Dan Harper | Sermons

Tag: truth

  • Who Knows What’s True?

    Sermon copyright (c) 2026 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. The text below has not been proofread. The sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation.

    Readings

    The first reading was the first half of one of the more troubling stories from the Bible, from Genesis chapter 22.

    Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!”

    “Here I am,” Abraham replied.

    God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love — Isaac — and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”

    Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.” Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”

    “Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.

    “The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”…

    The second reading was by Rev. Dr. William R. Jones, a humanist Unitarian Universalist minister, from his essay “Theism and Religious Humanism: The Chasm Narrows”:

    Abraham’s situation, when he is commanded to slay Isaac, represents the human situation. Forced to decide whether he is addressed by God or Moloch and given the impossibility of demonstrating whose voice he hears, Abraham … must decide the source of the command, and in the final analysis his judgment of the source determines the value of the command. If he concludes that the decree is from God, it is morally imperative. If, however, he decides that it is Moloch’s voice that he hears, the order must be rejected. But clearly, only Abraham can make this crucial decision.

    Sermon

    In the first reading, we heard the first half of the story of Abraham and Isaac, which is one of the more troubling stories in the Hebrew Bible. While this story has been interpreted and reinterpreted in many different ways, I’d like to draw on it as a way for us to think about truth. How do we know what is true, and what is false? Who is it that knows what is true? And along the way, I’ll also make a connection between truth and justice.

    I’ll begin by retelling the whole story, interspersed with some of my own interpretation and commentary. As usual, my interpretation and commentary are provisional, so after the sermon please tell me where I went wrong.

    Before I begin, I have to say a little bit about the names for the God of the Israelites. In this story, two names for God appear: Elohim, and the name that is spelled Y-H-W-H, which we English speakers often pronounce as “Jehovah.” Explaining why these two different names are used to refer to the same deity would get us into fairly deep waters, so I’m going to skip over that for now; but as I retell the story of Abraham and Isaac, I’ll use the names “Jehovah” and “Elohim” to show where the original text had two different Hebrew names.

    The story begins with Elohim deciding to test Abraham. Elohim says to him, “Abraham!”

    And Abraham replies to Elohim, “Here I am.”

    Elohim says to Abraham, “I want you to take your only son, Isaac, whom you love. I want you to go to the place called Moriah. When you get there, I’m going to show you a mountain where you will sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering.”

    At this point, I’ll pause to interject some commentary. The Biblical story remains silent at what goes through Abraham’s head when Elohim speaks to him. I can imagine many different thoughts he might have had. For one thing, Abraham might not be entirely sure that this is actually Elohim speaking. One of the Canaanite gods, a deity named Moloch who is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible as existing at this time, was kind of notorious in those days for requiring child sacrifices, so Abraham might be concerned that this is actually Moloch speaking, not Elohim. For another thing, I imagine that Abraham would wonder what Sarah, Isaac’s mother, would think about all this, and I imagine that Abraham is going to want to talk this over with Sarah. That’s enough of my commentary; let’s get back to the story.

    So the next morning, Abraham gets up real early, loads up his donkey, wakes up Isaac and two of the family servants, and cuts a bunch of wood so he can do a burnt offering. Then they all set out for Moriah. It takes them most of three days to get where they can see the place about which Elohim told Abraham. Abraham turns to the two servants, and says, “You two stay here with the donkey. I’m going over there with the boy. We’ll worship by offering up a burnt offering, and then we will come back to you.”

    Another pause for commentary: I like how Abraham says, “WE will come back to you.” To my way of thinking, this means that he fully expects that he is not going to have to kill Isaac, that both he and Isaac will be returning to the servants. To put it another way, Abraham is pretty sure that he is not being deceived by the evil deity Moloch, that something else is going on here; he is feeling his way towards the truth. Now back to the story.

