This entry is part of a series called “The Gospel in a Postmodern World.” Learn more about the series here.
Preached at The Plains United Methodist Church on October 23, 2022
Scriptures: John 14:5-14, Acts 4:1-13

If you missed last week, we’re doing a series about culture.  Specifically, modern Western culture.  The postmodern era has brought tremendous challenges both to our own discipleship and our ability to share the faith with others, so we’re going to think about what this postmodern era is.  How it functions.  What are these challenges that it has brought and how can we navigate them well?

There’s no more obvious place to start than a conversation about truth.  Postmodernism is defined by a plurality of truths.  The word “truth” may as well be translated into “perspective” or “healthy mindset.”  It would function almost the same.  Think about when you’ve heard people say things like, “I need to speak my truth.”  My truth?  What is my truth?  In no other era would there be this assumption that your truth is different than my truth and our two truths might contradict each other, but they’re both true.  That would have been insane!  Either something IS or it IS NOT truth!  There can’t be two contradictory truths at the same time.  But here and now?  That’s the norm.  Truth is perspective.  It’s whatever is healthy (by our definition) for us.  It’s certainly not a single unified thing that is the same for everyone.

To see this in action, one need look no further than that reality show legend, Survivor.  Yes, I still watch the occasional season of Survivor.  I know it lost it’s magic somewhere around season 32, but I just can’t help myself sometimes.  In any case, in one episode, a tribe was debating which person they should vote out that night.  It was a particularly nasty conversation.  And of course, nobody’s story is lining up.  They all have their own idea about how things should unfold based on who they think the heroes are and who they think the villains are; who is helpful and who is harmful.  This goes on for a while before one woman finally calms everyone down and said, ““You have your truth, I have my truth, and we have to decide how to navigate in the light of all of these truths at tribal council tonight.”  Everyone stopped fighting and nodded as though she’d said something very wise.  Sure enough, there was a delicate peace until the vote that night.

That’s what we’re talking about right there!  Notice that she didn’t say, “We each have our own perspective.”  That would have been accurate, but she didn’t say that.  She said, “We each have our truth.”  As though there were a million different, completely accurate realities that had played out.  Nobody was actually wrong.  Nobody had a warped perception or different goals.  No, they had their own truth.  And arguing wasn’t pointless because they were all competing to be the last one standing on a gameshow and naturally had conflicting goals.  No!  There were just so many truths that they couldn’t be navigated fairly.  To say, “You’re wrong.”  would have been chaos!  To say, “I disagree” wasn’t worth it!   They all had to all be right to stop the fighting, which was totally insane to the viewers at home!  Because we knew what was happening behind the scenes!  We knew that half of the people were lying through their teeth to try to get their way!  They were obviously more interested in winning the game than discovering any kind of truth!  But no.  They all had their own truth.

Why was that woman’s plea so effective?  Surely it would have been easier to just say that we all have our own ideas and settle things at tribal council.  But no.  Each of the players had something more than ideas.  They had their truth.  Social cohesion within the group was only possible insofar as they were willing to give up their claim to the truth.  It didn’t matter if you were honest or dishonest, winning or losing, none of that mattered.  Unity was possible by giving up on truth.  Was it a true unity?  Not really.  But it was an easy unity.  One in which everyone was equally wrong.

That same spirit is present in the Church.  In an effort to be socially acceptable in this new era, in an effort to get a seat at the table, we often give up claims to absolute truth.  Rather than honestly tell people who believe totally different things, “I think you’re wrong,” there’s a temptation to say, “we’re both equally right in our own way.”

