Lest We Forget: A Sermon on The Gospel of Truth 2 & 3
By Rev. Natalie R. Perkins (March 16, 2025)
Transgression (Transgression) and Forgetfulness (Click to read)
Alright, so let’s get into this text, shall we? But first, some basics for those who are new to the extracanonical texts; it’s been a while since I preached them and did a quick and dirty. The Gospel of Truth is a text from the Nag Hammadi collection, which is a collection of texts named after the city in Egypt where they were discovered back in 1945 by a local farmer. He came upon a jar one day while he was working, opened it, and found twelve leather-bound codices inside. Those were filled with 52 treatises. We aren’t sure how the jar ended up where it did. My co-author and mentor, Rev. Dr. Hal Taussig, holds a story that they were in an old monastery some miles upriver. Now back in our ancient context, each governing body in power would change the rules on religion. Some even strongly enforced what should and should not be read. Taussig stories that soldiers came to the monastery to make sure that the monks were reading the correct scriptures of a particular emperor in power. Being given warning, the monks hid the documents in the jar. He imagines it did not end well for the monks as the jar remained unopened until it found its way buried downriver centuries later.
Now, this farmer was not able to read the texts. Some of the texts were written in Coptic, like this one–though we think it was originally Greek–some were in Aramaic. He took the jar home and set it in a corner which happened to also be near where the kindling was kept, and his mother began to use the contents as such. Luckily, he was convinced by a friend to take some of the writings to be appraised and, as a result, the remainder were saved. These texts have served to aid in the liberation of the idea of God, the Bible, and widen our understanding of the ancient audiences that read them, while avoiding thousands of years of orthodoxy and orthopraxy stacked on top of our traditional New Testament. This text was important enough to have two different copies of it included in the codices from that jar in Nag Hammadi. That, along with it being mentioned by a notable ancient bishop, Irenaeus, leads scholars to believe it was a pretty well-known text in the Mediterranean. As was custom in this ancient context, titles for well-known texts were just pulled from the first line of the text: “The good news of truth is joy for those who have received grace from the God of the truth….”
Written sometime between 80 and 160 CE, the authorship (like a lot of our ancient texts) is unknown. Though some scholars think it was written by Valentinus. But even that is hard to know for sure because none of his work survived. The text just has hints at ideas that could be ascribed to him.
The Gospel of Truth isn’t a gospel like Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John where it tells a narrative story. In fact, there is no central story at all. Rather, it weaves back and forth between two levels of a story of salvation– regarding Jesus on earth and the message he brought to humanity (and the repercussions of that), and a mythological story that acts like a kind of metanarrative. The latter is where our scripture for this morning is situated– how the world came into existence as a result of ignorance. In the beginning, it says that ignorance of God produced disturbance and fear.
How does this happen? How does creation forget the Creator? Well, if we look back at the Bible, there are several instances where not knowing God is named:
In Judges 2.10: “After that whole generation had been gathered to their ancestors, another generation grew up who knew neither the Lord nor what the Lord had done for Israel.” It seems like as the years went by, the adults didn’t pass faith and knowledge of God down to their children. The community stopped uplifting spiritual connection. They didn’t make it an important and integral part of their lives.
Also in 1 John 4.8 “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Or as Jacqui teaches here at Middle: Love. Period. Everything else is what? Commentary. Love is the tenet. On this, the Jesus in the Gospel of Mark teaches, On this hang all the laws and all the prophets. (Matt. 22.40) On Love.
Funny thing about those commentaries though, Middle, sometimes people hold them as fact rather than opinion. And this text gives us a story as to why– disturbance and fear. Disturbance that clouded everything. Like being on a plane and looking out the window only to see nothing but whiteness. Or, remember back in 2023 when during those Canadian wildfires, the sky here in Manhattan turned orange and we had low visibility? In those instances, reality is distorted. It’s hard to know which way is up. You don’t know what’s in front of you. Sometimes fear takes hold of you and you make decisions that aren’t based in reality– like going outside to look at the orange sky to see what you could see, even though all of the advice on every news channel told you to stay inside. Fear can dysregulate your system. Sending you into fight, flight, fawn, or freeze. It can make you lose your mind up in here, up in here.
In this way, the text said, Transgression found strength. Transgression: an act that goes against a law, rule, or code of conduct– is embodied here. Because of disturbance and fear, she is able to make something from absolutely nothing. We’ve seen that happen, right? Even today– DEI on the government level has been dismantled based on a problem that doesn’t exist and the false claim of equaling the playing field. Or a few years ago with the reversal of Roe v. Wade based on a problem that doesn’t exist and the false claim that the word fetus is synonymous with the word baby. That the government should control a woman’s body. Or the long battle of racism, based on a problem that doesn’t exist. Race is not a thing. It is clear, then, how Transgression created a substitute for truth. For the text says, “She did not know the truth and became a molded form, preparing–in power and beauty–a substitute for truth.” One might call it MAGA, one might call it Christian Nationalism–that thwarted the moral compass of America. That made people feel powerful by belittling others. That redefines beauty as rich, white, cis-hetero men. That has no root because it does not know love. That substitutes patriotism or political loyalty in place of the universal call of the gospel. Calls for righteousness got replaced by calls for national power. Therefore, it is ignorant of God. An empty theology because it has forgotten the fullness of the Lord.