    Abraham takes the bundle of wood that they had carried for the past three days, and gives it to Isaac to carry. Abraham carries the fire (remember, they didn’t have matches or lighters, so he’s carrying some kind of live embers) and the sacrificial knife. They walk along together, and Isaac says, “Father, I see we’ve got the wood and the fire, but where’s the lamb we’re going to sacrifice?”

    Abraham says, “Don’t worry, Elohim is going to provide the lamb for the burnt offering.” And then they get to the place that Elohim told Abraham about, and Abraham builds an altar, and sets up the wood for a fire. Then he ties up Isaac and puts him on top of the wood. Then Abraham picks up the knife….

    Another pause for commentary: At this point Abraham must be wondering if he has correctly discerned the truth. Who was it that spoke to him? Was it Moloch, the evil god who demands child sacrifices, or was it Elohim, the good god? If it was Elohim, then Elohim is waiting until the last possible moment to keep him from killing his son. Determining the truth has become a life and death matter! Now back to the story.

    Just at this moment, the angel of Jehovah calls out, “Abraham!” And Abraham replies to the angel from Jehovah, “Here I am.” And the angel says, “Don’t do anything to the boy. Now I know you fear Jehovah, because you didn’t hold back when you were asked to sacrifice your only son.”

    A quick pause for commentary: You will notice that in this short passage, Genesis 22:11 and 12, the deity is referred to as Jehovah, not as Elohim. Some Biblical scholars believe that this short passage was added into the original story. We’ll come back to this in a moment, but now back to the story.

    So Abraham looks up from the sacrificial altar, and sees a ram caught by its horns in a nearby thicket. He goes over to the ram, grabs it, and sacrifices it as a burnt offering instead of Isaac. Abraham names the place “Elohim Will Provide.” Which gives rise to a proverbial saying, “On the mountain of Elohim it will be provided.”

    Another pause for commentary. If you leave out the short passage about the angel from Jehovah, the story still works. But without the passage with the angel from Jehovah, we wind up with a different story. The philosopher Omri Boehm puts it this way: “In the original narrative, Abraham ultimately disobeys God’s command, sacrificing the ram ‘instead of his son’ by his own decision. [But] the interpolated figure of an angel takes out of Abraham’s hand not just the knife but the responsibility for stopping the trial: It takes a story that culminates in Abraham’s ethical disobedience as the symbol of faith, and makes it into one that celebrates obedience….” Boehm goes on to cite the great medieval Jewish scholar Maimonides, who found two levels of meaning in this story — the familiar meaning of obedience to the deity, and another meaning of disobedience. Or maybe it’s not disobedience, but something else instead? The story is almost over, so let’s finish it, then think about this some more. (1)

    The angel of Jehovah calls to Abraham a second time and says, “I swear by myself, declares Jehovah, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, because you have obeyed me.” So speaks Jehovah. Abraham and his son and his servants head back home. So ends the story. (2)

    Now that the story is over, I’d like to think with you about a question: Is there a difference between the parts of the story with Elohim, and the parts of the story with Jehovah? Biblical scholars continue to debate this question, and I’m not qualified to give a definitive answer. But I would like to consider what Rev. Dr. William R. Jones said in the second reading this morning:

    “Abraham … must decide the source of the command, and in the final analysis his judgment of the source determines the value of the command. If he concludes that the decree is from God, it is morally imperative. If, however, he decides that it is Moloch’s voice that he hears, the order must be rejected. But clearly, only Abraham can make this crucial decision.”

    Jones would have agreed with Omri Boehm that the story of Abraham could be interpreted to mean, not that Abraham is to be celebrated for his obedience to God, but rather that Abraham is to be celebrated for using his free will to figure out the truth of the matter. Jones was a humanist who did not believe in the literal truth of God, but he believed in the deeper truth of this story — that we human beings are sometimes confronted with impossible ethical decisions, and when that happens it is up to us to make “the crucial decision.”

