Sermon
Sermons
Sermon Does Truth Matter?
Readings: Psalm 15.
Acts 4:32 to 5:11 Ananias and Sapphira
“speak the truth from your heart, do no slander with your tongue”
Psalm 15
I enjoy reading novels – preferably ones with some sort of basis in historical reality. Several months ago I read Robert Harris’ “Conclave” which centred on the Vatican and the election of a new Pope. The novel provided a fascinating insight into the world of Catholic Church politics. Since then I have read Simon Scarrow’s “Hearts of Stone” about the Greek resistance movement on an island in the Mediterranean during the 11 World War. More recently I finished reading Racheal Billington’s “Glory” which is about Gallipoli and the events surrounding that terrible battle in the 1st WW. But let me hasten to add this is not a sermon about novels – but about truth. When reading a novel I expect to find glimpses into the workings of the human mind, into that which builds or destroys relationships, into human strengths and weaknesses, into love and hatred, into laughter and sorrow. When reading novels I hope to be entertained, challenged, comforted, enlightened – sometimes disturbed, sometimes gripped by the tension … and so on.
But I am always aware that these are novels, these are works of fiction. No matter how well researched they might be, no matter what historical truths they may contain, they are not to be taken as – to use an old-fashioned phrase “the gospel truth” about a situation. Novelists in general have no hesitation in embellishing the truth. Indeed that is their particular forte as they seek to captivate the reader with mystery, or romance, or comedy, or a mixture of these ingredients.
For that reason when I read a novel I am not about to hold the author to account for the truth or otherwise of what he or she has written. Their role is storytelling. Storytelling – not history as such, not documentary evidence, fiction not fact. Of course, I may, and no doubt this may apply to you as well, at times give up reading a novel for some reason or other - but in general I will not judge a novel for the truth or otherwise of its story unless the author is writing an historical novel. Then a historical critique may well be applied. However, if the book I’m reading is not a novel, but the work of an historian, or a news journalist, or a politician, then I believe, we have a right to expect the facts to be verifiable, truthful, honest.
Historians, politicians, and news reporters in their line of work are not, or ought not to be, writers of fiction. Real news, whether if is from the BBC, or TVNZ, or the Herald, is intended to convey facts as far as they can be ascertained, and is quite different from fiction. While news may be open to a variety of interpretations – some more plausible than others, news has to deal with facts.
I believe that there is news that is factual, news that can be verified, news that is true, and then there is what can be labelled “fake news”…in reality: fiction! Sometimes the one can get mixed up with the other.
Jesus, as we all know engaged in story telling – the parables are a prime example. He did it to convey truth – not historical facts. Take the story of the Good Samaritan for example. Jesus is not about to tell us the name of the Good Samaritan, nor the date on which the man was attacked on his way to Jericho, - those things are incidental to the story. In fact the truth of the story stands whether or not Jesus had an actual person in mind, or even whether the event really happened. The truth lies not in those kinds of facts but in the compassion shown by the Samaritan, a person from whom such compassion was unexpected. The message to us is “go do thou likewise!”
But storytelling, while perfectly fine as a means of conveying truth, is quite different from hard, factual news. As Christians we have no problem with storytelling as a means to convey a message. But we do have a real problem when verifiable factual news is labelled “fake news”, And we have a similar problem when fake news, falsified news is substituted for the real thing. The Bible has words for this kind manipulation of the truth – it’s called lying, or deceit, or to quote the ten commandments “bearing false witness”!
In the face of what has been happening particularly in the political scene in our world I believe that this is a good time to remind ourselves of the eighth commandment. Certainly, in the face of “fake news’ it is good that we as Christians remind ourselves of the words from Exodus chapter 20: “you shall not bear false witness against your neighbour”. False witness, fake news is now a big issue for many people. Oxford University recently carried out a survey of some 75,000 people in 38 countries on this issue. They discovered that 70% of people in the UK were “concerned’ about “fake news”. And in the USA they discovered that only 9% of those on the right of the political spectrum now trust the news -mainly because they have been told that the news media is “the enemy of the people”. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you who is beating that drum! “Fake news” it is something we as Christians should be concerned about as it seems to be increasingly common and found at the highest level of political leadership.
Fake news can have serious outcomes. Brexit – is a good example. It paralysed the Parliament at Westminster, undermining democracy. It cost the Prime Minister of the UK at the time, Teresa May, her job. While it is true that there was an underlying unease in the UK about the dictates of the EU from Brussels, I doubt if Britain would be dealing with Brexit at all if it were not for the misinformation that was shared prior to the referendum. Take for example the huge advert on side of the bus that took pro Brexit Boris Johnson’s message to many parts of the UK. It told a lie – stating that Britain was paying £350,000,000 a week into the coffers of the EU. It wasn’t true, the actual figure was a £100,000,000 a week less. And, of course it was not made clear that the money paid to the EU would be more than offset by losses to the British economy should Britain leave the EU. This was just one of many bits of misinformation, fake news items, used to sway the minds of voters in the referendum. And then there is Donald Trump, he loves to call verifiable factual news, fake news, and is a master of manufacturing fake news himself – I will come back to that later.
