• "The Truth :: How Receptive Are You?"
• Sermon for the Fourth Sunday after Easter
• April 24, 2005
• The Reverend Stephen C. Scarlett

Today's lessons provide food for thought on the subject of our receptiveness to the truth.

In the gospel Jesus says, "When...the Spirit of Truth is come, he will guide you into all truth." Jesus revealed truth to the disciples, but he did not teach them everything there is to know. After Jesus ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit continued the process of revelation, leading the disciples into deeper knowledge of God in Christ.

We say the Nicene Creed every Sunday. The Nicene Creed is the common confession of the early church in the face of heresy, or wrong belief. The Holy Spirit led the church into this right understanding of the Trinity and the divinity and humanity of Christ. This is what we call tradition. Tradition is the church's authoritative understanding of the biblical revelation. It is the Holy Spirit leading the church into all truth.

The Holy Spirit also leads us to understand the truth about ourselves. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. The Holy Spirit confronts the world with its sin so that people will repent and believe.

There is a distinction between the world and the faithful. The faithful have already acknowledged their sin. The world remains impenitent. Yet, the Holy Spirit continues to reveal to us the truth about ourselves. As Psalm 139 says, "O LORD, thou has searched me, and known me" (KJV). In the life of prayer, the Holy Spirit reveals to us the truth about our sins, our circumstances, our pasts and our current motives so that we can grow in our experience of repentance and forgiveness.

The Holy Spirit calls us to acknowledge the truth about ourselves and believe the truths of the faith that have been revealed. The epistle tells us to be "swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath." And it says, "Lay aside all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." We are saved as we are willing to receive and be changed by the truth.

The call to receive and submit to revealed truth stands in contrast with the popular approach to religious faith. Today, people believe that their own religious opinions are as valid as the truth that has been revealed. A person will say, "I know that's what the Bible teaches, but I believe something else." The popular system of belief asserts that all personal convictions are equally valid simply because people believe them to be valid-whether or not the opinion has any basis in truth.

This perspective reflects the sin of pride because it asserts that one's personal opinion is of equal weight with the common thought of the apostles, saints and doctors of the church throughout history. The Holy Spirit leads the faithful into a common confession. Personal dissent from the truth requires but one vote.

The belief that all personal convictions are equally valid is also dangerous because it is so obviously false. We know that our personal opinions about the visible world do not change the nature of the world. Two plus two equals four no matter how much I believe that they add up to five. Just so, our personal opinions about the invisible world do not change the nature of that world.

God is who he is and heaven is the way it is. And we are a fallen race that needs to be saved whether we are willing to acknowledge it or not. Our personal opinions to the contrary cannot change the nature of reality. False personal opinion can only create an idol, a god of our own making. This is one of the major problems with Christianity in our culture.

Ultimately, my personal opinion is not important. What is important is the way things actually are. The willingness to submit ourselves to the truths of the faith is nothing more-or less-than the desire to conform our lives to reality. This is why we should have a certain humility in our pursuit of truth. The question is not, What opinion feels good to me? The question is, What is the true nature of God?

In pursuing this question, we should be "swift to hear, slow to speak." We should have a certain reverence for the authentic, time tested, truths of the faith. When we see that a certain thing has been believed almost everywhere by almost all Christians for most of Christian history, we should feel a great reluctance to offer our dissent.

We should retain humility even on matters where Christians have historically differed. I have observed a phenomenon wherein Christians hold opinions with a zeal that varies in inverse proportion to the biblical or historical evidence. Again, the question is not, "What opinion feels good to me?" The question is, "What is the true nature of things?" We should be interested in knowing the truth, not winning arguments.

When Jesus comes again in glory, when we see God face to face, we will see God as he is and we will see ourselves as we are. All contrary opinions about God and man will yield to the true light of God's presence.

We can understand the liturgy as a means by which our lives are conformed to the truth. In the Word of God, and in the prayers, symbols and hymns of the liturgy, we see God as he really is: holy, transcendent, eternal, yet full of redeeming love for us. In the liturgy, we see ourselves as we really are: sinners who are being saved by God through the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross.

There are many things we might do to the liturgy to make it more exciting or entertaining. But this is not the purpose of the liturgy. The liturgy is not about conforming the worship of God to our personal tastes. The liturgy is about conforming ourselves to the reality of God as he is.

The Holy Spirit leads us into an ever greater understanding of the truth about God through the Scriptures and the authentic tradition of the church. And the Holy Spirit leads us into the truth about ourselves as we draw near to God in Christ through the life of prayer. As we are given this revelation of truth, let us be "swift to hear" and "slow to speak" Let us "receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save [our] souls."