Sermons

February 27/04

"To Tell the Whole Truth and Nothing But the Truth, So Help Me God."

Reverend Dr Cheri DiNovo
John 4:5-42

"To Promise to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God". I think the first time I heard those words was when I used to watch Perry Mason with my grandmother. Who here’s old enough to remember Perry Mason…way before Law and Order?
You got to love Perry because he didn’t even need a jury for most of his trials. He was both defender and prosecutor and usually the person who was up there in the dock broke down and confessed. It was wonderful! I was wondering when you think of the numbers of people who have their hands on Bibles and promise to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth as we speak, out of all of them, how many actually are? How many follow those words with the truth and not some fabrication?

I wasn’t raised as a Church kid and I regret that. I regret that I didn’t receive all that this beautiful, holy place has to give to a child and I regret that I didn’t learn it. But part of me is kind of glad that I wasn’t raised in the Churches of my era and I’ll tell you why, because the Churches of my era were institutions that were based and built upon hypocrisy. Now you know the old saying that all Churches are filled with hypocrites and we always counter by saying, ‘they’re not full yet there’s always room for one more’! But it’s not about us, it’s about the institutions themselves and I have to say that not only Christians are guilty of this but all the major faiths are. All the major faiths have been guilty of hypocrisy, guilty of saying one thing and doing another. Preaching one thing and then acting another. This is nowhere more apparent than in the area of civil rights.

Just this last month was Black History month and on my radio program on Thursday I read a little bit about the Churches and how they related to Blacks in Canada. Many of you don’t know that slavery was legal here and many of you don’t know that the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Churches both used slaves here and even after slavery was rendered illegal, Blacks were certainly in a second class position in most of the mainline Canadian denominations for a long, long time.

Schopenhauer said this, "All truth passes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Second it is violently opposed and it is accepted as self evident." I think that’s probably going to be what’s going to happen with same-sex marriage. We’re in the ‘violently opposed’ section right now. In another generation it will be as if it had always been than way and it will be accepted as self evident, like civil rights was. Just like any civil rights always is. Interesting, that very few Churches come out on the side of civil rights when it’s the brave and courageous thing to do. They only come out on the side of civil rights when everybody else is doing it too.

Now there is of course, truth and then there is TRUTH. There is by the way such a thing as truth for all of you arm chair philosophers out there. We may not every know the real TRUTH in this life, that is we might never meet God face to face in this life but we all of us know truth. The woman from Samaria knew truth/TRUTH because it was standing right in front of her. Remember it was Pontius Pilate who posed the question, "What is truth?" It posed it just before he sentenced Christ to death and there was Jesus, the Truth, standing right in front of him but he couldn’t see him because he was engaged up here with his stinking thinking. He was being an armchair philosopher and he was saying, "This can’t be true, this is just a Jew from Nazareth" Truth must be something more weighty, more serious, it must be something that costs more to find.

Solzhenitsyn said," We do not err because truth is difficult o see. It is visible at a glance. We err because it is more comfortable." Jim Davis, the cartoonist said, "The truth will set you free but first it will make you absolutely miserable."

There is a reason we don’t tell the truth because as you heard the kids say, when we tell the truth we almost always get punished for it. No where is this more true than in Church. Isn’t that horrendous? Isn’t it horrendous that people’s experience of Church is that if they tell the truth there they will be punished or ostracized or shunned for it? This is the place out of all the places in our lives that we should be able to come and that. If not here, where? If not now, when? This is the place.

Here are some Christian stories. They’re stories of real live Christians right now. Stories that are happening as we speak:

A minister spend thousands of dollars a month on prostitution and takes it out of Church funds believing no one will find out and besides he’ll pay them back quickly.

A young woman travels to Niagara Falls to play the slots spending her grocery money and eventually her rent money but she knows she has to hit a winning streak soon and the shortfall will be completely made up.

A retired man hides his drinking when his wife leaves the house so that she won’t nag him about his liver condition. Besides, he doesn’t have a drinking problem. He knows he can stop anytime.
A young man’s wife diets, then binges. He says nothing. It’s a ‘woman’ thing.