And we’ve been following this pattern a long time in this world, Family.
Crusaders=Christian
Inquisitors=Christian
Nazis=Christian
KKK=Christian
MAGA=Christian
And in this fog, Transgression used forgetfulness and fear to gather the ones in the middle and take them captive. Here is a recent example:
I listened to an NPR episode of Up First where they talked about tariffs on the car industry, and the person being interviewed talked about how these tariffs “shouldn’t affect us.” It made me think about how we as a society have been making decisions based on “us” and not anybody else. Classic ‘us versus them’ mentality, right? And what seems to be lost there is that if we are always worried about just us, then we are easier to manipulate. If we allow leadership to make enemies out of one group, then they can use that same playbook to make enemies out of anybody. I don’t think that the car industry thought that Trump would make them the bad guys. But that’s what could happen, right? There’s a pause on the tariffs right now and in 30 days it could be back on the car industry. My guess is the car industry will complain and Trump will be like “see! Those aren’t true Americans.” Or they’re losers or very bad people or however he chooses to lambast them. He’ll say that what he is doing is right and good and they’ll get on board if they know what’s good for them and that he’ll take care of them. But it’s all empty words as an attempt to pacify those in the middle. Those are starting to have a really bad taste in their mouth about what is happening in our country. Those whose hearts are broken anew.
It reminds me of a tweet from 2015 by user Adrian Bott: "I never thought leopards would eat MY face, sobs woman who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.”
There are so many people in this situation, who voted for our current administration through a fog of misinformation, forgetfulness, and fear, which allowed for Transgression to grow, dismantle our moral compass piece-by-piece, make folks comfortable with hurting others, comfortable with the justifications and lack of empathy shown by news organizations, candidates, churches. People who forgot that what they had was a substitute for truth. People who are now learning that it’s not so much about ‘us versus them’ and are starting to become aware of the mistakes made along the way, what they ignored and forgot, that landed America in this trouble. Who were convinced that Project 2025 wasn’t real and even if it was, it would only affect “those people.” Fear of the other overshadowed the command to love our neighbor.
People are now losing their jobs, and their livelihoods, and their sense of safety.
People are learning, as Amanda preached last week, that the real playbook being used is the one that picks one group to demonize and then expands to the next group until there’s no one left.
When God isn’t known, when we are ignorant of God, we forget. We forget righteousness, love, and truth. We forget communal growth, commitment, and well-being. We forget peace, thriving, and just plain old joy. We lose our grounding for justice. We forget that we’ve seen these models play out in other countries. We forget our own history and what our ancestors fought, prayed, and died for. We forget that we are surrounded by people who have a different playbook. People who know how to combat oppression.
Oh but to be in a community who knows God, who knows the uncontainable, incomprehensible one. Who will not forget that disturbance and forgetfulness and molded forms are lies. Who will not forget that the established truth is unchanging, undisturbed, and beyond beauty. That doesn’t forget that to know God is to know what justice and love look like, to discern rightly, to know truth, to know compassion, to know righteousness. Have you forgotten, Beloved? Do you know God??
Our calling is not just to speak the truth, but to model it– to be God’s hands and feet. To remind people of God’s love. We can clear away the fog that allows Transgression to thrive. We can gently but firmly shine God’s light on substitutes for truth. I know a lot of you have struggled with how to do this, so here’s an example from our congregation:
I met with one of our online members in Boston, Katie, during the Young Adults gathering this past week. She shared a story with me about her father and grandfather. At this point, the family has pretty much given up trying to argue politics with the grandfather. But recently, Katie’s father was in the car while her grandfather drove. The radio station spewed all kinds of hate and un-empathetic substitutes for truth. This time, Katie’s father spoke up. He said, “You know, I don’t hear a lot of Christ in this.” Later, her grandfather came to him and said, “You were right.” Now will that change the grandfather’s mind? I don’t know. But I know that it seemed to have dispersed some of the fog and redirected her grandfather back towards the one true God again.
King wrote in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, “I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate.” He said, “Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.” Take a page from Katie’s dad’s book of bravery and love. God is more fully known the more we dismantle toxic structures and empty theologies.
Lest we forget God’s truth is not a tool for political or personal gain. It is a transforming power that lifts up the poor, afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted, and calls every heart to compassion. Lest we forget that God’s love means actively opposing racism, cis heterosexism, xenophobia, and economic injustice.
May we all courageously live out the truth of the gospel. May we all shine our lights and dispel the fog. May it be so.
[References used for this sermon include A New New Testament edited by Hal Taussig, an Introduction by Einar Thomassen from The Nag Hammadi Scriptures edited by Marvin Meyer, NPR’s Up First, Martin Luther King’s "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," and good old ChatGPT.]