Busyness has kept me from blogging! Each time I feel driven to write, something important comes up. I even worked during the holiday and dragged four people with me! I totally forgot about my little fern plant sitting on my balcony, now half of its leaves are brown!
Anyway, now I have time to write. Lately, I have been faced on all sides about "truth that matters." Beginning last Monday to today.
On Monday, prior to my all-day meeting with the Worship Planning Team, I was met with the Executive Pastors at church with the Rev. Ben Brown, Pastor of the International Baptist Church of Singapore who shared a personal story about his church's ministry involvement of distributing Bibles in a communist country At first he sounded like he was condoning the communist party's action on banning the importation of Bibles printed in foreign countries into their land. But he also mentioned that the governement of that country is gracious in that it allows Bibles to be printed within the country if requested! He says that it's just the same as the US Immigration does not allow individuals to bring in fresh animal meat products into US ports of entry. The problem with other groups is that they illegally import Bibles into communist soil and engage in lying when the communist allows its printing within their territory!
He also mentioned about the miracle that took place when they were distributing Bibles. Their group brought into a town boxes containing 342 Bibles. He looked at the large crowd of 600 people excited to get their BiblesHe then looked at the boxes and was afraid of disappointing a couple of hundreds who won't get a Bible that day, but his group went on. One by one, individuals came. Dr. Brown personally handed them their copies. After an hour, there were about two hundred people left standing in line. Do the math, my friends!! He looked at the boxes again and saw that there were only boxes each containing 45 Bibles- again do the math! After a Bible to the last man in the line, Dr. Brown had a copy left in his hands! With tears in his eyes he looked up and said, "God, did you just perfom a miracle? If you did, why do I still have one Bible left?" As soon as prayed that a woman who was guarding the door ran to him and asked for a Bible.
Four people from his team from IBC Singapore witnessed that miracle. In another town a couple of days later, the same miracle happened, but this time, everyone in the team witnessed it- 300 Bibles, 600 people, and everyone got a copy! When they had given away Bibles to everyone, he had four Bibles left in his hands. Ben Brown asked God, "What will we do with what's left?" As soon as he said that he heard a pastor ask one of his teammates, "Do you have four extra Bibles I can give to my non-Christian neighbors?" They did not distribute Bibles illegally and they witnessed a miracle! But then I was confronted with another question- are those that distribute Bibles illegally committing a sin?
On the other hand...
I was reading about Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran Pastor who in late 1943, started working on essay titled “What does ‘Telling the Truth’ mean?” He was involved in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. In Bonhoeffer’s particular context, telling the truth- "we want Hitler dead!" might be the right thing to do in principle, but principles alone weren’t going to stop the murder of over 6 million innocent people. You see, if he told about his designs for Hitler’s death, Bonhoeffer would certainly be killed; if he didn’t then maybe he and his compatriots might have another chance to stop the senseless killings. His context required that nothing – not even the truth – could be taken for granted.
Eventually, Bonhoeffer was executed for his role in the plot against Hitler, and he never would finish his essay on truth. But what we have of it is more than enough to provoke the mind and heart. In the essay, Bonhoeffer considers the case of a young boy who is asked by his teacher, in front of his classmates, “Is it true that your father often comes home drunk?” The boy indeed had numerous recollections of his father’s drunken state, but under the watchful gaze of his classmates, and the accusatory manner of his teacher, the boy denies his father’s drunkenness. Bonhoeffer goes on to comment, “One could call the child’s answer a lie; all the same, this lie contains more truth – it corresponds more closely to the truth – than if the child had revealed his father’s weakness before the class…It is the teacher alone who is guilty of the lie.”[1]
Bonhoeffer reaches this surprising conclusion because, he argues, truth is not an objective utterance that can be judged right or wrong; rather, truth exists in a web, in a context of relationship, which is guided by things larger than mere principles: by love, care, respect and honor. The young boy Bonhoeffer describes must also answer the question of his father’s weakness in a specific context – the context of love, care, respect and honor of his father. It is true that his father drinks excessively, but the father is more than just a drunk; he is the boy’s dad. The teacher has failed to recognize this context, and has thus crossed a boundary by using truth as a weapon to harm and shame. He creates a situation that would destroy relationship rather than foster it. Thus, Bonhoeffer concludes that the boy answers truthfully because he chose to honor context and relationship by disobeying principle.[2]
And in my quiet time I read about...
The story of the birth of one Hebrew boy at a time when the king ordered the murder of every Hebrew boy at birth. He is not killed as was required by royal decree; instead his mother and sister plot to save his life. They’re cunning and brilliant; manipulative and heroic. They place the baby in a basket, and set it down the river Nile in the direction of the palace where Pharaoh’s daughter lives. Apparently, the baby’s sister had access to the princess, and when the child is brought to the princess his sister is there to advocate for him. She suggests a Hebrew woman to nurse the child, which just happens to be the child’s mother. Thus, the Moses is saved, the family unit is preserved, and in time another Hebrew boy, like their ancestor Joseph, will dwell once more within the home of Pharaoh himself. Now you tell me, did this mother and daughter act untruthfully? Because of their courageous actions Moses will grow up in the household and under the protection of the very man who ordered his death at birth, and under Pharaoh’s patronage and tutelage he will grow to be the great liberator of his people. The irony of it all! [3]
These are incredible stories, all of which serve to expand our understanding of the value of relationships, of the nature of truth, and of the character of God. They are unpredictable and unsettling. They pose important ethical conundrums. Is it any wonder that Paul wrote: “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are God’s judgments and how inscrutable God’s ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord (Rom11:34)?” [4]
The God we worship isn’t bound. Who has known the mind of God? How unsearchable and inscrutable are God’s ways!
___________________________ 1 Rev. Jose Viera, Truth That Matters CCNYC 081708 2 Ibid 3 Ibid 4 NIV Bible