    William R. Jones implies that Abraham makes this crucial decision alone, without talking to other people. To me, this is a crucial point — must we make ethical decisions like this entirely on our own? Ralph Waldo Emerson, who started out as a Unitarian minister and who remains one of our greatest Unitarian theologians, also seems to think that we make big ethical decisions on our own, solely in consultation with some kind of divine power. In his essay titled “Greatness,” Emerson quoted one of his intellectual mentors, Mary Rotch, as saying:

    “I do not pretend to any commandment or large revelation, but if at any time I form some plan, propose a journey or a course of conduct, I perhaps find a silent obstacle in my mind that I cannot account for. Very well, — I let it lie, thinking it may pass away, but if it do not pass away I yield to it, obey it. You ask me to describe it. I cannot describe it. It is not an oracle, nor an angel, nor a dream, nor a law; it is too simple to be described, it is but a grain of mustard-seed, but such as it is, it is something which the contradiction of all mankind could not shake, and which the consent of all mankind could not confirm.”(3)

    Thus Emerson believes that some kind of divine voice or divine guidance can require our obedience, to the point where we cannot be shaken in our decision even though the rest of humankind says we are wrong. We can see how this might apply to the story of Abraham and Isaac. Under the urging of a voice claiming to be Elohim, Abraham forms the plan of sacrificing his son Isaac. But it’s not clear to me whether Abraham is obedient to the voice of Elohim, or to the messenger from Jehovah, or whether instead he finds a silent obstacle in his mind that prevents him from killing Isaac, an obstacle for which he cannot account. From whence does that obstacle come? Does it come from Elohim, or Jehovah? Or does that silent obstacle come from a sense of truth and justice to which even Elohim is obedient? Abraham lets that obstacle lie there, thinking it might pass away, but it does not. And when the time comes to actually sacrifice Isaac, that silent obstacle stops him — or perhaps it stops Elohim from letting him proceed.

    Here is where I part ways with Ralph Waldo Emerson, and with Dr. William Jones. I do not believe that this kind of ethical decision-making is a solitary occupation. Yes, it is critically important that we learn to make these kinds of ethical decisions on our own, but we must also check in with other people to confirm whether or intuitive insight into truth is correct. Emerson himself had occasion to insist that we check in with other people to make sure our insights are correct. Jones Very, one of Emerson’s younger proteges, was a talented poet who also suffered from periodic bouts of mental illness. Emerson was impressed by Jones Very’s poetic talent, but Emerson was also aware of his mental illness. One time, so the story goes, Jones Very brought some poems to Emerson to read. When Emerson ventured to make some small criticism of the poems, Jones Very said that the poems had been dictated to him by God, and therefore no valid criticism could be offered. To this Emerson responded dryly that surely God knew enough to use correct spelling and grammar. In other words, Emerson knew that no matter how it might seem that our insights are divinely inspired, we have to check in with other people.

    Because of this, when I hear the story of Abraham and Isaac, I tend to believe that some important bits got left out of the story. When Elohim first tells Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, I have to imagine that Abraham goes immediately to his wife Sarah to talk it over. I can imagine Abraham saying, This is what Elohim said to me; but can this be Elohim, or is it really Moloch who is trying to deceive me? I also imagine Abraham must have talked this over with other leaders in his clan. The decision to kill his only son is not a decision that he can make alone. Abraham and Sarah, along with other leaders and their close associates in the clan — they must all talk this over together, to determine if what Abraham has heard is the truth. Yes, the burden of final decision and of action ultimately rests on Abraham’s shoulders alone; but he is not alone in making his decision. Like all humans, Abraham is a limited and fallible being; at the same time, he is always a part of humankind; and so he must rely on other humans to help him determine truth.

