Three Hard Truths

It is often said that, among the writers of the New Testament gospels, Luke is the master storyteller. In my view, the power of Luke's stories comes from his deep understanding of human nature and his capacity to reveal it through nuance. The good news: we can learn a lot about ourselves if we pay close attention to what Luke tells us. The bad news: we may not like some of what we learn.

Take the 22nd chapter of the gospel. Things happen quickly here: Jesus and his disciples meet for the Passover meal; Judas betrays Jesus and Jesus is arrested; and Peter betrays Jesus three times, just as his master had predicted. The narrative sweeps us along on a quick march toward the violence of the crucifixion.

The pace of the storytelling, combined with the familiarity of the subplots, may lead us to read past some of the things that I believe Luke wants us to see. Among those things are three basic truths about human nature. They are hard truths.

Luke conveys the first of these during his description of the Last Supper. As you will recall, Jesus signals that someone is going to betray him. This prompts the disciples to ask among themselves who could do such a thing.

But then the text immediately adds this: "A dispute also arose among them as to which one of them was to be regarded as the greatest." In other words, in the midst of a conversation about Jesus and the threat that someone will betray Him, the conversation abruptly shifts to the disciples talking about themselves and arguing over which of them is the best.

Welcome to hard truth number one: even in circumstances where our concerns should focus entirely on someone else, we find it hard--maybe impossible--not to think about ourselves, our own interests, and our own standing in the world.

Shortly thereafter we come to the story of the betrayal. A crowd assembles to arrest Jesus, and Judas approaches to kiss him. The disciples ask Jesus what they should do: "Lord, should we strike with the sword?" One of them promptly slashes at the slave of the high priest, severing his ear. Jesus admonishes his disciples and heals the man.

Luke gives us two telling details here. First, the disciples do not wait for an answer to their question--they resort to violence instantly, impulsively, and unthinkingly. And, second, the man wounded is not a religious or political authority or a crowd thug, but the slave of the high priest.

And this brings us to hard truth number two: we default to violence, including violence that is random in its implications and victimization. In a sermon I gave years ago I observed that war is not hell; war is worse; because, in hell, only the guilty suffer. Luke gives us here a glimpse of something that is worse than demonic and, disturbingly, it is all-too-human.

The chapter ends with Peter's denial of Christ. Peter denies him three times. And the denials are emphatic: I don't know him; I am not one of his disciples; I don't know what you are talking about.

But, again, Luke gives us an important detail. Peter makes the denials while Jesus is still in his presence, being led away. Indeed, Luke writes that, after the third denial and the crowing of the cock, "the Lord turned and looked at Peter." Peter remembers his words and weeps bitterly.

Hard truth number three: We will deny the truth for our own convenience, even when the truth is going right before us, even when the truth is looking us in the eye. This includes truths number one and number two and, ironically, number three: we will even deny our proclivity for denial.

Our instincts might tell us that violence is worse than denial, but I think that the 22nd chapter of Luke offers us another possibility. In my view, this narrative displays for us a hierarchy of ascending wrongs, where denial constitutes the greatest offense because it makes it impossible to address any of the others, indeed, even to address the evils of denial itself. The story conveys denial as the ultimate sin among sins, the flaw most likely to imprison us in error and reduce us to anguish and tears.

The 22nd chapter of Luke does not suggest a way out of this dilemma. But we have been given one by the man who in that chapter is betrayed, ignored, and denied. The way out, he tells us, is to recognize the truth, to know that it matters, and to speak it--clearly, compassionately, firmly. The truth, he says, will make us free.

Amen.