There’s an anecdote that I occasionally hear people tell about religious truth.  There are three blindfolded men all in the same room as an elephant.  The first man is standing near its head, so he reaches out and touches its trunk and says, “This animal feels like a snake!”  The second man is near the back of the elephant and he’s sitting down.  He touches the elephant’s leg and says, “No!  It’s like a tree!”  The third man is standing on a ladder, and he reaches out and feels the bristly hairs on the elephant’s back and says, “Nah, it’s probably a horse.”  Who was right?  All of them.  They only knew what their circumstances allowed, but they were all right in their own way.  The implication here is that all religions are fundamentally the same.  All a little wrong.  All a little right.  Who’s to say what’s genuinely real?  But note that for the story to exist at all, there has to be someone in the room that’s seeing these weirdly-positioned men with the elephant!  Otherwise, there would be no story to tell!  Someone has to have an objective point of view.  Chrisitians used to feel comfortable claiming to be that person.  We were the ones who saw when everyone else was blindfolded!  But now?  Now things seem more complicated.

You heard our first passage earlier today.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me.”  Classic.  That phrase alone makes Jesus such a challenge in a postmodern world, because he doesn’t claim to have a truth.  He claims to be THE truth.  The only truth.  That makes people bristle.  Even pastors!  In one Bible study I attended, someone read this passage and said, “This is why evangelism is so important.  Because Jesus is the only way.  He said so right here.”  Then the pastor spoke up.  “Well, hold on now.  It might say that he is THE way, but I think we need some ontological humility.  We don’t know how Jesus comes to others and how he works with people that we don’t know.  This is him speaking to us, but not to them.  I prefer to imagine him saying, ‘I am a truth, a way, and a life.’  That’s much closer to what he was actually trying to say.”  Where were that pastor’s ideas grounded?  Certainly not in the Bible.  Even if you take these passages back to the Greek, each of those words, way, truth, and life, are preceded by the Greek word “hay.”  That’s an exclusive singular word, not a generic singular.  “The” is undoubtedly the proper translation, not “a”.  And “except through me” could more literally be translated as “if not by me.”  Again, very exclusivist language here.  No, the hesitation wasn’t rooted in the Bible.  It was rooted in postmodern thought.  For Jesus to say that he was THE way was terrifying.  Far too cocky.  Far too self-assured.  And so, to translate the Bible “with humility,” it had to deliberately be mistranslated.  That’s how frightening absolute truth claims are in the modern world.

And it’s not just claims in the Bible that are “adjusted.”  It’s the way we consider our own faith.  A different pastor explained to me once that they believed that they believed that Jesus was God.  I said, “So you believe that’s true, in other words.”  And they said, “I wouldn’t go that far.  I believe that it’s my belief.  I don’t feel comfortable talking about what’s true.  Who am I to say what’s true?”  Who am I to say what’s true… And we wonder why evangelism has fallen on such hard times.  “Hello, I want to talk to you about Jesus.  I believe it’s my belief that he’s a way to living.  And if you don’t like that, it may not be your truth, but it’s my truth.”  What a life-changing prospect to be given something that’s so totally peripheral to your existence.

Postmodern life has shifted the way we think.  We’re afraid of admitting that we have THE truth to all of existence.  We’re afraid of a Jesus that would actually claim to be THE truth.  And so we change our language to appeal to a new culture.  What if Jesus was just an option?  Just a way.  Just a belief you can hold.  And if you don’t like him, that’s fine!  But if you do, then come to church.  Jesus becomes a product in the grand supermarket of beliefs.  He’s great!  Unless he’s not the product you’re looking for, in which case just go a few isles over and try out buddhism or agnosticism or any other thing.   The customer is always right!  Find what suits you.  That’s your truth.

In the battle for people’s hearts and minds, Christians have made a strategic retreat from the concept of absolute truth in the hopes of gaining ground later on other topics.  But when you retreat from a concept as central to the Christian message as truth, everything else collapses after it.  What began as a strategic retreat turned out to be a rout, stacking loss after loss after loss.  

To be a Christian in the postmodern era, we have to wake up to the core of what Jesus was and what we’re supposed to be.  We have to yearn for truth.  Not the safe, comfortable, postmodern truth that is self-contradictory and optional.  We have to pursue real truth. Absolute truth.  The kind that says, “This is how the world is, and if you don’t agree with it, you’re wrong.”  The kind that says, “This is how the world is, and if I don’t live it out, I’m wrong.”  A truth that doesn’t snivel and beg for consideration, but commands respect.  A truth that we may not fully comprehend in every aspect, but one that doesn’t for one second become anything less than binding.  And that’s not to say we can’t be humble.  Of course we need to be humble.  But our humility has to be humility to the truth first and foremost.  If Jesus is God, we have to humbly accept that and accept nothing else.  If he’s not, we need to move on.

