This is a slightly updated version of the talk I gave on July 31, 2005. The Scripture is from Romans 9: 1-5… The original manuscript appears earlier on this site…
“How bright and goodly shines the moon!”
“The moon! The sun: it is not moonlight now.”
“I say it is the moon that shines so bright.”
“I know it is the sun that shines so bright.”
“Now, by my mother’s son, and that’s myself, It shall be moon, or star, or what I list, or ere I journey to your father’s house. Go on and fetch our horses back again.”
“Say as he says, or we shall never go.”
“Forward, I pray, since we have come so far, And it be moon or sun, or what you please: And if you please to call it a rush-candle, henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.”
“I say it is the moon.”
“I know it is the moon”
“Nay, then you lie: it is the blessed sun.”
“Then, God be bless’d, it is the blessed sun: But sun it is not, when you say it is not; And the moon changes even as your mind. What you have named, even that it is; And so it shall be for Katherine.”
Many of you will recognize these words as being from Shakespeare’s ‘Taming of the Shrew’… this is where Katherine finally begins to bow to the will of her husband Petruchio. And before all of you women start coming at me with your equality pitchforks, let me just add that this was written in 1592… things have changed a bit since then! Or have they?
It was 1949 when George Orwell wrote the book ‘1984’. I have read it more than once through the years, and would like to read a bit of it for you now… though I caution you, some of it is rather graphic…
The part I’m reading is towards the end of the book… our hero, Winston, has been captured by the ‘Thought-police’ and is being ‘reprogrammed’ in the depths of the ‘Ministry of Love’. He is, at the moment, strapped to a table in such a way so as to allow no movement whatsoever and is attached to some kind of electrical monitoring equipment. His interrogator, O’Brian, asks him…
“Do you remember writing in your diary ‘Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.’?”
“Yes,” said Winston.
O’Brian held up his left hand, its back toward Winston with the thumb hidden and the four fingers extended.
“How many fingers am I holding up, Winston?”
“Four.”
“And, if the Party says that it is not four, but five, then how many?”
“Four.” The word ended in a gasp of pain. The needle of the dial had shot up to 55. The sweat had sprung out all over Winston’s body. The air tore into his lungs and issued again in deep groans which, even by clenching his teeth, he could not stop.
O’Brian watched him, the four fingers still extended. He drew back the lever. This time the pain was only slightly eased. “How many fingers, Winston?”
“Four.” The needle went up to 60.
“How many fingers, Winston?”
“Four, four. What else can I say? Four.”
The needle must have risen again, but he did not look at it. The heavy, stern face and the four fingers filled his vision. The fingers stood up before his eyes like pillars, enormous, leering, and seeming to vibrate, but unmistakably four.
“How many fingers, Winston?”
“Four. Stop it, stop it. How can you go on? Four, four.”
“How many fingers, Winston?”
“Five, five, five.”
“No, Winston. That is no use. You are lying. You still think there are four. How many fingers, please?”
“Four—five—four—anything you like. Only stop it—stop the pain.”
In both of these stories, we find one person being told what they are to believe and that person accepting it… in the case of Katherine it was voluntary, with full knowledge of what was actually truth but learning to accept what her husband told her as truth because it was her 16th century duty as a wife to do so. In the second story, however, Winston knew the truth and wasn’t afraid of it, even though the truth went against ‘Party’ policies, and was being forced and brainwashed through torture and deprivation to believe whatever it was the ruling element wanted him to believe, no matter how wrong it might be.
I’ve quoted, before, from the rock-opera Jesus Christ, Superstar, the words between Pilot and Jesus as Pilot interrogates Him… Pilot starts by asking… “Then you’re a king?” “It’s you that say I am… I search for truth and find that I get damned!” “But what is truth? Is truth unchanging law? We all have truths. Are mine the same as yours?”
Truth! In our verses from Romans this morning, Paul starts off by stating, “I speak the truth in Christ — I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit-“ But what is that truth?
Some years ago the Jacksonville, IL, newspaper printed a ‘Letter to the Editor’ that began, “The purpose of education in the United States is to produce “good”, unquestioning Anglo-Saxons who are fed party-line, sanitized, (blank) rather than the truth. …let me open your eyes and show you just how much of a ‘government by law’ the United States is and just how much it is a ‘Nation under God’.
Now, I usually paid no attention to the ravings of this particular fanatic… he seems to have been a regular contributor to the ‘letters’ page back then… but in this instance, much of his story was true. In the words of his letter…
“In 1851, the Santee Sioux Indians in Minnesota sold 24 million acres of land to the U.S. Government for $1.4 million. By August 1862, thousands of white settlers continued to pour into the Indian lands, even though none of the money had ever been paid to the Santee Sioux.
There was a crop failure that year, and the Indians were starving. (Washington) refused to pay them the money they were owed, breaking another Indian treaty. Yet (Washington) provided white Minnesotans with $2 million. The starving Sioux revolted.