    I am not saying, however, that truth is relative, or that truth is made up by humans, or that truth is nothing more than a human construct. Not only is that not something I believe, it is also not something that appears in the story of Abraham and Isaac. In the story of Abraham and Isaac, there exists an ultimate truth to which both Abraham and Elohim are answerable. Abraham must answer to Elohim, who is his god; but both Abraham and Elohim must answer to absolute truth and justice. Elohim, being answerable to that absolute justice, would never have let Abraham sacrifice Isaac. Abraham is also answerable to that absolute sense of justice, but being a mere human being, his vision is cloudy; he can’t always be certain that he perceives absolute truth and justice with absolute clarity. The drama of the story arises from his lack of certainty; Abraham knows that Elohim is answerable to absolute justice, and Abraham must judge whether Elohim would actually tell him to kill his son, or whether he is being deceived by a false deity like Moloch.

    Like Abraham, all of us human beings cannot see absolute truth and justice with absolute clarity. Because we cannot see clearly, it is possible for us to believe that there is no ultimate justice in the universe. Yet just because we can’t see it clearly doesn’t mean truth and justice don’t exist. And so we are forced to ask, “Who knows what is true?” Our own time, the mid-twenty-first century, is filled with things that prevent us from perceiving with clarity: social media algorithms, fake news, AI-generated falsehoods, and so on. We thus may be tempted to believe that all we have to do is to listen to an inner voice to know what is true, even if what I hear my inner self saying contradicts what you believe is true. If we rely only on ourselves, we may not realize that we have been deceived by Moloch.

    The great philosopher Jurgen Habermas, who died two weeks ago, believed in the power of communication between human beings as a way to arrive at ultimate truth and justice. In this belief, Habermas differed with many people today who are convinced that there is no one single truth; that there are many truths and many kinds of justice, no one of which pertains to all humankind. We see this in our current political debates here in the United States. Many political liberals and many political conservatives no longer believe that we can arrive at a single sense of truth that applies to us all. Both liberals and conservatives accuse the other of creating fake news. Some political conservatives have decided that there is only one way to interpret the history of America, and they want to ban any competing interpretations. Some political liberals have decided that different identity groups have different truths, and that those not included in a given identity group cannot question truths claimed by that identity group. Thus in our time it seems few people believe that truth is universal; and few people believe we must work with other people, including people we disagree with, to establish what is true, and to establish a truly just society.

    I find myself agreeing with Jurgen Habermas: there is an ultimate sense of truth and justice in the universe. Limited being that I am, I can sense it only dimly by myself. As a limited being, I may have some small insight into this ultimate truth and justice; perhaps there is that of the divine in me that gives me that insight, or perhaps there is a divinity that sends messengers to me with notice of what is true and just. The story of Abraham and Isaac tells me that even if I have some small insight into ultimate truth and justice, I may still be forced to make decisions that wrack my soul.

    But I believe we should not interpret the story of Abraham and Isaac as telling us that we must make these decisions alone, by ourselves, as rugged individualists. The story of Abraham and Isaac is but one episode in the larger story told in the book of Genesis; and the book of Genesis tells but one part of the much larger story that is told in the entirety of the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible is not merely a collection of stories about individuals, but it is rather a larger story of a group of people. Thus, when the Hebrew Bible tells a story of an individual, that individual’s story must be understood as being a part of the larger story of a people. While the story in the Hebrew Bible tells of one people, it implies a still larger story that includes all peoples, all of humankind. In that larger story, the story that includes all humankind, we discover that there is an ultimate truth, there is ultimate justice; that ultimate truth and justice apply to all humankind equally. This is, in fact, one of the origins of our modern conception of justice and human rights for all human beings.

    Each individual and each group of people perceives a small part of this larger truth. When we Unitarian Universalists perceive a small part of this larger truth, we like to proclaim the inherent dignity and worthiness of all human beings. We like to say that although we can perceive it but dimly, we know the moral arc of the universe bends towards justice. We also know that we human beings are easily deceived. And so we pay great attention to the story of Abraham and Isaac. When we commit ourselves to a course of action, we might discover that if we look up from the task in front of us, and turn around, we might see a ram caught in the thicket behind us. We listen for the promptings of ultimate truth and justice, knowing that we can never perceive them with absolute clarity, but also knowing that by relying on other people we can overcome some of our human fallibility.

