Conversations in John: Pilate
July 14, 2024 Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
John 18:33-38a
“Conversations in John: Pilate”
Douglas T. King
When I was graduating from elementary school we each received an autograph book so we could write fond wishes to each other as most of us left the only school we had ever known. The last couple of days were a flurry of running around and searching for classmates and teachers to fill up our books. One of the most prized autographs to get was from our science teacher. With each well wished, “Have a Happy Summer” he would include a scientific formula, an actual scientific formula! I still remember what he wrote in my book. “F” equals “M” times “A.” Force equals mass times acceleration. As he signed each book and jotted down a formula, we were starry-eyed. It was as if we were being handed the keys to the mysteries of the universe. These scribbled down letters on the page were the key for us understanding how the world worked! We had been given a small piece of absolute truth!
Of course, as we grow older we learn that simple formulas are rarely as all-encompassing as we would like them to be. There are exceptions and caveats, and conditions. By the time I got to college and ended up working in the Physics Research Department I did not feel as if there was any law of physics I could completely count on being labeled as unequivocal truth.
Last week, at the start of this sermon series on the conversations in John, we discussed the complex conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. We learned that God’s Spirit has the power to change who we are, even if very slowly, into the persons the divine created us to be. In today’s conversation between Jesus and Pilate we experience yet another conversation in John in which there are multiple levels of meaning, irony, and much misunderstanding as they explore notions of truth and power.
The conversation opens with Pilate, perhaps seeking to understand who Jesus is, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Back in the days before the genteel constitutional monarchies we experience in England and the like, kings gained and held on to power with violence. Asking someone if they were king was akin to asking them whether they possessed an army ready to slay those who opposed them. Unfortunately, we still live with the nightmare of political violence to this day. As Jesus and Pilate verbally parry back and forth, Jesus acknowledges he has power that could be compared to a king’s. But this power is not derived from the source with which Pilate would be familiar. “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Judeans.”
Jesus’ power is not to be found on the sharpened edge of a sword. Pilate, trying to settle the judicial case before him, seizes on Jesus’ admission. “So you are a king?” Jesus will not claim that title directly because it is too much linked with a power derived from violent, physical force but he does not deny he possesses a power that others would see as being that of a king. “You say that I am a king.” But he goes on to describe what his power looks like. “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Jesus’ power comes from the truth, from speaking the truth, from living the truth from embodying the truth.
What he does not explain is exactly what the truth is. Pilate grows weary of this verbal game. He knows how power works in this world. It comes from the sword, and he has the sword of the Roman Army at his disposal. With that level of physical power you can fashion any form of truth that you want and force people to accept it. He sneeringly responds, “What is truth?” and walks away.
So what is the truth of which Jesus speaks? From where does his power come? How I wish Jesus would just give us one more sentence or two explaining this truth. But I believe we do not need to travel very far, or at all to find the truth of which he is speaking. The truth is the reality of the context in which he stands. The divine in human form is about to be condemned to death for preaching the message of God’s unbreakable, insistent love for humanity.
The truth with a capital “T” truth is that God’s use of power comes in the most remarkable, inexplicable way. The one with more physical might than a million suns will choose to surrender to death on a cross.
Back in the day there was a college entrance essay that was making the rounds. In my corner of the woods it was purported to be written by a prospective NYU student. But it was actually written by Hugh Gallagher. The very funny, over the top essay built a monument to the achievements and skills of the author. It included such lines as, “I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing…I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru. Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets… I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket…the laws of physics do not apply to me.” Sounds like something our own Jeff Drew might write. It was the epitome of hubris and exceptionalism and a wonderful satirical reminder to very confident students that they might not be quite as superior to others as they think they are.
The truth is the laws of physics do apply to us. Gravity weighs us down, entropy does its thing, all the rest, affect us, including force equals mass times acceleration, sometimes in the form of a bullet. But there is one to whom the laws of physics do not apply. There is one who can rightly claim an exceptionalism beyond our understanding. There is one who can create rules rather than just being bound by them.
