Verisimilitude

Towards the end of John’s Gospel when Jesus is being tried, he says to Pilate, "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." Pilate asked him, "What is truth?" Jesus was born, John says, to testify to the truth. In this morning’s gospel reading from Matthew we have part of the story of Jesus being born, and yet as we look at that story, we might well ask with Pilate, "What is truth?"

I expanded the gospel reading this morning (as the Prayer Book permits us to do) to include the very well known story of the magi, a story we will formally hear again tomorrow as we celebrate the Epiphany. But were these travelers kings or astrologers? No scholars can identify who they might really have been or where they might have come from. And how could a star have led them precisely to a specific manger in Bethlehem? And then we have the story appointed for today, the Second Sunday of Christmas: the flight into Egypt. For centuries that story has captivated the imagination of artists and Christian storytellers, but it is in direct conflict with Luke’s gospel which says the family returned directly to Nazareth. And then Matthew, and only Matthew, tells the horrific story of Herod’s slaughter of the innocents. I assume it is omitted from the suggested gospel reading because so many of us do not want it to be true. Are any of these stories true? What is truth?

With some trepidation, I want to talk very briefly about Trent Lott. I try to be a responsible citizen, but in general I don’t take a very strong interest in the games and machinations of politics. But Trent Lott’s trials and eventual downfall are a fascinating study, among other things, in the nature of truth. True or false: Trent Lott is a racist. Is it true that Trent Lott is a racist? I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that he does not want to be a racist. Whether he is motivated by political pragmatism or by personal conviction, I believe he is absolutely sincere when he says he is not a racist. And I believe he would and could do virtually anything to prove the truth of his conviction.

And yet he lost his position as Senate Majority Leader because, when he was accused of racism, it was a believable accusation. To see Trent Lott as a racist was credible, believable; it could be true. It was the appearance of truth that brought him down. The semblance of truth was more powerful than the "real" truth, whatever that may be. I’ll admit some political games helped the process along, but no political gamesmanship would have brought him down if the accusation hadn’t been believable. It was believable, and people believed it. And in this case, what people believe really is more important than the facts, whatever those facts may or may not be. It was what people believed to be true that affected the course of history. What is truth? Pilate said. Not an easy question to answer.

This is uncomfortable ground to stand upon. For many reasons, we all want truth to be objective, verifiable. One reason I know I am a bit uncomfortable with this sort of reasoning is that it implicitly calls my own beliefs, my own assertions into question. If I could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that Trent Lott is a racist, then I would feel OK because he got what he deserved and that would be the end of it.

But…  I can stand here today and claim just as vehemently as he that I am not a racist. And I fervently believe that to be true. But when I first came to Maine from the south I was very startled to see white people working in the "waste management" business. Racism? Others might believe it is. It could be true. I see the other side of this sort of issue also. The vast majority of people in the church believe strongly in the ordination of women. They are theologically and philosophically committed to women in the priesthood, and would vote for it without hesitation. But the actions and words of their (your) daily lives tell a more ambivalent story. I believe that many have deep reservations about women actually exercising positions of real authority and leadership within the church. My perceptions are true. What is truth?

Racism and sexism are negative traits, for most of us at least. But I’ve gone through this long introduction to make a positive point. About Scripture, about faith, about the gospel. You may not think that politics and faith have anything in common, but in this case I think the same principle is at work. What people believe to be true is more important, more powerful, than verifiable, historical facts.

Some preaching guideline I read somewhere said you should never use an example in a sermon that is more powerful than the gospel point you’re trying to make. I may have just violated that guideline, so I’ll stress again, this sermon is not about politics, and if anybody mentions politics to me after the service, I’ll scream. What I want you to remember is this: If something could be true; and if you believe it is true; that’s what really matters.

This is important because there almost certainly weren’t any magi. No wise men from the East followed a meandering star to the manger in Bethlehem. It is also extremely unlikely that Joseph took his wife and the child and fled to Egypt. Nor do we have any evidence that Herod slaughtered all the young children of Bethlehem. But all of these stories could have been true. Since the stories were first told, people have found them believable. People have found truth in them. And that’s what really matters. The fact that people believed, and continue to believe that these stories are true has changed the world.

For most of the history of the Roman Catholic Church, Roman Catholic scholars were prohibited from critically analyzing the Bible. They were not allowed to question its truth. About 50 years ago, that ban was lifted, and Catholic Biblical scholarship quickly grew and flourished. Until his recent death one of the world’s premier New Testament scholars was Father Raymond Brown. When Father Brown writes about these stories in Matthew he distinguishes between history and verisimilitude. Verisimilitude means the semblance of truth, the appearance of truth, the possibility of truth. And in Father Brown’s opinion, these stories have no historical truth, but they are full of verisimilitude.

It is possible to believe that people like the magi would have journeyed many, many miles to see the Son of God. There were magi in Jesus’ day, exotic men of unusual powers. It is possible to believe that such foreigners, Gentiles, who had not been raised with the Jewish expectation of the coming Messiah, might still have found themselves so transformed by this child that they offered him costly gifts and joyful praise. Even people who had no expectation of what this child meant could find and be found by him. It could have been true then. It is true now.

It is possible to believe that someone evil like Herod might seek to kill the hope and light born that night in Bethlehem. It is possible to believe that an ambitious political figure might be so threatened by Christ the King that he would do anything to get rid of him. In fact, history does record brutal massacres ordered by Herod near the end of his reign, although none of children in Bethlehem. It could have been true then that evil opposed God’s presence in the world. It could have been true then that some people would reject Jesus’ salvation. It could have been true then.  It is true now.

But it is also possible to believe that God did not let evil triumph… that the child was protected from evil’s power. It was easy for the people of Jesus’ day to believe that the child came back out of Egypt to fulfill God’s promise of hope and salvation, just as Moses had once led the people of God out of Egypt into the Promised Land. Sin and evil might do their worst, trying to drive the child away. Thirty years later sin and evil would even crucify this child. But he came back. Came back to be among his people, to offer redemption from sin and evil, to offer a way beyond things like racism, and all of the other hard, dark and closed places in our hearts. People who know nothing else of the Gospel know Matthew’s stories. People across the centuries have found them believable. And it is what we believe to be true that matters. It is what we believe to be true that can change the world.

"For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth," Jesus says in John’s gospel. In the first letter to Timothy it is written, "This is a true saying, and worthy of full acceptance…"  This is the truth.  "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners." It could be true. Do you believe it is true?

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