Believe this or not, carved in stone in the lobby of the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia are the words: “And Ye Shall Know the Truth and the Truth Shall Make You Free – John 8:32.”
They were placed there at the insistence of John W. Dulles who was then the longest serving director of the C.I.A. and who took such a personal interest in the construction of the building that, in addition to quoting the text in his speech at the dedication of the headquarters, he insisted that the quotation be fixed in stone in the lobby.1
While I don’t know Dulles’ faith background I do know before his job at the C.I.A. he was appointed Secretary of State by President Dwight D. Eisenhower who famously said: "In other words, our form of government has no sense unless it is founded in a deeply felt religious faith, and I don't care what it is."2
So, the etched in stone biblical reference may only be an example of what I like to call, “the piety of the Potomac” in which politicians from both sides take a low sweeping bow toward a faith they do not practice. Or, it may have been that Dulles believed the central mission of the C.I.A. was to get to the truth wherever it could be found.
It really doesn’t matter because the “truth” the C.I.A. was looking for in the cloak-and-dagger, spy-versus-spy, world of national intelligence is not the same thing Jesus was talking about when he addressed his followers or the crowd listening in on that day. However, it may be particularly important to us in our day when we face a national election where there is a lot at stake.
For us “truth” has become an elusive commodity. In the past few years we have heard people say with straight face that there are “facts” and there are “alternative facts.” Reminding me of what the late Senator from New York, a darling of both conservatives and liberals, Daniel Patrick Moynihan said once: “There is a center in American politics. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.”3
We have been exposed to politicians who seem to be cheerfully indifferent to the truth. But there are truths in this life.
I know 440 vibrations per second produces the pitch of A.
I know that in major league baseball the distance between the pitching rubber on the mound and home plate is 60 feet 6 inches.
I know that gravity exists even though sometimes, for me, that belief takes irrational forms.
When my friends decided that one of the things we just had to do when we visited Australia was take on the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb my belief in gravity was in high gear. What they ask you to do, and I am proud to say I did, was climb up the infrastructure of this iconic bridge on platforms that are no wider than 3/4th the size of this pulpit (but seem a lot smaller) to the very top which is 440 feet above the water.
I was convinced that even though I was connected to a steel guide rope by a tether, which seemed to me to be a little cheesy, at any moment a gust of wind would catch me off guard, my connection to the bridge would be severed, and my belief in gravity would be proved correct as I plunged into the waters below enjoying a last but spectacular glimpse of the Sydney Opera house in my final earthly moments before I hit the water and landed safe in the heavenly arms of Jesus.
My point, now highly belabored, is that there are truths and there are religious truths. There is a huge difference between believing that gravity is real and hitting water or anything else from a great height and believing that you will find yourself face to face with your Saviour who might be asking you, “What in the world were you thinking?”
The truth that sets us free is not who are the good guys and who are the bad guys, that is the stuff of spy craft. The truth that sets us free is that Jesus is “truth incarnate, and he exposes the hatred, the selfishness, and the lies that enslave us. He does not merely forgive our sins; he promises us to liberate us from them and make us free to follow him instead.”4
That is what the learned ones in Jesus’ day and some in our day simply can’t see. When we place our faith in our heritage and identity, we delude ourselves like Jesus’ opponents. “But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said, “and have never been slaves to any man on earth! What do you mean, ‘set free’?”5
As The Rev’d Tom Are, the interim pastor at Fourth Church, said a couple of weeks ago in a sermon.
I don’t think anyone in this room, regardless of your party, celebrates where facts are ignored, or denied, or invented. None of us wants that. [When] politicians appear to use deception as a political strategy, it is harmful. Today, particularly in our public life, many profess beliefs that are contrary to the facts. They do so as if such creative narratives hold no negative consequences, but they are wrong. We can hold convictions that are larger than the facts, but we cannot hold convictions that are contrary to fact without damaging the community.6
Jesus was bringing them and us back to the real issue. He is the truth that sets us free.
It is a law, to paraphrase Jeremiah, that is written on our hearts. It is the promise that we do not need any lesser god coming in the form of a common politician, or entertainer, or businessman turned politician, to save us, for we have been saved by nothing less than the grace revealed in Jesus Christ.
That is the truth we know and that is the truth that can set us free. All the other “truths” will just wear us down, like the person from Pennsylvania who was quoted in a recent edition of The Atlantic saying.
“I don’t pay attention to politics; I’ll be honest. I’d sooner watch Barney Miller. I can’t wait ’til November’s over so I can watch regular commercials about what razors to buy.”7
Perhaps this was said in nervous jest but I think what the person was looking for was some truth in the midst of all the commotion.
And so that is what we must offer, truth in the midst of the commotion.
“Tell the truth. Double down on truth. Keep speaking the truth. And at the same time no matter how tough things seem to be and how fearful the days ahead might seem let’s not turn our backs on each other."
Let the spies spy on each other. Let the politicians duke it out in the public square. We know which ones are making things up out of whole cloth and which ones are not.
We don’t have to listen to them, but we need to listen to each other.
Listen to each other. Listen to the cries of the broken. Embrace the despondent. Stand in solidarity with them, pray with them. That’s the work of the church. And if we do this, we will endure whatever storm may come. If we do this there will always be hope.8
Hope grounded in the one whom we know to be truth, the truth that sets us free, Jesus Christ our Lord.
________________
1. “About the Bible Quote Carving,” Central Intelligence Agency, accessed October 25, 2024, https://www.cia.gov/legacy/headquarters/bible-quote-carving/.
2. Dwight Eisenhower, “Quotes,” Eisenhower Presidential Library (Eisenhowerlibrary.gov), accessed October 14, 2022, https://www.eisenhowerlibrary.gov/eisenhowers/quotes#:~:text=%22In%20other%20words%2C%20our%20form,t%20care%20what%20it%
3. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, “More Than Social Security Was at Stake,” The Washington Post, January 17, 1983. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1983/01/18/more-than-social-security-was-at-stake/87951725-8bfb-426d-933a-dbf1ad94f981/
4. Judith Jones, “Commentary on John 8:31-36,” Working Preacher , November 11, 2020, https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/reformation-day/commentary-on-john-831-36-14.
5. St. John 8:33. (TLB) [TLB= The Living Bible (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 1971]
6. Tom Are, Jr., “Truth Known and Truth Believed (Don’t Confuse Them!).” Sermon preached at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago, 29 September 2024.
7. George Packer, “The Three Factors That Will Decide the Election,” The Atlantic, October 23, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/10/how-win-pennsylvania/680302/.
8. Scott Black Johnson, “Give Us a King #7 - A Goat's Song.” Sermon preached at the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church of New York. 20 October 2024.
No comments:
Post a Comment