If God so chose, the divine could force us into right relationship. God could get us to do whatever God wished. God has all of the mass and acceleration in the universe to force any goal to fruition. But that is not how God chooses to relate to us. God comes before us in Jesus Christ and presents us with a remarkable truth. God loves us so completely that God is willing to die for us just to lead us home to the one from whom we came, our creator.
Pilate was right to ask “What is truth?” In our world there are so many competing truths, so many ways to define the world and how it works, so many formulas to be demonstrated. But there is a hierarchy of truth. Not all truths are created equal. It is true that I am wearing a wristwatch. But that truth is not as important as the physics formula, force equals mass times acceleration. And there is no physics formula that is as important or steadfast a truth as the reality that God in Jesus Christ loves us so much that he was willing to die for us.
Last week we heard a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. We learned we can indeed be born from above. With God’s Holy Spirit, we are capable of being changed into the complete people we were created to be. It may not happen in the blink of an eye but God’s Spirit is inexorably leading us forward to this remarkable gift.
In this second conversation we learn the power by which God does these things. How does God completely transform us? God has such deep and enduring love for us that God is willing to make any and every sacrifice for us, literally climbing into our mortal skin with us in Jesus Christ.
This is the ultimate truth. This is the ultimate power in the universe which dwarfs all others. If I had to scribble it in a notebook I would probably write “UP” equals “DL” plus “DS.” Ultimate power equals divine love plus divine sacrifice.
It is this power that allows us, so mired in our stubborn patterns, to be transformed. It is this powerful truth that is more important than any other truth in the entire world. “UP” equals “DL” plus “DS.” Ultimate power equals divine love plus divine sacrifice. It is a truth we can bet our very lives on.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Church
John 18:33-38a
“Conversations in John: Pilate”
Douglas T. King
When I was graduating from elementary school we each received an autograph book so we could write fond wishes to each other as most of us left the only school we had ever known. The last couple of days were a flurry of running around and searching for classmates and teachers to fill up our books. One of the most prized autographs to get was from our science teacher. With each well wished, “Have a Happy Summer” he would include a scientific formula, an actual scientific formula! I still remember what he wrote in my book. “F” equals “M” times “A.” Force equals mass times acceleration. As he signed each book and jotted down a formula, we were starry-eyed. It was as if we were being handed the keys to the mysteries of the universe. These scribbled down letters on the page were the key for us understanding how the world worked! We had been given a small piece of absolute truth!
Of course, as we grow older we learn that simple formulas are rarely as all-encompassing as we would like them to be. There are exceptions and caveats, and conditions. By the time I got to college and ended up working in the Physics Research Department I did not feel as if there was any law of physics I could completely count on being labeled as unequivocal truth.
Last week, at the start of this sermon series on the conversations in John, we discussed the complex conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. We learned that God’s Spirit has the power to change who we are, even if very slowly, into the persons the divine created us to be. In today’s conversation between Jesus and Pilate we experience yet another conversation in John in which there are multiple levels of meaning, irony, and much misunderstanding as they explore notions of truth and power.
The conversation opens with Pilate, perhaps seeking to understand who Jesus is, “Are you the King of the Jews?” Back in the days before the genteel constitutional monarchies we experience in England and the like, kings gained and held on to power with violence. Asking someone if they were king was akin to asking them whether they possessed an army ready to slay those who opposed them. Unfortunately, we still live with the nightmare of political violence to this day. As Jesus and Pilate verbally parry back and forth, Jesus acknowledges he has power that could be compared to a king’s. But this power is not derived from the source with which Pilate would be familiar. “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Judeans.”
Jesus’ power is not to be found on the sharpened edge of a sword. Pilate, trying to settle the judicial case before him, seizes on Jesus’ admission. “So you are a king?” Jesus will not claim that title directly because it is too much linked with a power derived from violent, physical force but he does not deny he possesses a power that others would see as being that of a king. “You say that I am a king.” But he goes on to describe what his power looks like. “For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Jesus’ power comes from the truth, from speaking the truth, from living the truth from embodying the truth.
