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The Pattern of Truth

Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Luke 16:1-10, Tao Te Ching #8
September 23, 2007

            My Dad was an honest man. He was highly ethical and wouldn’t have stolen something or told a lie if he could avoid it. He was quite courageous, actually, in his pursuit of the truth and it hurt him in the business world. But remember a conversation I had with him about the truth when I was about 10. He told me that the truth is complicated, and sometimes it’s ok to say what seems to be a lie. His example was if you met a woman at church with an extremely ugly hat, it would be wrong to confront her with this fact and say, “that is an ugly hat”. Perhaps I had done just such a thing, though now I can’t remember. Anyway, he said that at such times the truth was complicated. One could comment upon the color or design. The greater truth was feelings of the woman.
            Tony Campolo told of a time his mother made him go to a funeral to show his respect for a friend of the family. He drove to the funeral home, entered the chapel and bowed his head. When he looked around, he noticed that he was the only visitor besides and elderly woman standing in the front. He went up and peeked into the casket, and he did not see his mother’s friend. He had gone to the wrong funeral. Campolo was about to leave when the woman clutched his arm and pleaded, “You were his friend, weren’t you?” Not knowing what to do, he lied and said, “Yeah, he was a good man, everybody loved him”. He stayed for the funeral.  Afterward, Campolo and the woman went to the cemetery in a limousine. The casket was lowered into the grave and both tossed a flower on it. On the way back to the funeral home Campolo confessed, “Mrs. King”, he said, “there’s something I’ve got to tell you. I want to be your friend and we can’t have a friendship unless I tell you the truth. I’m afraid I have to tell you that I didn’t really know your husband. I came to his funeral by accident.” She squeezed his hand and said, “You’ll never, ever, ever know how much you being with me today meant.” I don’t know how the story ends and if they became friends, but clearly, the truth was that is was right for him to stay with her, and it was right for him to tell the truth in the end.
            I learned a little about truth this summer during my stay at the monastery. I have always wanted to understand the Tao Te Ching better, the basic text of Taoism written supposedly by Lao Tzu. I took 5 English translations of this ancient text and made my own translation as a way of learning it. I think part of Taoism is the idea that we can discover the true way to live by studying nature and our own nature. There is a pattern of how things work in the universe, a way, that is the truth. The Taoists call it the Tao; we might call it God or the Holy Spirit. But the Tao Te Ching teaches that it can be discovered and followed. Like water. If water in a stream is not behaving according to the laws of the universe, we would know. It would look wrong, it would shake us up. But it follows a pattern. This pattern is Tao. The same is true for everything. There is a true pattern, and it is the way the universe works, and can be discovered as pattern by which we should live. Water is powerful because is wears things down gradually, and does not confront rocks violently. It is an example of how humans should approach conflict. The Tao Te Ching calls for non-violence as the way to peace. The whole idea is that truth exists, and we should discover it and follow it.
            I happened to be reading a biography of Mohandas Gandhi at the same time, at the monastery. Gandhi named his autobiography, My Experiments with Truth. He, like the Tao Te Ching, believed that truth could be discovered. Gandhi was unique in that as he discovered what he thought was the true way to live, he attempted to put it into practice. If he decided that vegetarianism was the correct way to eat, he immediately became vegetarian. When he decided that non-violence was the way to enact change, he immediately adopted this method. He wrote, “The world rests upon the bedrock of Satya or Truth. Asatya meaning Untruth, also means “non-existent”. Satya, or Truth, means, “That which is. If untruth does not so much as exist, its victory is out of the question. And Truth being “that which is” can never be destroyed.” He said also, “Truth for me is God, and God’s law and God are not different things for facts…” Therefore, Gandhi believed that the ends never justify the means. We must achieve our good ends, only by using good (truthful and non-violent) means. If a campaign disintegrated into violence, he would call off the campaign. Nothing good could come, for Gandhi, from untruth.
            Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life”. John 14 tells us that Jesus is leaving us a counselor, a helper, an advocate which is the Holy Spirit. This Holy Spirit is called the “Spirit of Truth”. I am coming to believe that the pursuit of truth is a kind of holy pilgrimage, and that we can discover the truth way to live and thus be in harmony with God. Truthfulness, therefore, is Godliness.
            CS Lewis taught this idea. In his book Mere Christianity, he says that there is a law of nature that governs human behavior. Just like there are basic facts of mathematics and science, there are also true codes of behavior for humans that are true in the same way as nature’s laws. Moral laws, he called them. His example: if you hear a person in danger, you will probably feel two desires: one is to go and help, which may be due to your education or condition, animal instinct, whatever. There will also be a desire for self preservation due to instinct or evolutionary development and the will to survive. This is normal. However, there is a third feeling which Lewis calls the moral law. It is a feeling of what one “ought” to do…which is to help. This sense is what Lewis calls truth or the Holy Spirit. He used this as an argument for the existence of God.
            I have found when I am preaching or speaking to groups that when I can get down to my most personal, honest feeling or example I often wonder if anyone will relate to this seemingly unique idea. But when I present it to a group, it is almost invariably that small, unique, personal thing that gets the biggest reaction from people. That is the thing they recognize. When I tell my truth, in other words, others resonate with that truth.
            My discovery this summer is that this search for truth and the idea that there is a pattern or way of truth that can be discovered is an idea that has occurred to many people, in many different religions and philosophies. It resonates with me, and has since I first read the Tao Te Ching in college. It is an incredibly hopeful thought for me. That there is truth in the universe and that I am an extension, a part of this truth. That the kingdom of God is, indeed, within me, and I can discover this truth, this way of God and follow it. I choose to call this pattern of truth, God, but you can call it anything you want. But I believe that Lao Tzu, and Gandhi, and CS Lewis and the Buddha, and Tolstoy and Thoreau, and countless others, were all holding on to a piece of it. And for me, as a Christian, I believe that Jesus embodied this truth, lived it and died rather than betray it.