Sharing the Truth
Colby College
March 17, 2013
2 Timothy 2:15-17a, 22-25; 4:2-5
Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved by
him, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of
truth. Avoid profane chatter, for it will lead people into more and more
impiety, and their talk will spread like gangrene. …. Shun youthful passions and pursue
righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call upon the Lord
from a pure heart. Have nothing to do with stupid and senseless controversies;
you know that they breed quarrels. And the Lord servant must not be quarrelsome
but kindly to everyone, an apt teacher, patient, correcting opponents with
gentleness. God may perhaps grant that they will repent and come to know the
truth… II Timothy 2:15-16; 22-25)
I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent
whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage
with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will
not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate
for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away for
listening to the truth and wander away to myths. As for you, always be sober,
endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully.
(II Timothy 4:2-5)
I am pleased to be back, speaking in
the Colby College Chapel, after a long absence. I last spoke here during a college
worship service thirty years ago, when I was College Chaplain at Bates. As you
will have concluded, there was no clamor for my immediate return.
I noticed during that visit long ago,
and have confirmed this very day, an impressive plaque in the Rose Chapel of this building commemorating 72 early
Colby graduates who were missionaries. This was interesting to me then, and it
is interesting now. Both Colby and Bates were founded as Baptist institutions,
and I feel a particular affinity to them, for I myself, like them, was once a
Baptist. Colby was the creation of the regular or Calvinistic Baptist movement
in Maine, while Bates was created by the Free Will or Arminian Baptists. These
distinctions probably have very little significance to most of you today. A hundred and fifty years ago, they were central
convictions about the truth, held with such passion that colleges were created
to perpetuate distinctions that may now seem quaint and perhaps trivial. And so
we learn and commemorate today the changing conceptions of truth –
acknowledging how convictions rise and pass away, how susceptible we are to
fashion, even in our religion. Of course, there are people in all religions who
think that there is a core of truth, unchanging and unchangeable, that is
usually the property of their own tradition. I have respect for that
conviction, and in some senses I also even share it.
Sharing the
truth. I always get uncomfortable when someone tells me that they want to share
something with me. It always feels like they really want to sell me
something - a sales person who wants to share a new life insurance policy. But
for lack of a better word, I understand when people want to share their deepest
convictions, because I realize that genuine sharing is a gift and a risk. Our
culture does not make it easy to share our deepest convictions; they often are
seen as divisive rather than uniting. A recent New Yorker cartoon entitled “how
to get space on the subway” portrays a man sitting in a subway car with an
empty seat of each side of him. He is wearing a tee-shirt emblazoned with the
words: “Ask me about my religion.”
Yet I do not
hesitate – in fact I have become rather famous at Dartmouth, for sharing, or
proclaiming, five truths with my students. I share them with no apology and
with no uncertainty. And, surprisingly, my students love them. Would you like
to hear them? Well, of course, your answer doesn’t matter. Here they are.
1.
Alcohol
is dangerous.
2.
Sleep
is essential.
3.
Cuddling
is good.
4.
Good
things will happen to you.
5.
Bad
things will happen to you.
I think these truths are beyond dispute.
But when the
apostle Paul uses the word “truth” in his letters to Timothy, we rightly infer
that he is talking about something perhaps even truer. He is talking about the
gospel, the good news, that will free people from the fear of sin and death.
Yet, while he admonishes Timothy always to proclaim the truth, he also
warns Timothy not to get involved in useless and stupid debates, and
instructs him always to be kind and gentle in advocating the truth to which he
is committed. In other words, Paul tells Timothy to be bold and clear in his
advocacy of the truth, while at the same time being kind, gentle, and genuinely
humble.
Many religious people have a hard
time living out this instruction. Some of us, no matter what our tradition,
feel duty bound to make sure everyone knows the truth as we see it; others of
us are so timid in our convictions that we refuse to talk about them at all. I
submit that both stances are failures to share the truth. The first stance
fails to share because it assumes that the other person has nothing to give;
the second fails to share because it assumes that we ourselves have nothing to
give. Sharing implies mutuality.
We have gathered today to formally
acknowledge and celebrate Kurt Nelson’s ascension to the position of Dean of
Religious and Spiritual Life at this formerly Baptist College. We are here, I
believe, because we wish him well in what all of us know is an important and
difficult job. But I take special pleasure and pride in this occasion because I
know Kurt so well. From his having served for five years as my assistant, I
know full well that he is a person of exceptional intelligence, and integrity,
and, if I may say so, he is exceptionally well-trained. Kurt has convictions that
he is not afraid to share. He believes in a God who is the ground of creation;
he believes quite literally that he – and we – must act to save the world. He
is impatient with those who ignore scientific evidence of climate change. He is
willing to go to jail (for a brief time) to support his beliefs. At the same
time, Kurt is genuinely interested in the beliefs of others. He has learned to
listen respectfully to those with whom he may disagree, and to learn from them,
and to welcome what they have to share.
