Frederick Buechner on Truth:
"'I,' he said, 'I am the truth.' (Jn.14.6)
"Jesus did not say that religion was the truth, or that his own teachings were the truth, or that what people taught about him was the truth, or that the Bible was the truth, or the church, or any system of ethics or theological doctrine. There are individual truths in all of them, we hope and believe, but individual truths were not what Pilate was after, or what you and I are after either, unless I miss my guess. Truths about this or that are a dime a doszen, including religious truths. THE truth is what Pilate is after: the truth about who we are and who God is if there is a God, the truth about life, the truth about death, the truth about truth itself. That is the truth we are all of us after.
"It is a truth that can never be put into words becaues no words can contain it. It is a truth that can never be caught in any doctrine or creed including our own because it will never stay still long enough but is always moving and shifting like air. It is a truth that is always beckoning us in different ways and coming at us from different directions. And I think that is precisely why whenever Jesus tries to put that ultimate and inexpressible truth into words (instead of into silence as he did with Pilate), the form of words he uses is a form that itself moves and shifts and beckons us in different ways and comes at us from different directions. That is to say he tells stories."
- Frederick Buechner, "The Truth of Stories," in Secrets in the Dark: A Life in Sermons

6 Comments:
Love Buechner, especially his memoirs. This is an excellent quote to select.
The truth is, I am damn sexy.
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Strange this is, I was sifting through an old sermon of yours yesterday morning (I use them for devotional reading - or I was scamming for an illustration to steal - yesterday my daughter Emma, uh, wait, my son Jackson said...) anyway, I came across this same quote in your sermon yesterday. The power of a well turned phrase: it keeps on resonating.
Really? I've used that one before? That's funny. Not surprising though - Buechner is always quote-worthy.
Did you find the inspiration (illustration) you were looking for? :)
Here is an illustration: I am damn sexy!
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