“Truth be Told” by Valerie Bridgeman
Growing up in the rural South, we were not allowed to call people liars. We couldn’t even say “you lied.” Instead, we were encouraged to say “that’s not the truth,” “you’re telling ‘tales,’” or “you’re telling stories.” We lived next door to our grandparents on their 40-acre farm, and I heard my Gran Gran use these phrases many times. “Quit telling stories!” she would admonish when one of us were caught in an untruth. As I contemplate, “what is truth,” our theme for this series, I have my Gran Gran’s voice in my head. What does it mean to try to figure out what “truth” is in our times, or when people are “telling stories”?
So far in 2017, “truth”—as a reality and a concept—has been stretched beyond recognition. In the current political climate, it is hard to know what to believe. Of course, this season is not the first one in which equivocating between facts has happened. Trying to discern who is “telling tales,” and why, is a part of our democracy and our role as citizens. It would be easier if there were no “alternative facts,” as presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway said notoriously in January, just two days after the president was inaugurated and after his press secretary insisted that the largest crowd ever attended his swearing-in ceremony. “Alternative facts aren’t facts, they’re falsehoods,” NBC’s Meet the Press report Chuck Todd snapped back.[1]
In John’s gospel, Pilate interrogates Jesus regarding Jesus’ identity. Jesus answers, saying that he is a king, but “not of this world,” and that he came into the world to “bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:37). What a grand and profound statement. What a stance. But Pilate deflates any hope I have of getting a firm grasp on truth when he asks in response, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). Pilate does not stick around for the answer, or so it seems. I wish he had since I believe we, as Jesus followers, have the same mission to “bear witness to the truth” and to be “of the truth.” It would be good to have Jesus’ answer to Pilate’s question in our repertoire. Without it, I think the best we can hope for is try to live deliberately into a life of integrity and honesty.
We live in a North American culture that is adaptive to facts. We tend to hone in on the frequencies that mimic what we want to believe, whether they are true or not. For example (and an easy one), claims that former president Barack Obama is not a U.S. citizen are beyond refutation and have been debunked and proven a “tale,” a lie. But tune into certain radio or television shows and you will find it alive as an “alternative fact,” truth be damned. I confess I don’t know what to do with anyone who wants to hold on to a lie. But to be “of the truth” means we must prefer truth, even if it pushes us to give up something we surely believe. That is how we hear the voice of the radical revolutionary rabbi, Jesus.
Perhaps the search for “Truth” is itself problematic. Truth be told, maybe the best we can do with any faithfulness is to seek something true and cultivate the heart to keep looking for that “something” no matter what. I worry that people who believe they’ve found “The Truth” often become tyrants and terrorists toward those who don’t share what they believe. I worry about this tendency in myself. I worry that the pursuit of truth makes us traffic in absolutes that don’t actually exist; it makes us wary of the provisional nature of truth itself. This truth—the provisional nature of truth—frightens us Christians. We have been told that we “know the truth.” And maybe “knowing” is a huge part of our struggle with truth in this culture. We are so sure of so much, and we can be wrong. Or as Mark Twain is credited with saying: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”[2] We know “in part,” the writer of 1 Corinthians tells us (1 Corinthians 13:12). But we seem particularly troubled by our finitude. In order to counter our human propensity toward certitude, I often challenge my theology students to hold on to what they believe, but to do so loosely in case they learn something that is “truer” and contradicts what they always “just knew.” If they are able to “let go” and to grasp something new, they will be able to do it without harm to themselves or others. I remind students that humans once believed the earth was flat and, until just a few years ago, that Pluto was the ninth planet in our solar system.[3] Facts have a shelf-life. New information can help us reorient to elusive truth.
As I write this, I hear the objections to my words in my head. I hear the accusations of “slippery slope” and “liberal laziness.” But it takes courage to say we don’t know everything. And a little bit of humility, too. Truth be told, we all could use a huge infusion of both courage and humility as we search for truer things, and a life we may share together in grace.
Valerie Bridgeman is Associate Professor of Homiletics and Hebrew Bible at Methodist Theological School in Ohio and founding president of WomanPreach! Inc., the premier organization bringing preachers to full prophetic voice, especially as it relates to issues regarding women and children.
[1]Meet the Press, January 22, 2017. http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/conway-press-secretary-gave-alternative-facts-860142147643.
[2]Mark Twain. (n.d.). BrainyQuote.com. Retrieved May 19, 2017, from BrainyQuote.com Web site: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/m/marktwain109624.html
[3]On the dwarf planet Pluto. Retrieved May 19, 2017, from https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/pluto.