At a meeting arranged with the Indians, the government and local traders, the Dakotans asked lead trader Andrew Myrick to support this cause. His response was blunt: “So far as I am concerned, if they are hungry, let them eat grass or their own dung.” . . .
In the ensuing conflict, Gen. John Pope was put in charge of federal forces in Minnesota. Pope announced, “It is my purpose to utterly exterminate the Sioux. . . . They are to be treated as maniacs or wild beasts, and by no means as a people with whom treaties or compromise can be made.”
Minnesota Gov. Alexander Ramsey had declared on September 9, 1862, that “The Sioux Indians of Minnesota must be exterminated or driven forever beyond the borders of the state.” His plan was further implemented, when bounties, which eventually reached $200, were placed on the scalps of Dakota Indians.
And the sad fact of the matter is that, as far as I can make out, all of this is true… in fact, the United States government instituted and implemented an entire systematic plan to eliminate and/or relocate all Native Americans from lands that ‘white people’ wanted! And the only justification that can be made today is that for hundreds of years, ‘white people’ did not consider Indians… or Blacks or Chinese or Mexicans or anybody that didn’t look and act like ‘us’, for that matter… as being real people! Indeed, in spite of those great words of Thomas Jefferson’s which declared how “All men are created equal!”, many European scientists did great studies and wrote and published lengthy papers declaring and describing how inferior all other races were to the Anglo-Saxons! That was one of the ‘scientific truths’ of that day!
Today, we know better… our ‘truth’ regarding other races and peoples now accepts all men… and women… as our equals. And yet, even in my saying that I show how un-equal we are… for the inference is that we are the standard by which others are to be judged!
In the Book of Romans, Paul has been building the case for all non-Jews to accept, and be accepted of, Christ… and I, for one, think that is a good thing… after all, I am not a Jew! But Paul takes a moment here to lament how many of his fellow Jews have not accepted Christ. He points out how, “Theirs is the adoption as sons; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of Christ, who is God over all…”
Let me pose you a question… which seems most natural to you… to drive by a Living Nativity scene in December filled with blonde and red-headed angels, shepherds and kings… or one filled with olive-skinned Middle-Easterners? And yet, the Jews were the chosen people of God! The baby Jesus was born to Jewish parents and attended Jewish synagogues! Why it is so much easier for us to picture Him as one of us! Somewhere along the line, one of our basic truths has been changed!
And that is the point of my sermon today… what do you believe is the truth about Christ? What do you believe is the point of His teachings? I mean, exactly what truths are contained in this collection of writings we call the Holy Bible?
Throughout the book 1984, Winston considered himself a free-thinking revolutionary, remembering all of the mistakes and lies committed by ‘the Party’ during his lifetime. However, in the end, everything he had ever thought, said or did was being observed and recorded… Big Brother really was watching! And when the thought-police were finished with him, this is how he wound up…
“He set to work to exercise himself in crimestop. He presented himself with propositions—‘the Party says the earth is flat’, ‘the Party says that ice is heavier than water’… and trained himself in not seeing or not understanding the argument that contradicted them.
It was not easy. It needed great powers of reasoning and improvisation. The arithmetical problems raised, for instance, by such a statement as “two and two make five” were beyond his intellectual grasp. It needed also a sort of athleticism of mind—an ability at one moment to make the most delicate use of logic and, at the next, to be unconscious of the crudest logical errors. Stupidity was as necessary as intelligence and as difficult to attain.”
He was broken… he would forevermore be incapable of independent thought… he would believe whatever the party told him to believe… their reality would become the only reality he would ever know.
Why do I bring all of this up today? Because it is very clear to me, in the study of history, that there have been many attempts over the last two-thousand-odd years to re-interpret the truths of Christianity! I won’t take the time to list any but the most obvious… such as the concept of eliminating all joy or happiness from leading a religious life… Jesus enjoyed going to weddings and dinners and such… and the wars and conquests that have been carried out “In the name of God”… Jesus was a man of peace!
Most of us, today, can look back and see how many times people have tried to bend and shape the concepts of religion to fit what they wanted or believed… and how, in the long run, the truth of Christ has always won out in the end! But think of all the suffering that has been caused during those times when these incorrect truths held sway!
You know what? There are still people today who would have you change what you believe to be true! There are those who seem to quote and twist Jesus’ words to try to make them support such things as homosexuality and, really, it seems, all sins in general! After all, they want us to be loving and accepting of all sinners… which in and of itself is correct… but these people would then have us accept, by default, the sin as well! They are attempting to change the truths of God!
That is why I have always preached and taught what I consider to be ‘basic’ Christianity. For if a person is well grounded in the facts of what Jesus said and did… if they know the words of Peter and of Paul… if they are aware of, acknowledge and accept all of the axioms and ideals contained in these pages… then they know the truth! And no one… no way, no how… will ever be able to take it from them!
scluebbert 