The Spirit of Truth

Rev Indrea Alexander

Acts 17:22-31; Psalm ; 1 Peter 3:13-22; John 14:15-21

How important is truth? Is it absolutely vital? Very important? Or only important sometimes? I imagine many people would feel its importance depends on the circumstances.
 
If a client at a hairdresser is asked if she has used home colouring products and says no, her little white lie can lead to some unfortunate salon colouring results. But does it matter if she gave the same response to a friend in a café - it’s not a very big lie, is it?
 
Most people seem to have shades of truth, depending on where they are, who they are talking to, and how things may reflect on them.
 
Witnesses in court have traditionally promised to tell “The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth”. That phrase was probably developed after long experience of the way people evade uncomfortable truth. Some witnesses probably gave edited highlights - the little they said was true, but what they left out significantly skewed the picture. Some witnesses probably told the whole truth, but couched it amongst so much other drivel that the truth was obscured. Hence the challenge to witnesses to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
 
Truth is a weighty thing. Knowing the truth has the power to change things for ever. The Bible says “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free”.  I have heard of inmates coming to faith in prison, and finding a freedom behind bars that they have never experienced before. They have discovered the truth of God’s undeserved love and forgiveness, a truth sets them free.
 
Part of our role as a church is to help people identify God’s truth in their lives, and to grow in Christian faith. We do this empowered by God’s Holy Spirit. Before leaving his disciples, Jesus promised them they would not be left as orphans. “I will ask the Father and he will give you another Counsellor to be with you forever – the Spirit of truth” - not the spirit of love, or the spirit of hope, but the spirit of truth –  the very essence of the Spirit is truth. The Spirit brings people to the truth of God.
 
When St Paul was in Athens he was deeply distressed to see that the city was full of idols. What could bring these people to the truth of God?
He debated in the synagogue with the Jews – I wonder how he would have challenged them. Monotheists in a polytheistic city.
He spoke every day in the market place – perhaps to quite a crowd of the curious and idle amongst the bustle of trade and socialising. 
He debated with Epicurean philosophers – who believed in physical and mental pleasure and the avoidance of pain. How would they accept a suffering and crucified God?
He debated with stoic philosophers – who believed humans beings should be free from passion, unmoved by joy or grief, stoically accepting anything that happened to them. How would they accept a God who wept?
 
Paul spoke the joyous good news about Jesus – crucified and risen. And Acts 17 says people were interested in this new teaching because ...all the Athenians and the foreigners living there liked nothing better than telling or hearing something new. There is still a rather worrying tendency today for people to pursue what is new, what is novel, for its own sake, with little regard for what is true.
 
Paul was invited to share more. He commented on how religious the city was, as shown by their numerous objects of worship. And he said that among them he found an altar “to an unknown god”. He uses this as a point of connection, building from what they already have. “What you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you….”  He is not adding to their pantheon of Gods.
 
While the story of Jesus was new, Paul associated Jesus directly with one older than time itself, God the creator. He speaks to them of the God who made the heaven and earth, who does not live in shrines made by human hands, nor is served by human hands because needs nothing and indeed gives to all mortals their very life and breath.
 
Paul says it is understandable and even unavoidable that the people of that region should constantly seek god, because their creator has planted that instinct within them. All people “search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him”, Paul says. I like the image of groping for God. We grope in the darkness, for the light switch or the alarm clock. We grope in our darkness for God. But Paul tells them they don’t have to reach far, because God is close, and surrounding “for in him we live and move and have our being”. When we search for God, it is like a fish searching for the very water in which it lives and moves and has its being. It is simply a matter of recognition.
 
God has overlooked past human ignorance, Paul says, but God now calls people to repent, before the day when all people will be judged by the truly righteous one, Jesus – the one God has identified by raising him from the dead.  
 
It’s a powerful, challenging message. So what was the council’s response to Paul’s speech? Much the same as any group of people today hearing the message of Jesus Christ. Some scoffed, and some said they would like to hear more about this again some other time.
 
And when Paul left them, he was joined by Dionysius, a council member, a woman called Damaris and a number of others, who became believers. God had been at work in their lives, and when they encountered the truth through Paul they responded to God.
 
This week, wherever we go, we will meet people in whom God is at work. Some will have a flourishing Christian faith, some will not. Like St Paul we are to engage with the people and world we encounter. Listening, learning, and sharing our faith. As the wonderful sentence from 1 Peter 3:15 challenges us: “Always have reverence for Christ in your hearts, and honour him as Lord. Be ready at all times to answer anyone who asks you to explain the hope you have within you.”
 
In confirmation preparation with a teenager on Friday, we read about hope from the end of the catechism in a NZ Prayer Book. A catechism is structured as a series of questions and answers that express what we believe.
 
On page 983 under the heading Christian Hope it asks:
What is the hope of a Christian?
The answer it offers is this: The Christian hope is that nothing, not even death, shall separate us from the love of God which endures and prevails forever.
 
It also asks: How are we to live in (Christian) hope?
We anticipate the coming of Christ and we live now in the newness of eternal life which the Spirit gives: we work for the fulfilment of God’s purpose for the whole of creation.
 
In our daily life and work, whatever it is and wherever we are, we are to contribute to God’s purpose for the whole of creation. We are to be little beacons of light, of hope and of truth, pointing others to Jesus.  
 
Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!