As someone who was an atheist, I’m passionate about this.  I hear people say that Christianity is a way but there are many other equally good ways and I shudder.  Because being a Christian is not easy.  It’s hard.  It takes constant repentance, study, and devotion.  It takes self-denial, self-awareness, and the boldness and courage necessary to witness to others.  It’s not comfortable!  You have to give your life completely to something greater than yourself.  If all of this is optional, I’d quit so fast your head would spin.  If I can get the same results by doing whatever I want, I’m gonna go do whatever I want.  If Christianity isn’t true, it’s certainly a much less attractive option than raw hedonism.  I’d take that any day of the week!  If Jesus isn’t actually God, if his commandments aren’t actually binding, if he didn’t actually break the powers of sin and darkness on the cross, if he doesn’t command my heart, my soul, my all any more than my couch does, then why bother?  Christianity is either uniquely true or an unnecessarily rigorous option in the marketplace of ideas.

And that’s the thing about historic Christianity.  Never before the postmodern era did Christianity claim to be a neat way of living for those that were interested.  It rose precisely because it claimed to be the ultimate truth by which everything else was truly seen.  It was the light in the darkness.  It was in a way that nothing else could ever be.  Let’s turn to our second reading here Acts 4:1-13.  We have Peter and John, and they have gone to the temple where tey met a man who couldn’t walk.  They healed him and they started preaching.  Of course, the temple is the seat of religious power in this area, so it starts to cause trouble.  That’s where we pick up.

1 The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. 2 They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people, proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead.

Keep in mind, preaching the resurrection of the dead would have been very controversial here.  The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.  They were a bit of an outlier.  The Pharisees did believe in the resurrection and they were much more popular with the common Israelite.  The Pharisees were men of the people; the Sadducees were men of the aristocracy.  Even if their belief was outside the norm, these men were not to be taken lightly.  Talking about the resurrection of the dead on their turf would have been considered a very bad move.

3 They seized Peter and John and, because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day. 4 But many who heard the message believed; so the number of men who believed grew to about five thousand.

Only a few chapters earlier it said that three thousand people believed, but now we’re already at five thousand!  They didn’t get there because things were easy!  Because it was just so darn delightful!  No, there was active persecution towards those who were preaching about Jesus!  But the Church grew, not because it was pleasant or easy, but because it was bold!  This was something that people had to take notice of!

5 The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem.

Now we have a list of names.  A few of them should be familiar.  Caiaphas especially, who was involved in the crucifixion of Christ.

6 Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family.7 They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”

8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 Jesus is

‘the stone you builders rejected,
 which has become the cornerstone.’

12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

That’s a bold claim.  That is precisely the kind of claim that made people uncomfortable across the spectrum of society.  Both the Israelites and the Romans would balk at this.  First, there’s the Israelites.  Did they believe in a savior?  Sure.  But they believed in a savior that was only for them.  He was a military hero!  He’d come and kick out the foreigners and restore Israel to its rightful place on the world stage.  This was a personal savior only for Israelites.  Outsiders didn’t have any business with him.  At best, news about the savior would be neutral for them, and at worst, the news was about their impending downfall.  Israelites already earned their savior by virtue of their birth.  They were waiting for him all this time.  Now these men are talking about a savior that isn’t honoring their birthright?  And this savior is for everyone?  Absurd.  The Israelites loved their good news and most of them genuinely believed it, but their good news was for them alone.

