And That’s the Truth!

“‘What is Truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer.” I commend to you the entire essay by Sir Francis Bacon, for it explores this commodity more thoroughly than most of us half-baked preachers could. So if you think I’m gonna tackle the question, stop reading right now, ’cause I’m not… However, being that Trinity Sunday is coming this weekend, the readings presented are attempts to elucidate the role of God’s Holy Spirit within the lives and practices of those in the pew.

In the Book of PROVERBS, 8:1-4, 22-31, God’s Spirit is presented as “Wisdom”, a very potent view of that which is to fill us, and “wise us up”. Here Wisdom is a creative side of God that set the Universe in balance and defeated chaos. “My cry is to all that live….(for I am) delighting in the human race.” Wisdom is seen in both dark places as well as those of light, offering a depth to living so much beyond the shallows of voyeurism and greed. John Calvin has said, “There is no spot in the universe wherein you cannot discern at least some sparks of (Wisdom’s) glory.” (from the”Institutes…”)

The Epistle reading is five short (!) verses in ROMANS, 5:1-5. The passage ends with “God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Most of the world’s religious thought involves a vague appreciation of a natural order; but St. Paul corrals this into a baptism by which holiness and beauty are funneled into our very being by an outflowing love that is still creating! Evidently our transformation is delivered to us daily, saturating us with grace. Michael Jinkins poetically says, “We track it into every room in our lives and out into the world.” (FEASTING on the WORD, C 3:42)

JOHN’s Gospel, 16:12-15, still recalls Jesus and his close friends at the Last Supper. The Lord is trying to lift the disciples’ gloom by promising a “living replacement”–“When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” The idea of Truth is more than facts & dates, but is a sense of ethics and morality and justice as unpacked by Jesus. John’s projected community is one that will reflect Jesus’ intense care and ministry.

ElizabethAnn can sit in her rocker and tell us solemnly that “that’s the truth”–but Elizabeth Ann is only five years old. We who are slightly older know that Truth is but a gadfly, with many interpretations and many expressions. Steve Shussett has commented (ibid., page 30) that “On the road of life there are innumerable occasions for us to stand at the corner of ‘Mystery’ and ‘Mundane’ and see God at work in the course of an ordinary day.”

In the process of unfolding, Horace Brown King

You are invited to join me every Tuesday in wrestling with the scripture readings to be heard during the upcoming weekend: horacebrownking.com