It's complicated

I love the options you get on Facebook for setting your relationship status. Single, married, divorced, widowed, in a relationship, in a domestic partnership ... and then ... there's ...

"It's complicated"

Really?? In my world, that's not a relationship status as much as it is a page out of the Book of DUH! Of course it's complicated ... it's a relationship!

St. Paul said in his first letter to the Corinthians that "we see through a glass darkly but soon we shall see face to face." He's speaking to the truth that so much of our lives and selves are hidden from the sight of others - never from God, but definitely from others.

We all wear masks to show our best selves off to the rest of the world. Nowhere is that more evident than on Facebook where everyone pumps up their profiles with how cool and hip they are - even as their lives are falling apart behind that computer screen. What we put on social media rarely hints as the broken screwed up parts of ourselves - the parts we fear, the parts others will reject, the parts we hate, the ugliness within. No, we put on our masks and pontificate about our brilliant lives, our stellar ideas (especially when those ideas can be positioned as superior to someone else's), our fantastic careers, etc. And yet all the while we are inside knowing this isn't the whole truth.

It's complicated, isn't it? When the public persona doesn't match the private despair. When the face we show everyone else doesn't match the one we show to our spouses or loved ones. Some people have a high degree of transparency and what you see is pretty much what you get. Others have mastered the repressed dual life and hide behind a mask so well that they really don't know they are doing it anymore ... until they are under duress and the mask slips. It's complicated.

Christ died for the whole of us ... but most especially he died for those ugly repressed parts of ourselves that we really don't want to show others - the complicated stuff. "By his blood he reconciled us. By his wounds we are healed."

What is Truth?

Christ the King Sunday is this coming Sunday. It's like New Year's Eve in the Church ... except we don't play Auld Lang Syne as the closing hymn. The following Sunday is the first Sunday of Advent and a new church year (Year C for those of you following the Lectionary's three-year cycle of Scripture readings).

Speaking of the Lectionary, there's something interesting in how the Sunday Gospel readings are structured from All Saints Day to Christ the King Sunday. We travel back to Holy Week for the Sundays between these two festivals. When we encounter Holy Week at the end of Lent in the spring, we focus intently for a seven day period on the events leading to the crucifixion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It's an intense seven day period and the readings focus on what happens to Jesus during this time. In the fall, we return to Holy Week but not to focus on what happens to Jesus, but rather to focus on what Jesus taught during that week. So we heard warnings about the Scribes who "devour widows" and the widow who gave her mite (her "whole being") and the fortelling of the destruction of the Temple. These are all things Jesus said during Holy Week ... the kinds of things that push the buttons of the establishment and can get a guy crucified.

On Christ the King Sunday, we hear a portion of the reading from John 18 where Jesus is being questioned by Pontius Pilate. Some call this a "trial" but it really wasn't one. It was an interrogation into a minor matter as far as the Roman Procurator was concerned. But it was far more than Pilate or Jesus' accusers had ever imagined.

The lectionary text ends just before Pilate utters the question, "What is truth?" I plan to extend the reading to include that question ... precisely because it is the wrong question. When we fall into the trap of asking Pilate's question, "What is truth?" we can begin to believe that truth is something we can grasp - a thing to be possessed. The real question is "Who is Truth?"** and the answer to that question stands in front of Pilate - Jesus Christ is Truth. Jesus is the embodiment of the Truth of God and John tells us this at the beginning of his Gospel:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ... And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1,14)

And what is the nature of this truth? It is found in the new commandment Jesus gives his disciples:

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. (John 13:34-35)

Loving one another requires Christians to be in relationship - not just with other Christians, but with the whole world. When we live in loving relationships, God gives us the grace to become more honest and authentic with ourselves and others. Through the grace of honesty in relationships we come to know the Truth of God's love.

**(N.B. In the Greek, Pilate's question to Jesus in verse 38 is actually a bit more ambiguous. The Greek phrase "Ti estin alhyeia," "ti" can be translated as either "what" or "who." English Bible translations have historically rendered this as "What is truth?" but suffice it to say we cannot know for certain what Pilate intended.)

Relationships

Philip found Nathanael and told him, "We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law, and the prophets also wrote about– Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph." Nathanael replied, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Philip replied, "Come and see." Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him and exclaimed, "Look, a true Israelite in whom there is no deceit!" Nathanael asked him, "How do you know me?" Jesus replied, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." Nathanael answered him, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God; you are the king of Israel!" Jesus said to him, "Because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these." He continued, "I tell all of you the solemn truth– you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man." (John 1:45-51)

So how did you come to the faith? Last week, some members of our congregation came together to tell our stories about how we got here. Each of us had a chance to tell our "spiritual biography" - a 5-8 minute story on how our journey of faith had brought us to this point in our lives. Everyone had a different path, marked with high points and low valleys. But the "red thread" which ran through each story was the importance of relationships.

Nobody is in a vacuum, we all live as part of a larger community and environment. Those of us who are connected to a faith community didn't get there because of our own volition. We didn't just wake up one morning and say, "Hey! I think I'll go to church. I've never been to church before, don't have a clue what it is, but I really need to go to one right now!" It just doesn't work that way.

If you think about your own faith life, you will see that there are key people who have influenced you and nurtured your faith journey. For me, it was my parents. For my father, it was my mother who brought him to the faith. For my mom, it was a girlfriend in high school who invited her to a youth outing (which happened to be Billy Graham's first Crusade in San Diego back in the 1950's). What's clear is nobody comes to Christ outside relationships.

That's why I love the story of the call of Nathanael in John's Gospel. Philip, Nathanael's friend, "found" him. Philip went looking for his friend and then told him about Jesus. Nathanael, urbane guy that he was, says, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" Rather than be intimidated by Nathanael's sarcastic response, Philip replies, "Come and see." Philip does not engage Nathanael in an argument, nor does he chide Nathanael for his cynicism. He just says, "Come and see." When Jesus encounters Nathanael, his cynicism is replaced by trust in who Jesus is and what it means for Israel.

Nathanael only appears one more time in the New Testament - in John 21:2: "Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two others of his disciples were together." This is the beginning of the story where Jesus appears on the beach at the Sea of Tiberias after his resurrection. Once again, Jesus comes to Nathanael within the context of being with his friends. And that is how Jesus comes to us too. Through our relationships, Jesus comes to us and offers us new life.