    Notes

    (1) Omri Boehm, Radical Universalism: Beyond Identity (New York Review Books, 2025), pp. 143-144. I do not agree with everything Boehm says in this book, but his interpretation of the story of Abraham and Isaac is similar to that of William R. Jones, while offering more detail than Jones’s brief discussion.
    (2) Story of Abraham adapted from NRSV and NIV, Genesis 22:1-19.
    (3) Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Greatness,” The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, edited by Edward Waldo Emerson (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin, 1904), v.8, pp. 309-310. In an endnote, the editors state, “These were the words of Miss Mary Rotch of New Bedford, and they made deep impression on Mr. Emerson, when in 1834 he was invited to preach for a time in that city.”

  • How Can We Know What Is True?

    Sermon copyright (c) 2022 Dan Harper. Delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. The sermon text may contain typographical errors. The sermon as preached included a significant amount of improvisation.

    Readings

    The first reading comes from Plato’s Republic, 514a-515c, as translated by Francis Cornford. In this passage, the character of Socrates is speaking.

    “‘Imagine the condition of [people] living in a sort of cavernous chamber underground, with an entrance open to the light and a long passage all down the cave. Here they have been from childhood, chained by the leg and also by the neck, so that they cannot move and can see only what is in front of them, because the chains will not let them turn their heads. At some distance higher up is the light of a fire burning behind them; and between the prisoners and the fire is a track with a parapet built along it, like the screen at a puppet-show, which hides the performers while they show their puppets over the top. Now behind this parapet imagine persons carrying along various artificial objects, including figures of men and animals in wood or stone or other materials, which project above the parapet. Naturally, some of these persons will be talking, others silent.’

    “‘It is a strange picture,’ Glaucon said, ‘and a strange sort of prisoners.’

    “‘Like ourselves,’ I replied….”

    The second reading this morning is from the Christian scriptures, Matthew 13:1-9. This is the translation by Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar.

    “That same day, Jesus left the house and sat beside the sea. Huge crowds gathered around him, so he climbed into a boat and sat down, while the entire crowd stood on the seashore. He told them many things in parables:

    “‘This sower went out to sow [said Jesus]. While he was sowing, some seed fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Other seed fell on rocky ground where there wasn’t much soil, and it came up right away because the soil had no depth. When the sun came up it was scorched, and because it had no roots it withered. Still other seed fell among thorns, and the thorns came up and choked them. Other seed fell on good earth and started producing fruit: one part had a yield of one hundred, another a yield of sixty, and a third a yield of thirty. Anyone here with two ears had better listen!’”

    Sermon: “How Can We Know What Is True?”

    The question facing us this morning is how we can know what is true. In today’s divisive political climate here in the United States, this has become a most pressing question.

    As one example of what I mean, consider the politics surrounding the teaching of systemic racism. There are now laws in several states that forbid teaching about systemic racism. The proponents of these laws say that teaching about systemic racism is divisive and destructive, because it turns white people into oppressors, and anyone else is a victim. The people who want us to teach about systemic racism in the schools say teaching about systemic racism shows that individuals are not responsible for structural racism, and thus it can empower people of all races to help end structural racism.

    One side claims that teaching about systemic racism makes racism worse. One side claims that teaching about systemic racism will help end racism. How can we know which claim is true?

    Probably many of you have strong opinions about this particular issue. If you have strong opinions about this issue, you’re probably thinking to yourself right now: “I know which claim is true! The other side is wrong! How can anyone possibly believe what the other side believes!” But the other side has equally strong opinions. Just like you, they are now thinking: “I know which claim is true! The other side is wrong! How can anyone possibly believe what the other side believes!”

    How can we know what is true?

