Letting Truth Appear (John 8:31-42)

It’s not often I get stunned by the cover of a magazine, but the one on Time in late March accomplished that. In dark letters set against a darker background was the question, “Is Truth Dead?” The phrase caught a feeling I only half realized had been running through me in recent years, especially since the election season.

That feeling was fear. With all these facts and anti-facts, real news versus fake, claims that the truth of a thing doesn’t matter so much as the appeal that thing makes — is there a place to stand? Is the ground under my feet more like jello than granite, not able to hold anything up (including me)? Who and what can you believe? If everything shifts with the latest claim, what’s reliable and solid in this world anymore?

This rumbling of the foundations is the sounding board against which I heard the ringing proclamation of Jesus in chapter 8 of John, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Here Jesus intertwines these two basics of freedom and truth. “It’s not just the truth at peril here, but freedom too; i.e., being able to move by my own lights and come to trust them as opposed to being at the mercy of the self-serving lights somebody else is throwing on the scene. The chances of being free are in direct proportion to the chances of knowing the truth. Each lives off and leads to the other.

And so in the political domain, it’s the demagogue who by creating his own version of things shuts off portions of what’s really there and thereby narrows down the range of everyone else’s freedom. In industry and finance it’s the monopolizer of commerce who for his own profit camouflages how the money really flows and convinces the public that things are working for the benefit of all.

But closer to home are the communal and personal realms and all the things that would work against truth there too.

• Communally: what’s involved in gaining confidence that we’re listening to all the voices in the group and not just the ones we agree with ahead of time? What does it take to have an ear for the prophet’s voice in the group, especially when it irritates?
• Personally: what does it take to hear those “right voices,” those internal truth- tellers bouncing around inside us instead of the ones that come more out of my woundedness and self-interest?

And so what are some things a person might do to stay on more reliable frequencies?

• Listen to people. I remember a married man telling me why he thought it was that some priests get strange as they get older. “They don’t have a wife around to tell them they’re crazy!” And so the folks who take that role in our own lives, the good and longtime friend who can give that craziness message when it’s clearly needed — even the one who’s not that close but who has my number in some way. Or one of one of those angels in life you might call “the wise fool,” that spontaneously simple person who “tells it like it is.”
• Look back at yourself in the mirror. Hear that spiritual director who is good at reflecting back to you what you’re telling her. Or re-read a journal entry years after you wrote it.
• Be open to events. Let what’s been happening politically raise up in you not just the things you’re opposed to, but also the possible the reasons behind the opposing opinions.  Or even better, listen to events from the point of view of the Gospel and its contemporary interpretations. Wasn’t this exact ability one of Vincent’s distinctive spiritual gifts?
• Come openly before the Father of Jesus. This is Jesus’ secret, his way of tuning onto the truth, his road to freedom. “I’m telling you what I’ve seen and heard in the Father’s presence… You are to look and listen too. And do what you’ve heard and seen from my Father.” (Jn. 8:38)

And are not all these different ways to share more fully in that Kingdom meal we know as the Eucharist, entering into it with that wide open stance that lets us see that graced Truth that would set us free?