A sermon on John 8:31-37
As you walk up the steps and
into the front door of Kings if you look up you will see carved into the stone
the words “The truth will make you free.” It is a great saying, a hopeful saying,
it is the motto of this college.
Tonight as we celebrate
commemoration, remembering with one another, things we may have forgotten I
have deliberately taken us back to the origin of those words. They were read to us tonight from John’s gospel:
“If you continue in my word,
you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will
make you free.”
The truth that Jesus was
speaking of is a truth that is connected to Jesus and is an absolute claim
about the nature of truth.
I suspect though when many
people read the words of the King’s motto “The truth will make you free” disconnected
from origins we are probably thinking of a different definition of the word
truth. I suspect a definition that we may discover does not offer us the
freedom we think.
Let me briefly explore two
approaches to the truth that may be less helpful than we might suspect.
The first is the idea that
the truth that will make us free is knowledge.
This is after all a college located in a centre for learning.
There can be no doubt that
the search for fact in history and in science has lead us to make great
discoveries as human beings.
Yet the discovery of
so-called truth has to always be tempered by three things.
Firstly, Michael Polanyi the Chemist
and philosopher in his great book “Personal Knowledge” reminds us that all
truth is subjective because “we must inevitably see the universe from a centre
lying within ourselves.”
Secondly, as the Physicist
Carol Rovelli points out the notion of something being “scientifically proved”
is nearly an oxymoron and that “The very foundation of science is to keep the door
open to doubt.”
Finally, even when science
discovers something that is occurring around with the best research and
evidence available science like most things now is treated as a matter of
belief if that truth is inconvenient, as Al Gore pointed out in his presentation of the issue of climate change.
Equating scientific fact or
knowledge with truth does not necessarily set us free: from the fact we can
only tell our stories through an anthropocentric lens; from the need to continue
to search more deeply for more answers; and, from the fact that even when the best
knowledge and evidence is presented people still make a choice to engage in
that new knowledge of reject it.
Another view of the truth prevalent
within our society is the notion that the truth is about exposing lies and
deception.
There is a pivotal scene in the
old film “A Few Good Men”. Tom Cruise
has Jack Nicholson in the witness stand and pushes him to reveal what
happened. Nicholson’s angry response is
well known, “You want the truth! You can’t handle the truth!” As the ugly truth comes out I don’t think
anyone is set free – there are uncomfortable and incomprehensible consequences
for the characters in the film.
Exposing the deception and
the hidden stories does not necessarily set us free. As a student history I recall Robert Hughes significant
work on early Australian history called “The Fatal Shore”. The book told us uncomfortable truths about
our origins including the frontier wars, enslavement and genocide committed
against the indigenous people of this land.
It is a history we still struggle with us a nation despite the PrimeMinister’s apology delivered by Kevin Rudd.
The same is true for the
history of this college community and even its current reality. Whilst “Men and Masters” the history book of
King’s College covers some of the struggles and successes of this college there
are many stories it avoids telling.
Stories of what can only be described as hazing, stories of violence and
bravado against other colleges, and stories that continue within the wider
community of misogyny and sexism within the college. Telling these stories may be confronting, may
cause us to be defensive, may be a truth we can’t or don’t want to handle – but
ultimately is not a truth that sets us free.
So where does this leave us
with our saying our motto on this night of commemoration of the college. We remember with one another the transcendent
connection and vision that lies behind this saying.
Jesus said: “If you continue
in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the
truth will make you free.”
What is this truth if it is
not some sort of scientific fact or intellectual insight? What is this truth if it is not an expose of
the stories we hide and avoid and cover up?
If you were to pick up a
Bible and read a few pages on in John’s gospel what you would read is these
words which are also spoken by Jesus: “I am the way, the truth and the life now
one comes to the Father but through me.” (John 14:6)
In these words we discover something
of a surprising idea the ‘truth’ is Jesus himself, who says, “I am the truth.”
Truth is embodied in Jesus,
it takes on flesh, it is incarnated. In
this claim that Jesus makes we are challenged with the notion that not only is
there no inconsistencies between his words and his actions, but that he is also
the source of the key to understanding ourselves, this world that we live in
and God.
To be freed by Jesus is to be
set free from the delusion that we can domesticate knowledge and to be set free
from the self-deception and fallibilities we all share.
From a Christian perspective
knowing the truth is ultimately about knowing Jesus.
This does not mean that
Christians are perfect people and know everything and never lie, rather it means
that instead of locating the concept of truth in an abstract idea we locate truth in a man, Jesus from Nazareth, who lived, and died, and rose again so that we might be set
free to live an abundant life. As Christians we seek after the truth by following Jesus and this sets us free.
“The truth will make you
free.”
On page 199 of "Men and Masters" it says that the Chapel
sits in the college like a lost soul. On nights when we come and worship here together
I believe the soul of the college stirs.
And I pray that each one of you here might remember that we have already
been set free by Jesus who is the truth.
But more than that as the soul of the college stirs so too your soul
might be stirred and that you will hear the invitation that comes to us from
the founders of this college to see beyond any parochialism and insularity of this
community and become one who knows Jesus as the truth and to follow him who
came to make us all free.
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