Sermon: "A New Day and an Old Truth"
The Right Reverend Charles G. vonRosenberg
Third Bishop of East Tennessee

[This sermon by Bishop vonRosenberg was delivered using the following notes.]

St. Francis is encountering a new reality in the fairly short history of this parish church - the search for a new rector after the retirement of Buckley Robbins. This situation is a challenge for any faith community, whether the church is a young one or has many decades of experience - and many changes of rectors. Lay leaders may feel their responsibility lying heavily on their shoulders at this time. While we want that responsibility to be taken seriously, you do not have to carry the weight alone. Indeed, you will discover resources and support from others in this parish and in our diocesan family. However, I certainly recognize that these times can feel like they have given you a heavy burden.

Besides your particular circumstances, though, at this point in the church year, you have the burden of Lent to bear, along with Christians everywhere. In the church year, this often does seem like the heaviest of times. Indeed, our Bible readings today are pretty heavy ones, and we might feel the weight of the world on our shoulders as we listen to them. First, we heard the story of Adam and Eve, the Garden of Eden, and the serpent. Then, from Romans, the association of Adam with sin was continued, but the parallel association of Jesus with grace was presented as well. Finally, Matthew's Gospel reading told of Jesus' experience of temptation and his encounter with the devil. Pretty heavy stuff, indeed. But, then, this is the season of Lent.

In addition to being heavy, the content of these readings contains enough material for at least several sermons. In that regard, frankly I wonder about some of the messages that I and other preachers have offered congregations through the years - messages that, perhaps, somehow were associated with our readings today. However, as I reflected on these readings this year, I was led to a more general point of reference. That is, each of today's readings refers to a truth that is objective … a truth that is greater than our particular experience … a truth that transcends individuality.

As we encounter such a perspective in our day, though, we do so as people accustomed to truths that are radically individualistic. That is, we tend to believe that if something is not true for me, then it has no meaning at all. Truth is overwhelmingly personal and individual for us. However, it may just be that our readings today - and the season of Lent itself, and indeed, perhaps the immediate future of St. Francis Church - some things about each of these realities may stand in stark contrast to the world of individualism in which we live.

Now, lest this sermon become heavier than the readings themselves, let me try to explain what I mean. In the Garden of Eden story from Genesis, the Lord God was quite clear about prohibiting Adam from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Thus God placed limits on Adam's behavior, and further, God was very clear also about the consequence of ignoring those limits.

Yet, if you read what scholars and preachers have written and preached about this story, it seems that we like the idea of limits and consequences of behavior just about as much as old Adam did. We will analyze and preach our way around the idea of objective truth, so that we end up sounding a lot like Adam blaming Eve when he ate the apple.

Can it be - just maybe - that this story is about right and wrong … about the blessings of choosing the right way and the consequences of choosing the wrong one? Might this biblical episode be less about the desire of people in power to abuse and control the fulfillment of individual expression … and, instead, might it be more about God's ability to define right and wrong because God is God?

The message here might be that there is objective truth, a truth whose source is God, a truth that in my finite individuality, I simply cannot grasp. But the fact that I cannot grasp it does not make it any less true. Rather, as the Ash Wednesday liturgy makes graphically clear, we are called to a life of continual repentance - of turning back to God, again and again - for the majesty and the magnificence of God simply overwhelms our minute individuality and our limited perception of truth. That is, I may try to live into God's truth, and indeed, it is my responsibility as a follower of Christ to do so. However, I will fail to follow God's way repeatedly, and therefore, repentance needs to be a familiar exercise in my spiritual life.

In the Letter to the Romans, St. Paul wrote of objective truth as it became known in two examples - Adam and Jesus. One point revealed here is the connection of Adam to sin and death. For St. Paul, Adam is a type of human being - a person, that is, who will choose behavior on the basis of individual benefits rather than objective, God-given truth. Jesus, on the other hand, represents another, contrasting type - that is, one who will make choices according to God's perspective on the world … the perspective of truth that applies to everyone. Our reading expresses the consequences of that contrast in these terms: "Just as one man's trespass led to condemnation for all, so one man's act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all" (5:18). There we see clearly the contrast of consequences of behavior represented by these two types of men - Adam and Jesus.

Finally, in the Gospel encounter between Jesus and the devil, we are presented the classic confrontation between the ethics of a moment in time and the truth that abides. The devil offers bread for the hungry, the opportunity for immediate angelic assistance, and the means to enforce the power of righteousness on the world. Now, we need to recognize that each of these opportunities presents a good and worthwhile goal. Indeed, that is the power of a true temptation. Good is involved, if the temptation is real. But Jesus responds with truths that transcend individual application, for God's view is longer, God's will is greater, and God's love is broader than any measure of any person's mind. Indeed, God's truth transcends any one time and place.

Now, I know that we live most of our lives not in black and white, but in shades of gray. Believe me when I say that I realize that our ethical dilemmas are radically influenced by the situations and the circumstances of our particular lives. I do indeed know that most of our choices are between differing grades of good or between a lesser or greater evil. After all, we cannot remove ourselves from our particularity and our individual experience. That experience, that particularity, informs - and limits - the part of universal truth that we are able to perceive.

Yet, I do believe that our call in Lent is to encounter the One who is holy, the One who is other, the One in whom there is objective, universal truth. This is the One to whom we pray - and on whom we rely - as we seek to find and call the next rector for St. Francis Church. This is the One who - in faith - we believe wills the best for us and controls our eternal destiny. Therefore, in our Lenten encounter this year, my prayer is that we may sense the source of knowledge beyond our understanding and that we may perceive a bit of the truth of God … for, indeed, that is the only truth which will truly set us free!

Copyright © 2008 The Episcopal Diocese of East Tennessee