Our New Testament reading today from the Acts of the Apostles tells a grim story of deceit, of fake news. The setting is this. The first Christians were committed to sharing the things they possessed in common. Committed to communal living. They had turned their backs on private property, on private ownership. In practice the expectation was that when people became Christians, if they owned property, they would sell their property and place the proceeds at the disposal of the apostles. The proceeds were then distributed to each person as they had need. Acts records a man called Joseph doing just that. And Luke tells us that as a result of this “there was not a needy person among them”. But in our reading for today we meet Ananias and Sapphira. A husband and wife who had become Christian. Like the others they had property which they sold bringing the proceeds to the apostles. So far so good! But what was different about their behaviour was that they did not bring all of the proceeds. They decided that they would secretly keep some funds for themselves while giving the impression that they were doing exactly what everyone else had done. This was a deliberate deception, they were faking it. Seeking to deceive the apostles, lying in action if not in word. But the apostles were not deceived. And the consequences, according to Luke’s account were that Ananias and Sapphira paid the ultimate penalty.
Fake news is an attempt to deceive by creating a supposed alternative reality. Sometimes it is blatant, sometimes it is subtle. In the USA we see both elements at work. A blatant example was when President Trump claimed that the crowd at his inauguration was the biggest ever when photographs showed quite clearly that there was a larger crowd at the inauguration of Barack Obama. A more subtle example can be seen in the attempt, in spite of virtually all mainstream scientific evidence to the contrary, to deny climate change has been influenced by human behaviour. Of course, lying and distortions of the truth can happen on both the right and the left of politics but we ignore such manipulations at our peril. Let us be amongst those who call them for what they are, fake news, lying, bearing false witness. If we as Christians don’t seek to stand for the truth than the danger is that some of those who work diligently, conscientiously, to obtain real news, and to share that news with the world in as an objective way as possible – are the ones who get abused, side lined, and the truth gets lost in the process.
Now you may well ask what has this got to do with our Christian faith? Or why should this concern us here in New Zealand?
First: The Bible reminds us that the God in whom we believe is a God of truth. In Numbers 23:19 we read “God is not a human being, that God should lie”. In Psalm 19 we read: “the ordinances of the Lord are true”. In Psalm 96: God will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with truth”. In the prologue to John’s gospel we read in v.14 “and the word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of the father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”. Later in John we read of Jesus praying for his disciples and saying: “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify myself, so that they also may be sanctified in truth.” Paul, in Romans 2, speaks of the judgment of God as being “in accordance with the truth”.
These are just a few samples of what the Bible has to say about truth but there can be no doubt that truth matters to God and therefore is important, an important issue for us as Christians. We are called to be truthful people… people who do not bear false witness, people who do not lie, people who do not formulate fake news.
Secondly: But why should this concern us here in New Zealand. Isn’t ours one of the least corrupt societies in the world? Don’t we have a relatively honest press, a sound judiciary, and mostly politicians we can trust? Relatively, the answer is “yes”. But international trends can and do impact on us over time. When America sneezes the danger is that the whole world catches the cold. So, caution is called for, especially if we want New Zealand to continue to have a strong free press, and relatively honest politicians.
Currently we here in NZ can be thankful that our press, and the news media generally, is not captive to one political party or another. So far, our radio and TV and our newspapers – while having commentators who from time to time take sides politically – are not beholden to either the right or the left of politics. Often, they will offer critiques that challenge one side or the other in the time honoured British tradition of the BBC and quality newspapers. What we need to watch out for, and beware of, is any part of the media becoming captive to either the right or the left as Fox news has become in the USA. That in turn polarises society with one side describing the other as fake news no matter what the truth of the situation really is.
And we don’t want our politicians, or the secretary of the Treasury for that matter, jumping on the fake news bandwagon in an effort to discredit the other side. Of course, we expect our politicians to have differences in terms of their priorities, and differences in their interpretations of issues – that’s fine – we all know that no one has all the answers to the needs of society. But real and robust debate about what needs to be done and how to do it are very different from creating fake news with its alternative view of reality – truth being the casualty.
For us as Christians truth matters. Lying, bearing false witness is wrong and is to be resisted both in our personal and in our social lives.
We are the people who are called to “speak the truth in love” – to speak truth with sensitivity to others.
We are called to choose our words carefully when we have to share some unpalatable truth.
Above all, we are called to as far as possible have the mind which was also in Christ Jesus when it comes to our dealing with others.
Yes, for us the truth does matter.
But as we stand for the truth may Christ’s life be our inspiration, may his compassion shape our words and actions, and may his spirit be present in all that we say and do.
“speak the truth from your heart, do no slander with your tongue” Psalm 15
Amen