The following sermon was originally preached from the pulpit at Knox Church in Calgary, Alberta on 3 March 1963.
Threat to A Way of Life
Which of you convicts me of sin? If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me? (John 8:46b).
With the approach of the Passover, the Jewish religious holy day, the activity of our Lord is intensified. According to John’s writings, Jesus began his ministry quite simply. He called the disciples to follow him. He went about teaching and his fame spread as he healed the sick and fed the hungry. The crowds became larger and more demanding and the religious leaders were quite disturbed.
Everything he said had great impact. The Pharisees either did not or did not want to understand. Somehow they were challenging words, they were words of judgments. They tried both to trap him and to discredit him in the eyes of his followers. Above all, they tried to find some reasonable excuse to imprison him.
Jesus was a threat to their way of life; no man likes to be threatened. He will fight for his life, and of course, Jesus threatened the lives of the Pharisees as they lived it. Today there is a state of cold war between nations which have differing philosophies, because each one sees itself as being threatened by the way of life of the other.
What was the threat to the Pharisees? Jesus shocked the smug security of their religion. He disturbed both their national and religious pride. It is the proud who tries to hang on. The Pharisees were quite sure that they were all doing things just right and were rather proud of it. They were of course descendants of Abraham and that gave them a special place as a nation. But secondly, they were the children of God.
Many people become quite hostile when their smug security is disturbed. There are thousands of people in this province, for instance, who consider themselves Christians in the same way as the Pharisees considered themselves religious people and good people. But when they hear the demands of Christ, they too become hostile. Their way of life is threatened. They are on the defensive. They begin to fight.
One writer, William Russell Maltby, says “The way of Christ seems to make immense demands on very small people. There is so much it would seem we must understand and so much that we must resolve that most of us would feel that we cannot wind ourselves up to the pitch. That, of course, is not the way. The way of Christ is not possible without Christ” (Readers Notebook, p. 47).
Jesus spoke of God the Father, of himself as being from above, and from the beginning. And about his commission, as being sent from the Father, this is what disturbed the Pharisees. How could anyone speak with greater authority than they who had the law, who spent generations working out the details of the law, and yet this savvy Jesus not only speaks to the publicans and sinners, not only heals and claims to forgive sin, but now he says: “I do nothing on my own authority but speak, thus as the Father taught me and he who sent me is with me.”
A college student once wrote to a minister and said, “Being a Christian does make life more interesting but it often makes it uncomfortable.” Swinburne is credited with saying, “I could tolerate Christ if he did not bring with Him His leprous bride the Church.” It’s the love of Christ for his Church that one can find so difficult to tolerate. So often well-meaning people will say, “All we have to do is obey the Sermon on the Mount and the world’s ills will be overcome.”
But it is not so simple. Every attempt to put into force the Biblical law without the spirit of Christ’s love and compassion has failed. There’s nothing else for it. With his whole life, Jesus was manifesting the love of God and the way of God. This was a threat to status quo – things as they are.
C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity has this to say: “Christian Miss Bates may have an unkinder tongue than unbelieving Dick Firkin. That, by itself, does not tell us whether Christianity works. The question is, what Miss Bates’ tongue would be like if she were not a Christian and what Dick’s would be like if he became one.”
“If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?”
No doubt one of the most disappointing experiences in life is to tell the truth and be not believed. The sharpest insult that one can suffer is to speak truth and then have the reply, “I don’t believe you.”
Apparently this was the way of the Pharisees. They didn’t believe Jesus.
“Because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me.”
“If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?”
Jesus of course answered his own question. Why do you not believe me? He who is of God hears the words of God, the reason why you do not hear them is that you are not of God.
Now the Pharisee therefore considered that Jesus was all wrong. So wrong indeed that he was a threat to civilization and religion and their way of life.
Are the standards that Christ gave us all wrong? Surely that is what the Pharisee believed and he acted upon it. He went all the way and did what he could to get rid of Jesus. He was accused of blasphemy, the heinous charge of ridiculing God. The reason for it: he spoke the truth.
Today people are asking again as Pilate the governor asked nine and a half centuries ago, “What is truth?” And of course, it simply means unbelief. Why do you not believe me? is a disturbing question for you and for me.
Jesus was no less a threat to the sinners and publicans’ way of life than that of the Pharisees. No longer could they justify themselves in the distance away from the temple or remain in their old state of life.
Remember the woman of Samaria. Remember the woman taken in adultery. Remember Levi at the customs desks or Zacchaeus in the tree. Let no sinner and publican justify himself in his way of life. Jesus the Christ is a threat. His body the Church is a threat to every form of complacency and indifference.
Lo! I am with you always even unto the end of the world. Are we not frightened because of our unbelief? Why are you worried? Why are you afraid of the future? Why are you afraid of death?
Above all things, Jesus not only spoke the truth but verified it by his own life. He faced death. Good Friday is necessary because Jesus was not believed. His Commission and authority were not accepted. The Cross is the symbol of man’s unbelief as well as of God’s love. For it is here that God and man, sin and unbelief, meet.
Come unto me all that labour. The cross is not only a threat to a way of life, but a means of destruction.
It is the empty cross that is the symbol of the glorious victory of God’s truth. It is the time for repentance to hear the master’s words, “Why do you not believe me?”
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Reverend Kalman C. Doka (1917 – 2001)
Kalman Doka (bottom right) with wife Molly (top centre)
My grandfather, Kal, was born in Kipling, Saskatchewan, on April 17, 1917, the son of pioneers Kalman and Lydia Doka. He finished 12 years of school in Kipling and Regina and then attended Regina Normal School. He taught in rural Saskatchewan for six years. He then attended McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, graduating with a BA degree. This was followed by three years study at Knox College, Toronto, and he was ordained a minister of The Presbyterian Church in Canada in 1950.
During his ministry, he served churches in Welland, Brantford and Mt. Pleasant, Ontario; Kipling, Saskatchewan; Abbotsford, B.C.; and Calgary. It was in Abbotsford that he pastored a bilingual congregation and, being fluent in the Hungarian language, he was of great assistance to the refugees of the 1956 Hungarian revolution. He continued his ministry in Calgary and, after five years, accepted the position of superintendent of missions in the Synod of Alberta and Northern Saskatchewan. Seven years later, he served in this capacity in the Synod of British Columbia until his retirement in 1985. His work had taken him over thousands of miles by car and air. In 1972, Knox College honoured him by granting him the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity.
White Rock had been his home since 1975. He was the husband of Molly, his devoted and loving wife of over 60 years; and father to sons David (Margaret) of Surrey, B.C.; Brian (Wendy) of South Surrey, B.C.; three daughters: Mary Ann (John) Rosberg of Kelowna, B.C.; Margaret (Nick) Kooman of Red Deer, Alberta; Elizabeth (Rob) Savage of Cochrane, Alberta; grandfather of 11 grandchildren and three great-grandsons; brother to Emil (Helen) Doka of Kipling, Saskatchewan; sister Dorothy (Bill) Fabian of Burlington, Ontario; and sister-in-law Dolores Doka of Kipling, Saskatchewan.
Kal is lovingly remembered for his deep faith and his concern and love for people.
With deep interest in my family’s cultural and spiritual heritage I am working to transcribe and preserve the sermons left to me by the family’s estate, confident the remembered testimony of his way of life can spur my family to good works, and encourage others who stop by the site.
You can read more of Kalman’s sermons here.