The claims would have caused just as much trouble in Roman society.  They were happy to have as many gods as you can imagine!  If a neighboring country had some gods that they were excited about, great!  Add them to the pantheon.  No big deal.  They would even show how open they were to new gods by making public sacrifices to their enemy’s gods before combat.  After the battle was over, they would claim that those gods obviously liked the Romans better.  Otherwise they would have won!  Sacrificing to enemy gods wasn’t just for bragging rights after the battle.  It also showed the enemy that their gods weren’t a problem.  They could keep their gods.  They just had to bend the knee to Caesar.  Their gods could stick around as long as he played nice with the others.  As long as that god didn’t claim to be THE god, there was no problem.  That’s why one of the earliest charges that Romans would make against Christians was atheism.  People were martyred over that!   Denying the existence of the other gods was horrifying to Romans!  One god wasn’t nearly enough for a fair-minded, tolerant person.

13 When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

I love this verse especially.  They assumed that these men in the temple must have been powerful or influential.  Maybe they were self-styled mystical gurus or a couple of aristocrats trying to gain power.  Maybe they were even some kind of rare religious scholars with years of research under their belts.  They had to be big shots in some way, shape, or form to be making claims like that!  But then they start to interact with Peter and John and they realize that these are just regular guys.  They’re not even pretending to be better than anyone else.  There’s no arrogance about them.  There’s a humility.  They’re just average people that somehow found the truth, and now they cling to it more than life itself.

The elders and teachers of the law send the disciples out of the room so they can deliberate and they decide to warn them never to do anything like this again.  We pick up at verse 18:

18 Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. 19 But Peter and John replied, “Which is right in God’s eyes: to listen to you, or to him? You be the judges! 20 As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”

These were humble men, but also ones that were totally transformed by this truth that they’ve found.

We’ve established that absolute truth was core to the Christian message from the beginning.  We’ve established that postmodern Westerners have a really hard time accepting that there is any one genuinely true truth.  So how do we fight for truth in a way that’s intriguing?  How do we promote truth in a way that’s beautiful?

That’s the thing.  Christian truth is beautiful.  God became man and died for us?  God loves us so much that he pursues us even when we’re fleeing him?  The awful things that people do in this world aren’t just subjectively distasteful but genuinely wrong.  And God wants to build a new world by transforming us by his grace.  And in the end, God wins.  THAT’S beautiful.  All of that is beautiful. 

But let’s be honest, people don’t get hung up on that.  People get hung up on parts that they don’t like.  They don’t like what the Bible says on certain topics.  They can’t understand what certain parts of Christian doctrine really mean.  They can’t imagine a God that would say something that they don’t like.  To go back to the metaphor of the supermarket of ideas, they’re standing in the isle, trying to pick out what religion is best for them, and Christianity keeps telling them that they’re wrong about things and need to get with the program.  How offensive.  How absolutely rude.  Why on earth would they pick a product that doesn’t fit them?

But Christianity doesn’t claim to be a product.  It claims to be the truth.

This world doesn’t need more products.  It doesn’t need more philosophies that excuse us doing whatever it is we want in a given moment.  It needs something that dares to bind the world together with more than mutual apathy.  It needs something that dares to tell people, “God cares about you so much that he’s not content to leave you where you’re at.  He cares about everything you do.  He cares about the dumb stuff you post on social media at midnight.  He cares about what you read and what you do and how you act.”  We are not our own.  God will not rubber stamp whatever we feel is acceptable.

The strength of the postmodern mindset is that nobody ever has to feel wrong.  You have your truth and nobody can argue with that.  The weakness is that we KNOW things are already wrong and we need something to change it.  And can we change it?  We in all of our sin?  We who can’t get through the week without doing something that we’re not proud of?  You wanna put all your eggs in that basket?  Or is there something greater that we can turn to.  Someone that is better than our best.  Someone that just might actually be able to clean all this up.

That’s why Jesus is good news to the postmodern person.  He makes the claim to objectively be at the heart of everything.  We have the opportunity to not just live out our own random, selfish, made-up, self-satisfying claims, but to OBJECTIVELY transcend our own nature.  In a world where evil stands strong as ever, a philosophy built on mutually leaving one another to our own devices is not enough.  We need to be held accountable for our actions, philosophies, and desires.  We need objective truth.  We need God