Don’t Fear the Truth

Preached at First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on August 25, 2024. Based on John 6:56-69.

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Who here is familiar with the book Good to Great by Jim Collins? It’s a famous book about companies that somehow emerged from mediocrity to become great. One that they talk about that has a nexus with S&T is Nucor. Nucor was a mediocre company that provided services and equipment for the nuclear industry, but somehow emerged as the leading steel producer in America.

I’d like to share with you one of the principles discussed in the book: the Stockdale Paradox. Admiral Jim Stockdale was a prisoner of war in the Hanoi Hilton, the highest-ranking US military officer there. Collins had the opportunity to interview Stockdale and ask him how he survived and who didn’t survive. He said, “I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade.” Stockdale was convinced that he would eventually be victorious.

But who didn’t survive? The optimists. As Stockdale related, “They were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart.” The Stockdale Paradox is summed up in his statement: You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—a faith that you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality.

When Rhonda was going through her face pain, I was one of those optimists. I would think, The next doctor will fix this. Or the next drug, or whatever. While Rhonda was having a surgery that was ultimately unsuccessful, I talked with my friend Sharon for some moral support, and she reminded me how many times I had thought that we were about to solve the problem. That helped to prepare me for the eventual let-down when Rhonda’s pain returned.

On the flip side, we Americans are notorious for seeking instant gratification and easy answers. When those aren’t available, we just give up and stay in our comfort zone. We think, Oh well, that didn’t work out, so why bother trying? Things are fine the way they are. We stay in the comfort zone. Well, the comfort zone is one of the most dangerous places to be.

Think about it: comfort foods are some of the worst foods for your health. Things like, pasta served in a bread bowl. Or grilled cheese. When I go elk hunting, while I’m at base camp, I eat a lot of grilled cheese because I’m so mentally and emotionally and physically drained from hunting. That’s fine for a week, but if I ate grilled cheese for dinner every day, I definitely wouldn’t be as thin as I am!

Couches are comfortable, too. I try to run every morning, although I’ve been struggling lately due to travel and injury. The reason I run is because if I don’t, my lifestyle is basically sedentary, and that’s terrible for your health. I know some of you are not able to be as active as you once were, but it’s best for your health if you stay as active as you are physically able. Otherwise, what you don’t use, you lose.

So those are two of the ways you can fail. On the one hand, you can live with false hope that everything will be fixed tomorrow. We just have to do this one thing and our problem will be solved. Or on the other hand, you can give up, accept your current reality as the best it can be, and slowly decay instead of reaching your potential.

I’ve read a couple of books by Phil Stutz and Barry Michels. In The Tools, they describe a visualization tool for escaping the comfort zone. It’s a little bit like the image I walked through two weeks ago, where we are drawn to God through the cross. The tool that Stutz and Michels describe goes like this:

1. Imagine the pain that you are avoiding as a black cloud in front of you. Silently scream at it, “Bring it on!”
2. Imagine yourself entering that black cloud and feeling that pain. Silently scream, “I love pain!”
3. Imagine yourself being propelled out the other side. Silently scream, “Pain sets me free!”

There’s a lot more to the book, which I highly recommend. But the basic idea is that you succeed by being willing to confront the pain head-on and blow through it. It’s like a running back breaking a tackle. I had a wonderful clip, but the NFL blocked it from playing. So just imagine it: an amazing running back who runs straight into a defender, keeps pushing, keeps pushing, and finally breaks through for a touchdown. He is courageous—maybe not fearless, but willing to confront his fear and blow through it. Now, the reason these kinds of plays are on YouTube is that nine times out of ten, this kind of play results in a tackle for a loss. But once in a while, the running back succeeds. Do that often enough, and you win games, you win championships, and you end up in the Hall of Fame.

The key is to be willing to endure temporary pain for the promise of eventual success. Now, I’m not talking about being a masochist. Not all pain is redemptive, and I certainly didn’t see anything positive in the misery that Rhonda went through fighting her facial pain. Sometimes, life just sucks. But sometimes, the pain, or discomfort, or embarrassment, or fear, or whatever else is holding you back is just temporary, and if you power through that, you’ll come out the other side stronger, better, and victorious.