For you see,
there are a few other truths that I think you will agree are indisputable. Here
they are:
1.
Religion
is not going away.
Despite the rapid growth of the
religiously unaffiliated and alienated in the US, and, I am sure at Colby
College, Islam is not going away, Hinduism is not going away, and Judaism, Christianity,
and Buddhism in all their varieties are not going away. The need to feel a connection with a “higher
power” is either biologically or culturally, or perhaps both, universal.
2.
Also,
the critique of religion is not going away.
Nor should it. Religion is renewed
and purified by takings its critics seriously. Atheists are often people who
take religion quite seriously, and their critiques can be valuable. But, to the
surprise of some critics, people do not always get less religious as they get smarter;
instead:
3.
We
believe different things.
Different people believe
substantially different things, and we believe different things at different
times in our lives. The general effect of a Colby education, or a Bates
education, or a Dartmouth education, is to make us less naïve in our beliefs. We
get more information, we acquire a more critical perspective, and our beliefs
change. But we still have beliefs. And, contrary to those who say that we are
all climbing up the same mountain but along different paths, I think we may
indeed be climbing different mountains. I do not think our beliefs converge or
lead us to the same destination – unless you consider death the ultimate destination.
Rather, we have very different beliefs – different one from another, and
different from ourselves at various periods of life. In view of this truth, I
also assert:
4.
We
learn and grow from talking with each other.
This is what we do best at college.
We talk to one another, in an atmosphere of openness, respect, and genuineness
that college – and college alone – provides.
That is why it is so important to have someone like Kurt at Colby – a
person who has convictions, who does not endorse relativism, and who is open to
learning, growth, and change. Because he understands that our beliefs change as
we grow, Kurt is not invested in proclaiming an exclusive truth. He is, rather,
invested in exploring the truth, indeed, if you will, sharing the truth, with
believers and critics. And he has come to a community which, I hope,
understands and supports such a dialogue.
Kurt is a graduate of Yale Divinity
School. But he is too young to have known William Sloane Coffin. Many of you
youngsters, unfortunately, have no idea who William Sloane Coffin was.
Oldsters, like me, remember him as a mentor, as a champion of civil rights and
social justice, as a wonderfully articulate and courageous Presbyterian
Christian minister chaplain of Yale University. For years now, to insure that I
am exposed to at least one good sermon every Sunday, I read one of his. Please
allow me to close by sharing with you this brief passage from one of his sermons
at Riverside Church.
He said; “I once asked a group of Yale faculty
if they thought the existence of God a lively question. Said a political scientist:
‘It’s not even a question, Bill, let alone a lively one.’ That he didn’t
believe in God didn’t bother me that much. … But what did bother me was this: I
can see doubting the quality of the bread, but I can’t see kidding yourself
that you are not hungry – unless of course your soul has so shriveled that you
have no appetite left for all that elicits astonishment, awe, and wonder. It’s
this shriveling up that is so disturbing. What’s so boring at universities is
not that scientists specialize. It’s that specialists generalize, insisting not
only in their particular area, but in all areas of life the only truths that
matter are the truths that can be proved, mysteries that can be explained. They
see only those truths that they can dominate. They have no truck with those to
which one can only surrender. Their minds are both powerful and frighteningly
narrow. No wonder there is a widespread withdrawal from wisdom in the
universities today. __ Not that we
churchgoers have great cause for smugness. We believe religion is a good thing
like social security and regular exercise, but we don’t want to overdo it. It
might affect the heart!” (Coffin, 2008, p. 15)
So
spoke William Sloane Coffin.[i]
And so Kurt, I exhort you: “Do your
best to present yourself to God as one approved by him, a worker who need not
be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth. … Have nothing to do with
senseless controversies… Do not be quarrelsome but kindly to everyone, an apt
teacher, patient, correcting opponents with gentleness. … Always be sober,
endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, carry out your ministry fully” as
you share the truth in this wonderful place.
And I hope for all of you that this
will be, increasingly, a community in which, by your interaction, you will find
the courage to express your own beliefs, the patience to listen to the beliefs
and critiques of others, and thereby that you will indeed more fully share the
truth. Amen.
[i]
William Sloane Coffin, The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, The
Riverside Years, Volume I, page 15. Louisville; Westminster John Knox,2009
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