What he does not explain is exactly what the truth is. Pilate grows weary of this verbal game. He knows how power works in this world. It comes from the sword, and he has the sword of the Roman Army at his disposal. With that level of physical power you can fashion any form of truth that you want and force people to accept it. He sneeringly responds, “What is truth?” and walks away.
So what is the truth of which Jesus speaks? From where does his power come? How I wish Jesus would just give us one more sentence or two explaining this truth. But I believe we do not need to travel very far, or at all to find the truth of which he is speaking. The truth is the reality of the context in which he stands. The divine in human form is about to be condemned to death for preaching the message of God’s unbreakable, insistent love for humanity.
The truth with a capital “T” truth is that God’s use of power comes in the most remarkable, inexplicable way. The one with more physical might than a million suns will choose to surrender to death on a cross.
Back in the day there was a college entrance essay that was making the rounds. In my corner of the woods it was purported to be written by a prospective NYU student. But it was actually written by Hugh Gallagher. The very funny, over the top essay built a monument to the achievements and skills of the author. It included such lines as, “I am a dynamic figure, often seen scaling walls and crushing ice. I woo women with my sensuous and godlike trombone playing…I cook Thirty-Minute Brownies in twenty minutes. I am an expert in stucco, a veteran in love, and an outlaw in Peru. Using only a hoe and a large glass of water, I once single-handedly defended a small village in the Amazon Basin from a horde of ferocious army ants. I play bluegrass cello, I was scouted by the Mets… I am an abstract artist, a concrete analyst, and a ruthless bookie. Critics worldwide swoon over my original line of corduroy evening wear. I don't perspire. I am a private citizen, yet I receive fan mail. I once read Paradise Lost, Moby Dick, and David Copperfield in one day and still had time to refurbish an entire dining room that evening. I know the exact location of every food item in the supermarket…the laws of physics do not apply to me.” Sounds like something our own Jeff Drew might write. It was the epitome of hubris and exceptionalism and a wonderful satirical reminder to very confident students that they might not be quite as superior to others as they think they are.
The truth is the laws of physics do apply to us. Gravity weighs us down, entropy does its thing, all the rest, affect us, including force equals mass times acceleration, sometimes in the form of a bullet. But there is one to whom the laws of physics do not apply. There is one who can rightly claim an exceptionalism beyond our understanding. There is one who can create rules rather than just being bound by them.
If God so chose, the divine could force us into right relationship. God could get us to do whatever God wished. God has all of the mass and acceleration in the universe to force any goal to fruition. But that is not how God chooses to relate to us. God comes before us in Jesus Christ and presents us with a remarkable truth. God loves us so completely that God is willing to die for us just to lead us home to the one from whom we came, our creator.
Pilate was right to ask “What is truth?” In our world there are so many competing truths, so many ways to define the world and how it works, so many formulas to be demonstrated. But there is a hierarchy of truth. Not all truths are created equal. It is true that I am wearing a wristwatch. But that truth is not as important as the physics formula, force equals mass times acceleration. And there is no physics formula that is as important or steadfast a truth as the reality that God in Jesus Christ loves us so much that he was willing to die for us.
Last week we heard a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus. We learned we can indeed be born from above. With God’s Holy Spirit, we are capable of being changed into the complete people we were created to be. It may not happen in the blink of an eye but God’s Spirit is inexorably leading us forward to this remarkable gift.
In this second conversation we learn the power by which God does these things. How does God completely transform us? God has such deep and enduring love for us that God is willing to make any and every sacrifice for us, literally climbing into our mortal skin with us in Jesus Christ.
This is the ultimate truth. This is the ultimate power in the universe which dwarfs all others. If I had to scribble it in a notebook I would probably write “UP” equals “DL” plus “DS.” Ultimate power equals divine love plus divine sacrifice.
It is this power that allows us, so mired in our stubborn patterns, to be transformed. It is this powerful truth that is more important than any other truth in the entire world. “UP” equals “DL” plus “DS.” Ultimate power equals divine love plus divine sacrifice. It is a truth we can bet our very lives on.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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