Coming back to our Gospel lesson, we hear John again and again talking about consuming Jesus, which we are supposed to take metaphorically. Maybe it’s the Eucharist, or maybe it’s a reference to integrating Jesus’s teachings in our lives. Either way, we are called to abide in Christ so that he may abide in us. We are called to dedicate our whole selves to Christ—not just our Sunday mornings, but every waking hour, all that we have and all that we are. And in return, Christ will strengthen us and bring us abundant life. Not a life of abundance—this isn’t the Prosperity Gospel. Abundant life—love, and joy, and hope, and life-giving relationships. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He is the Way—following him is the only way to enter God’s kingdom. He is the Truth—the hard truth, the challenging truth, but the divine truth that reveals our true potential as beings made in the image of God and a church that is Christ’s body. And He is the Life—the source of abundant blessings that we enjoy when we are connected to each other and to God through Christ, and the source of strength when we are weak, of courage when we are fearful, of wisdom when we are filled with doubt.

But if we really want to know Jesus as the Way, Truth, and Life, we must be willing to confront the facts before us. We can’t ignore the problems that plague us, individually and as a church, and hope that they will just go away. We can’t be afraid that knowing the Truth will mean more work, or sacrificing something good for the sake of something better. We need to turn away from pleasant lies and accept the uncomfortable truths.

At my commissioning service two weeks ago, the congregation affirmed the Great Ends of the Church:

• the proclamation of the gospel for the salvation of humankind;
• the shelter, nurture, and spiritual fellowship of the children of God;
• the maintenance of divine worship; 
• the preservation of the truth;
• the promotion of social righteousness;
• and the exhibition of the Kingdom of Heaven to the world.

These are in our Book of Order, and I think we can all agree that they are all important for truly fulfilling our calling as the body of Christ. I’d like to ask the ushers now to distribute the papers. On the paper, I want you to rate First Presbyterian Church of Rolla on how well we are fulfilling these Great Ends. On the right end, I want you to imagine the nearly perfect church—perfect for you. The church as you think it should be, as closely following God’s will as imperfect humans possibly can. On the left end, I want you to imagine that this church is gone, shut down, the people all dispersed to the community or across the country. On that scale, how are we doing? Are we proclaiming the Gospel? Are we promoting social righteousness? At the end of the service, please place the papers in the basket provided for the purpose. NOT the offering plate! The basket.

We need to know. We need to take a hard look at ourselves and evaluate just who we are, or else we will never know how to become who we could be. Then once we know where we are, we can plot a course towards a better future. And when I say “we,” I mean everyone who is worshipping here today. Whether this is your first time or you’ve been coming for months or years or decades, you matter to God, so you matter to me. I want to know what you think of our church.

There are many paths that we can take, but let’s focus on just two options. One is the easy path: stay in the comfort zone, don’t push ourselves too hard, keep doing what we’re doing and hope for the best. That is the wide path that leads to destruction. The other is the hard path: follow Christ. Follow wherever he leads, even if it means following him to his crucifixion, because we know that the Way of the Cross leads to eternal life.

Jesus’s teachings in this chapter of John are hard. They turned a lot of people away. It’s like he was trying to weed them out: every paragraph gets a little more graphic, a little more demanding. Eventually, he is left with just the Twelve, and Peter says those fateful words: “Lord, to whom can we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”

Do you believe? Do you believe that Christ is the Holy One of God? As they entered the Promised Land, Joshua challenged the people. He said that the future was uncertain, the path was hard, but if they stayed on it, they would be victorious. Then he said, “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” Jesus Christ has the words of eternal life. Will you serve the Lord? Let us choose each day to take the hard path, the narrow path, knowing that Christ will sustain us and strengthen us, and knowing that the challenges are temporary, but the glory is eternal. Amen.

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