I wonder what we think about when we think about telling or stating the truth of our lives? There are so many ways that we can interpret what we think the truth is and how that impacts on how we live and what we do with our personal lives. Indeed it is often said that truth is malleable and is determined by what you know or understand. This may well be the case but it can be seen that there are certain truths that are not malleable but are sure in our lives and can be shown through time. Repeated trial and error experimentation has shown some truths that are understood to be the bedrock of faith in the Christian church indeed lead to a better existence. One of these is the commandment to love, another could rightly be said to be living the way of Christ (although some may wish to substitute Buddha, Mohammed, etc) but in the end human thought has realised that most of the fundamental understandings of faith boil down to the truth of the way.
Too often I find we over theologise those things that matter rather than thinking of the original recipients and how they might receive the message that is being given. The passage from Deuteronomy spells it out fairly succinctly that we need to conform to the ways of God and to love God (Deut. 10:12b). Yet, we still seem to think that what we believe and what we think ourselves is the be all and the end all. Thus, what we believe to be love irrespective of whether that actually entails acceptance and listening or not has to be the correct way and true. Thus, if I state that tradition or my own thought declares that everyone who is different from me cannot be loved this is true, irrespective of that not being how God may define love. So I go my own way and tell my truths as to how I perceive what God's love is for this has to be the truth for it is my truth. Yet, Paul in his letter to the Corinthians speaks against precisely this (1 Co 3:3-4). Once we start pursuing truth as if it belongs to or is only associated with one person then we have fallen away from what God is and asks of us.
Paul goes on in the same passage from Cor (3:8-9) suggesting that we are a team that goes to build the structure that belongs to Christ and hence belongs to and of God. It is in this respect that we as a part of the body of Christ must operate so that we to may conform to God as God's love is not an exclusionary love, as that is humanities conception, but inclusionary to an extent that is beyond our wildest understanding. It is not the love fest understanding of the 60's but rather something that is even more exclusive in its inclusion of all. When we attempt to state that we are in accordance of God's law we often skirt around the issue and say something along the lines of "Yes, we love you but..." or else we say that we are trying to dialogue with ... so that we can include them. Neither of these are really stating the truth that God wants us to conform to or represent as the body of Christ or as that human expression of unity the Church.
Christ makes all of this quite plain in the passage from the Sermon on the Mount regarding oaths (Matt. 5:33-37). Reminding ourselves that he is talking to non-erudite folk who are listening to him and has just finished explaining how we handle our own sexual needs in some really down to earth language that we theologise (Mat. 5:27-30) so as not to or gloss the actuality of what is said. It is perhaps the hardest thing any person can do, especially in this day and age, and that is allow what we say to be who we are in truth. Too often we mask ourselves in what we believe society wants us to say rather than what God wants of us i.e. the truth of our lives. In our words to each other we often gloss over our meaning or our intent in such a manner that the words no longer matter. We make promises to elicit higher effort or to maximise profit for ourselves and our community rather than just stating the truth of the matter, Indeed in some respects we can no longer tell the truth because our society has taught us to lie. It is convenient and also less stressful as the lies that we often tell our no longer notices by those around us. We just need to look at how we portray what we think of as the "best" dressed, beautiful, person to emulate rather than tell the truth of their lives only to find our the darkness that surrounds them. Christ states make your yes be yes and your no no that is how we used to see ourselves. Let us reclaim ourselves as purveyors of God's goodness and not those that do evil in the world.
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