    And this brings us to the first reading, the allegory of the cave from Plato’s Republic. In this allegory, the character of Socrates asks us to participate in a thought experiment. What if, says Socrates, we were chained in a cave? What if the only things we could see were shadows cast by puppets moving in front of a large fire that was behind us? We would think those shadows were real, because those would be the only things we knew.

    Socrates went further with this thought experiment. What if you were one of those people chained in that cave, then you were removed from your chains, and caused to stand up, and stare at the fire? At first, your eyes would be dazzled, and you would not be able to see clearly. In fact, you would doubt the evidence of your eyes. You would be used to seeing the shadows cast on the wall of the cave, and you would be convinced those shadows were real. So you would believe that the fire was false.

    And then, says Socrates, what if you were taken out of the cave, up into the sunlight? Your eyes, accustomed from birth to being in a cave, would be completely overwhelmed by the bright sunlight. You would not be able to see at all for an extended period of time. Again, you would believe in the reality of the shadows. You would doubt the evidence of your senses.

    But if you are kept up in the sunlight long enough, you would learn how to see in that bright world. Eventually you would even be able to see the Sun, the ultimate source of light and life. Then if you went back down into the cave, and told what you saw to your friends who were still chained down there, they wouldn’t believe you. They’d think you were deluded.

    This allegory is so much a part of Western culture that I think many of us believe it to be true, without even thinking about it. We actually believe there is just one truth, like the sun in Plato’s allegory. We think of ourselves as the ones who have gone up out of the cave to look at the sun. And then, if anyone disagrees with us… well, they must be the ones who are still chained in the cave.

    In fact, this is how most Western religion works. Most religions in the West claim that theirs is the only truth. For example, many Western Christians say: We have the truth and all non-Christian religion is wrong. Different branches of Western Christianity look at each other and say: Our branch of Western Christianity has the truth, and everyone else is wrong. Then the Western atheists come along and say: No, WE have the truth, and all you Christians are wrong. Each group is quite convinced they are the only ones who have the truth. To use Plato’s allegory, each group is convinced they are the only ones who have left the cave and perceived the sun, the ultimate source of truth.

    That’s not the way it works in other parts of the world. For example, in East Asia it is common for people to follow more than one religion. Thus in China one person might follow Buddhism, Christianity, Daoism, and Chinese folk religion, all at the same time, or at different times of life. Contrast this with the West, where a multi-religious identity is still uncommon; you’re either one religion or another, or no religion at all; you only get to choose one religious category.

    Here in the United States, we are particularly fond of this either/or thinking. You are either Christian or non-Christian. You either believe in God or you don’t. You are either Republican or Democrat. You are either liberal or conservative. You have either escaped from the cave and seen the sun, or you are still trapped in the darkness.

    Either/or thinking makes it hard to have productive arguments. If someone says you are wrong, you are liable to reply: You may think I’m wrong, but I know I’m right. I’M the one who has climbed out the cave and seen the sun. Maybe you climbed up far enough to see the fire that casts the shadows, but you didn’t get all the way out to see the sun. I’M the one who has climbed out the cave and seen the sun. I’M the one who is right.

    Either/or thinking makes us rigid. Either/or thinking can make us oblivious to complexity. We become so sure we’re correct that we may no longer be aware when we’re actually wrong.

    Now some people try to get out of the bind of either/or thinking by claiming that there is more than one truth, that you may have your truth but I have my truth. There are “alternative facts.” Or as Rudy Guiliani put it: “Truth isn’t truth.” This is what’s known as postmodern thinking.

    I don’t want to go down that path. I’m reasonably convinced out there somewhere is Truth-with-a-capital-T. I don’t want to do away with Truth, I simply want to answer the question: How can we know what is true?

    This brings us to the parable reportedly told by Jesus of Nazareth. In the parable, a person goes out to sow some seed. Depending on where the seed falls, it either gets eaten by birds, or it sprouts and quickly dies, or it gets choked out by weeds, or or it sprouts and produces fruit in large amounts.

