Readings:
Jeremiah 11:18-20; Psalm 7; John 7:40-52

Several people who had been listening [to Jesus] said, ‘Surely he must be the prophet,’ and some said, ‘He is the Christ’, but others said, ‘Would the Christ be from Galilee? Does not scripture say that Christ must be descended from David and come from the town of Bethle-hem?’ So the people could not agree about him. The police went back to the chief priests and Pharisees who said to them, ‘Why haven’t you brought him?’ The police replied, ‘There has never been anyone who has spoken like him.’ ‘So’, the Pharisees answered, ‘you have been led astray as well? Have any of the authorities believed in him? Any of the Pharisees? This rabble knows nothing about the law — they are damned.’ One of them, Nicodemus… said, ‘But surely the Law does not allow us to pass judgment on a man without giving him a hearing and discovering what he is about?’ To this they answered, ‘Are you a Galilean, too? Go into the matter and see for yourself: prophets do not come out of Galilee’.
John 7:40-43, 45-52

In his trial before Pilate Jesus said ‘For this I was born, for this I came into the world, to bear witness to the truth; and all who are on the side of truth listen to my voice.’ In contemplating, pondering and reflecting on Jesus’ life and death, we can begin to see more clearly the truth and untruth of our own lives.

In this Gospel passage, truth and untruth are in conflict. The truth, whenever it is declared, is countered with a generalization, ‘Prophets do not come out of Galilee’, or, ‘how can it be true-none of the authorities believe in him?’, ‘the people who declare him to be a prophet are an ignorant rabble’. The people making these generalizations do so with great confidence, backing up their assertions with appeal to their own status and to the lack of status of their opponents.

The tyrannical rule of untruth continues in every individual, in every nation, in every aspect of life, each of us liable to be both its perpetrators and its victims.

Our political system encourages us to think in generalizations, to accept or reject policies, not because they are true or untrue in themselves, but because they are favoured or opposed by the other party. The demise of communism has been a serious blow to tyrannical governments who can no longer use the label ‘communist’ to condemn any policies opposed to their own.

As our society becomes more complex and technological, the opportunities for the tyrannical rule of untruth increase. Teachers are particularly susceptible to the temptation of controlling truth, forming young minds in the templates of their own prejudices, stamping heavily on any attempt at original thought, assuring the thinkers of their own inferiority. We become increasingly dependent on the expert, who tells us what to eat, what to wear, the medicines and surgery we need, how and what to think, the few making large profits by robbing the many of their own self-trust and self-confidence in the truth they discover for themselves.

The chief priests’ and Pharisees’ attitude to Jesus keep recurring in the history of Christianity. Churches and sects split off from one another in an attempt to recover the freedom of truth and many end up more authoritarian than the parent body. In your own experience of church, how far have you been encouraged to be critical, to discover for yourself? How often have you had the experience of being listened to in your church, encouraged to express what you really think and feel, without being judged or disapproved in any way? How far have you spent time listening to others in this way? Have you felt nervous at some of the ideas they express and how have you reacted?

Prayer
Spirit of truth, permeate my mind and heart, so that I can listen with a discerning heart, and deliver me from every form of superiority which deafens me to you in the cries of the poor and powerless. We ask you this through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.