A young mother loses it with her children so that the neighbours are concerned but she knows it’s because she doesn’t have enough help at home. It’s only stress.

A couple have a shell of a marriage. They bicker constantly, fight often. But they’re together for the sake of their child. She’s what’s important to them.

A woman who suffered abuse as a child suffers bouts of depression and thoughts of suicide but tells no one. After all, this will pass.

A young gay man who never came out to his family, lives a completely separate life with his partner of five years, who they’ve never met. It’s better that way.

A government has a defense budget that makes social service spending impossible. Wars are necessary. People can look after themselves.

A child shows signs of aggressive behaviour, hurting animals, hurting playmates. He’ll grow out of it.

A young woman, prostitute, hated by everyone and abused by everyone in her town, drowning in shame, drowning in guilt, goes out to collect water from a well one day as though nothing is wrong.

Today as I was thinking about this sermon I opened up the paper and I read about the BTK killer who’s just been captured. I was reading that he’s a Cub Scout leader and an active member of his Lutheran Church.

The truth is always standing in front of us but it’s hard isn’t it to tell it because punishment is swift and sure if we do. This Samaritan woman standing in front of Jesus knows that, because she’s a Samaritan and a woman and a woman with a past and any man particularly a Jew would be rendered unclean by speaking to her. She knows that perhaps he might even suggest that she be stoned to death which would be the righteous, the legal thing to do. Instead what he does is he shares with her some statement about faith. He accepts her. He forgives her, no judgment. Interesting isn’t it?Not one word of judgment. He simply loves her. This much greater truth/Truth that stands in her very face .

This is Lent, the season during which we are supposed to get right with God, the season of forty some odd days. The season during which we are supposed to tell the truth of our lives to at least on other person and to God. This is what is called upon us to do not just during Lent, although it would be apt to do so but of every day of the rest of our lives. To tell the truth of or lives to at least one other person and to God. The real truth, not the cutesy face, not the shallow pretense, not the being somebody so somebody will like us, not that face but the real truth. Guaranteed if we do, we will be punished for it. We might even have to pay with our lives. But look at that woman at the well!

What was here reaction to finally telling the truth? It was probably both shame and guilt and regret, horror really then one can only imagine the most astounding feeling of immense relief as though a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders, as though that unquenchable thirst had finally been quenched. As though she finally got a drink of that true and living water. So relieved was she that she went out into the world and said, "I think that I’ve just come face to face with the truth. I think that I’ve just stood and faced the truth. I think that I’ve just stood next to someone that knew me and loved me and forgave me – the Truth in other words."

To tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help me God. The most important words in that statement are the words, ‘so help me God’. You know some days ( and I stand before you as a woman who spent the first half of her life lying all the time) the most important thing you can say is ‘so help me God’. You need to say it over and over again, ‘so help me, help me, help me, help me, God’.

The world tells you that if you tell the truth you will be punished swiftly and severely. That if you tell the truth that you’ll regret it immediately, that you’ll rue the day. Churches tell you that, faith institutions of all sorts tell you that, Governments tell you that, everyone tells you that, your family tells you that, sometimes your friends tell you that but not here. This is holy ground.
Out there we are told to put a brave face on, a pleasant face on, act as if everything’s okay even when everything isn’t okay, to pretend that things are going well even when they’re not going well, to be happy even when you’re not happy, to pretend always and ever. But not here. Here you’re standing on holy ground.

Out there you’re cautioned to judge people by how much they earn, by what they look like or by who they’re with but not here. Here you’re welcomed into holy ground.
Out there you’re cautioned don’t question, don’t ask those difficult questions, don’t question those in authority, never question those who purport to know the truth, believe everything they say. But not here. Here you have stepped onto holy ground.
The final quote I’ll leave you with is one that Mark Twain said. It’s one that’s proven particularly useful to me. He said, "If you tell the truth you never have to remember what you said."