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Sunday 4 May - Easter 7 6.30pm Choral Eucharist (Traditional Rite) Preacher: The Rev. Lynda Barley “The Spirit of truth ….. shall testify of me. And you also shall bear witness” John 15:26 The human race has always had problems with truth. We use the term in two ways. On one hand it’s a standard for Christian living. Witnesses in court, for example, affirm that they are about to tell “the truth, the while truth and nothing but the truth”. It is an Old Testament standard based on the commandment not to “bear false witness against your neighbour”. The psalmist exhorts us “to speak the truth from out hearts” (Psalm 15:2). This standard of living is developed further in the New Testament. Jesus frequently uses the phrase “I tell you the truth” (or in some translations “truly I tell you”). Indeed, in the verses following our gospel reading Jesus says “I tell you the truth, it is for your good I am going away ….”. Peter in our epistle reading tells Christians to speak and serve so as to honour God while Paul, in turn, exhorts his fellow Christians to “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15). As followers of Christ, lying and deceit is not our way. We seek to be truthful, to live following God’s standards, honourable and trustworthy in our daily living. But truth is a particular theme of John’s gospel in a different sense. John is concerned that we grasp the ultimate truth of all, that Jesus is “the way, the truth and the life” for everyone to follow to God (ref John 14:6). John begins his gospel by telling us that Jesus is “full of truth” (John 1:14) and Jesus says that knowing that truth “will set us free” (John 8:32,36) to live life “no longer a slave to sin” (John 8:34) but with “the Spirit of truth who will guide us into all truth” (John 16:13). People down the centuries have always sought after the truth. Jesus explained to Pilate that “he had come to testify to the truth” and Pilate’s response is famous: “What is truth?” (John 18:38) he says rather wistfully. Andre Gale is credited with this insight: “Believe those are seeking truth, doubt those who say they have found it”. There’s a lot of sense in those words. In this life we shall never know the whole truth but we can make it our lifetime quest not only to seek the truth but to live by the truths we discover on the way. How do we know truths when we find them? It is certainly not just head knowledge. Blaise Pascal, the mathematician and philosopher, once said “We know the truth, not only by the reason but by the heart”. Head and heart come together as we live by the truth. When Jesus was talking with the Samaritan woman by the well about worshipping God, he said “Yet a time is coming and has now come when true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth …………. God is spirit and his worshippers must worship him in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23,24). Then the woman has a flash of insight and acknowledges that the Messiah, the Christ, “will explain everything to us”, he will explain the truth. Jesus takes this a stage further when he shockingly claims not only to do this but to be himself “the way, the truth and the life” (John 14:6) and promising the Spirit of truth to guide us into all truth (John 16:13). In our gospel reading Jesus tells us that we are better off when the Counsellor, the Spirit of truth, comes into our lives to guide us into true Christian living. He will testify to the truth about Jesus and give us the power and confidence to do the same. So John has us back in court again testifying to the truth, only now Jesus is in the dock and we are witnesses, testifying for him. Then Jesus finishes our gospel passage on a salutary note. He predicts the Spirit will polarise opinion between those who follow the truth and those who don’t, between those who testify to the way of truth and those who don’t. It will bring persecution and even exclusion from the synagogue, the centre of Jewish law and faith. Truth is not always easy, it can have painful consequences. But if we are to be true to the gospel message and testify to Christ working in our lives day by day then it will involve speaking (as the saying goes) the “gospel truth” and gaining insights into the gospel way of living through the God given Spirit of truth. “What is truth?” is still the constant cry down the ages to which Jesus’ answer takes us from the head to the heart showing a patience to spend a lifetime journeying with us the way of truth into all truth. George Herbert connected all this together and points us towards the food we shall receive for the journey from this Eucharist in this poem: Come, my Way, my Truth, my Life: Such a Way, as gives us breath; Such a Truth, as ends all strife; Such a Life, as killeth death. Come, my Light, my Feast, my Strength; Such a Light, as shows a feast; Such a Feast, as mends in length; Such a Strength, as makes his guest. Come, my Joy, my Love, my Heart; Such a Joy, as none can move; Such a Love, as none can part: Such a Heart, as joys in love. |
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