What Is Truth?

First of all, I want to thank Sharon Adams for sharing her dramatic gifts with us this morning. I have a hunch that when I read this story of Jesus and the woman at the well from now on, it’s Sharon who’s going to come to mind as I read the words of the Samaritan woman.

And I also want to thank the late Rev. Bob Munro. Bob wrote this drama. Others have tweeked it a bit since January, but the script is essentially Bob’s. Over the course of his ministry Bob wrote poetry and songs and novels and at least one cantata. He was a very creative man. And I feel honoured that perhaps his last work of literary creativity was this skit that he wrote for us here at Knox.

The key thing that I take away from this story in the Bible, and from today’s drama, is the richness that can be found in the interaction between two people, and the way in which the depth of conversation can transform the human soul. Perhaps you’ve met someone at some time in your life who touched something very deep within you, and you’ve never been the same. Or perhaps you’ve been the person who’s touched someone else in that extraordinary, transforming way. It’s really quite miraculous.

I want you to take a moment and think about a person who has changed you life. You might even want to close your eyes if that will help. Just get a picture of that person in your mind. What was it that touched you so deeply? Maybe it was the voice. Perhaps it was the intellect. Maybe there was something about the face, or the gentle way in which you were treated. Was it the lack of pretence; the sense of complete honesty? Or perhaps it was the sense of humour. Just focus for a bit on whatever it was about that person that touched you… A miracle indeed… Now let’s come back to this place, as we continue to reflect on the Word.

Sometimes people touch us deeply. As we’ve seen and heard, that was the nature of the encounter between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well. Jesus somehow touched the very core of her being, and she was transformed. You might even say she was “born again.” The kind of radical transformation that is alluded to in the previous chapter of John’s gospel, the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus under cover of darkness in which Jesus tells Nicodemus that he must be “born again,” this transformation of the soul by the grace of God which we learn about in chapter three is illustrated by the conversation between Jesus and the Samaritan woman in chapter four. And it is significant that the woman is transformed not by doctrine but by a person. Doctrine enters into the conversation, of course. The concept of Messiah is debated a bit The word “truth” comes up a few times, which is significant because doctrines come into being as part of the human search for truth. But it is not ultimately doctrine which transforms the woman. Her soul is not saved because she accepts some theological statement about the nature of Jesus or the nature of God. No, she makes a theological statement about Jesus – that he is the Messiah – because she has first been transformed by his love. He understanding of who Jesus is grows out of her experience of who Jesus is.

I’m probably not the only one here who has been verbally accosted by some Bible-toting fundamentalist and told that unless I believe exactly the way that he or she believes, then I have not been saved and I will not go to heaven. Such people seem to think that they have the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

That’s the nature of fundamentalists: they think that they’ve grasped the whole truth with their minds. That’s true of religious fundamentalists, be they Christian, Muslim, Jew or whatever. That’s true of political fundamentalists. That’s true of economic fundamentalists. They all believe that they have the truth, and that religious or political or economic salvation will only come when everyone else accepts their truth.

I think today’s story sees things a bit differently. It suggests that truth is found ultimately in people, in relationships, in a person. Not in a set of ideas but in the flesh and blood of another person. It is not a doctrine but a person who saves. It is not so much in what we accept with our minds but in the way in which human love touches our hearts that we are saved. Because when we are touched by human love, when we are accepted without condition by another person, we are touched by God’s love. I mean, doctrine is important. Doctrine is how we make sense out of our experience. Doctrine is how we talk about our experience. And in fact the Samaritan woman wants to talk about doctrine she wants to talk theology. She says, “I know that Messiah is coming.” Jesus responds by saying, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you” (John 4.25). And in his response Jesus uses the Hebrew name for God: “I Am.” Back in the Old Testament, when God speaks to Moses and he tells Moses to go to Pharaoh and say, “Let my people go,” Moses says, “But whom should I say is sending me? What’s your name, Lord?” And God says, “I Am Who I Am; tell them I Am sent you” (Exodus 3:13-14). I Am is God’s name. I am the ground of all that is. So when Jesus uses the formula “I am,” as he often does in John’s gospel, Jesus is saying, I am the Holy One made flesh, and the love with which I touch you is God’s love.”

The closest that we come to touching the truth of God is when we are touched by God’s love. We experience truth not as a linear thing that can be expressed in words, but as an ambiguous thing that touches us in the ebb and flow of human relationships. United Church author Anne Hines writes,
“Truth is like mercury. It takes a different shape according to its vessel. If we try to hold on to it, it slips through our fingers. And yet who among us, if God offered us any gift, would not ask for that very thing.”

The truth of God is experienced most clearly in relationships. Yet even here, truth is a mysterious thing. Because relationships are mysterious things. Anytime that you touch the depths of the human soul, you are touching mystery. Which is why John has Jesus and Nicodemus engaged in deep conversation under the mysterious cover of darkness. And the Samaritan woman, who has been perhaps used and abused by five men, is mystified by the fact that a man, a Jewish man no less, would take any interest in her other than an interest in her body. A mystery. A wonderful mystery. A transformative mystery.

Truth is a mysterious thing, and a profound thing. And the truth that is love is so profound that it can change your life forever. Amen.

Text: John 4:25-26

Preached by Bruce D. Ervin

2 March 2008