them truthfully. For whenever we do address poverty, for instance, we, in the end, as a society and even individually, come up with what we want to deem as reasonable excuses and justifications for poverty’s existence.

But there are none. We have within is as a nation, certainly as a world, the ability to eliminate poverty, hunger, premature death and even war but only to the extent that we are willing to be honest about the reasons such realities exist in the first place. And the reason: greed. There is poverty in our world because those who have are not willing to share enough of what they (we) have with those who have little or nothing. That is the gospel truth.

There is disease and premature death in impoverished countries, even in our own, because it is more important to make billions of dollars in profit on medicine than to take less and take care of those who can’t afford the necessary medication to get better or not get deathly ill in the first place. That, too, is the gospel truth. We go to war as nations to insure our lifestyle remains viable at the expense of others. We waste enough food in this country alone to feed millions of starving people. That is the gospel truth.

The truth is we know that. None of this is rocket science. But asserting the truth is dangerous, as Jesus pointed out and because of which Jesus became a victim. Telling the truth and making it a reality all costs us something. It may not cost us our lives but it will cost us something: downsizing, fewer toys, sharing, compromising. The list is long. The truth is that we are reluctant to face the truth because we are not willing to pay the price.