    Many contemporary Western Christians are quite sure they know what this parable means. It means that there are some people who know what the truth really is, and others who don’t. And of course the people who know what the truth really is are the ones who are telling the story.

    I have a different interpretation of this parable.Jesus does NOT say the seed grows in one place but not in another. Jesus does NOT say only only a few people know Christian truth, and the others are ignorant and miguided.

    In this parable, Jesus is not talking about Chrisianity — there was no such thing while he was alive. Instead, he is talking about what he called the Kingdom of Heaven. What Jesus meant by the Kingdom of Heaven is some kind of ideal state of being, where all people recognize their interdependence; or, to use Jesus’ words, all persons love their neighbors as they love themselves. All people, indeed all of life, is bound together in an interdependent web of existence.

    To explain his idea of the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus used an ecological metaphor. Jesus asked us to imagine seeds being sown. Plants produce more seeds than than are needed to keep the species alive. Plants produce enough extra seeds so that birds and other animals may feed on them. They produce enough extra seeds so it doesn’t matter if some seeds don’t reach maturity. Even if some of the young plants are out-competed by other plants, there will still be more than enough to produce seeds for the next generation. This is how ecological systems work.

    Jesus added another layer of complexity to this short parable. In the parable, the seeds which do not sprout can be understood as Jesus’ analogy for the people who don’t perceive the Kingdom of Heaven. As I understand the philosophy of Jesus, he felt that the Kingdom of Heaven is always present — the interdependent web of all existence is always present — though often we fail to perceive it. First, there are the people who have lost all understanding of the interdependent web. Second, there are the people who, for the sake of short-term profit, deliberately ignore the interdependent web. Third, there are the people whose understanding of the interdependent web gets choked out by competing trivial concerns.

    Finally, there are the people who fully realize that we are bound together in an interdependent web of existence. We are bound to all other human life. We are bound to all non-human life. We are interdependent.

    Despite what popular culture believes about the teaching of Jesus, the Kingdom of Heaven is NOT pie in the sky, bye and bye, after you die. To quote Joe Hill, that’s a lie. Jesus tried to tell us that the Kingdom of Heaven — the interdependent web of life — exists right here and right now. Jesus also tried to teach us how to know that truth. He continued the ecological metaphor. We can know the truth in relationship to one another. Truth happens in community.

    Community, by the way, is the power of the scientific method. Scientific method is a communal approach to finding truth. Science does not happen without the scientific community. It is the community which tests and refines new concepts. It is the community as a whole that slowly works its way towards the truth. Mind you, I am NOT saying that Jesus was some kind of proto-scientist. The questions which interested Jesus differ from those which interest today’s scientific community. But in both cases, to know the truth requires being in community.

    Community is also why we come to Sunday services. We are a community which seeks after truth and goodness together. No, we have not yet reached ultimate truth here on Sunday morning. Reaching the truth is a process. By participating in various communities that seek to know Truth, we can over the course of our lives make significant progress towards the Truth.

    You will notice that a communal search for truth differs from the way most people interpret Plato’s allegory of the cave. In the common interpretation of the allegory of the cave, one individual at a time escapes from the cave, sees the sun, and so knows the Truth. Although I don’t think that’s what Plato intended, that’s the way our highly individualistic society interprets this allegory. Unfortunately, that’s also the way many people interpret Jesus’ allegory: you have an individualistic relationship with a personal God, and you know the truth through that one-on-one individualistic relationship.

    That individualistic way of knowing truth is not working well for us right now. In politics and in social media, you’ll find little pockets of people who are quite sure they’ve found the ultimate truth, and they shut themselves off from any dissenting views. If you gently challenge these little pockets of people by suggesting that they might not have the final and complete truth, you are liable to find yourself on the receiving end of vitriol.

    How can we know what is true?

    We know the truth in relationship to other people, and in relationship to other beings. We know the truth by being in community, by being in relationship to all other people. We know the truth by recognizing that we and all other beings are part of the interdependent web of life.