Recognizing the Truth

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Rev. Molly F. James, PhD
Chapel of our Lord, Episcopal Church Center
Feast of Gregory of Nazianzus, January 2, 2020

May God’s Word be spoken. May God’s Word be heard. May that point us to the living Word, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

“If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.”

When you are in the ordination process, you are required to write your bishop a letter at least four times a year on what are known as the Ember Days. They were an opportunity to update my bishop on what was going on in my life- spiritually, academically, etc. While I had friends and classmates who only occasionally received replies from their bishops, my bishop was always very good at writing me back and sharing her wisdom with me. I remember in one particular exchange, I wrote her about discovering so many connections between what I was learning in my classes. She replied that is how we know the Holy Spirit is leading us to Truth.

I come back to that idea and phrase often. The idea that Truth is not understood in isolation. We understand Truth as it connects with what we already know, and we understand it best in community. I think this is really important. We cannot be sure of Truth just in our own heads. We need community - we need the questions and insights of others to fully understand what is true. I think this bears out in our own experiences. I think most of us are capable of rationalizing quite a lot of things. We can be good at convincing ourselves what we would like to believe or what we would like to be true. It is only when we share our internal process with someone whose wisdom we trust and respect that we realize that it might be possible that we are fooling ourselves or just that we are missing a key aspect or insight. Think of the ways that our minds are enlightened or new connections are made as we learn from family, dear friends, teachers, colleagues . . . sometimes even our own children!

We gain a fuller understanding of ourselves and of the world around us through relationship and conversation. While some of us are independent and driven, convinced we can learn “on our own” through a discipline of reading and research. Even then we are not really learning alone, we are learning from experts in whatever field we might be studying. It is through that engagement with others, whether they be long dead theologians or thinkers or dear companions with whom we have the privilege of in person conversations, we learn the Truth more fully because we learn from each other and together.

These days, when you can find information on the internet to agree with almost any idea or point of view, it can feel hard to know what the Truth is. Certainly it can not be said that something is true because we read it somewhere. We need to be more discerning and engaged than that. Here are some discernment criteria or questions that I find helpful. I hope they are helpful to you as well.

Does this new piece of information fit with what I know already? Does it add to, enhance, deepen my knowledge?

Does this information fit with my understanding of who God is? Does it fit with who Jesus is and what it means to walk in the Way of Love, as we have understood from our Scriptures?

Does this information build up God’s kingdom? Does it enable me and those around me to have the abundant life to which Jesus calls each and everyone of us?

The Truth that Jesus was talking about, the Truth that will set us free is not simply just new information that is based in reality. It is far richer and more nuanced than that. The Truth is that which enriches and deepens our lives and our understanding. Now, of course, you may be wondering what this all means for the reality of evil in the world. Certainly there are terrible things (violence, hatred, etc) that are all too real. People die. People are irrevocably harmed by these facts. Evil is real. There is no disputing that. But the reality of evil in the world is not the Truth. It does not set us free. It does not build up God’s kingdom or our own lives. In fact, I think one of the most helpful definitions of evil (thanks to St. Augustine) is that it is the privation (or complete absence) of good.

Evil is a force in the world that can do real damage, but it can never win out. That is the fundamental Truth we hear over and over again from our Scriptures, from our own learning and from our own experiences and relationships. The Truth is that God’s Love is more powerful than anything on earth, than anything we can do to each other. God’s love, God’s Truth always, always has the last word. And indeed, trusting in God will set us free. AMEN.

Mary and Martha or Michelle and Molly?

Molly & Michelle in college

Rev. Molly F. James

Chapel of Our Lord, Episcopal Church Center

Mechtilde and Gertrude 

November 19, 2019

May God's word be spoken, May God's Word be heard, and May that point us to the living Word who is Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

So, if we just changed the names, today's Gospel story of Mary and Martha could easily be about my college roommate Michelle and me. I am definitely a Martha. I get easily distracted by all the things I have to do. I get thinking about all the things I am supposed to do, and I often feel like I can't relax until I have done all the things on my “to do” list. I often like to work ahead. This meant in college that I would often write a paper days or even weeks before it was due. My roommate, Michelle, on the other hand, was quite adept at waking up early and cranking out a very good paper the day it was due. I marveled at this skill. To me that seemed like a very stressful way to do things. Yet the interesting thing was, my roommate did not seem very stressed. And although I know her mother would have preferred that my study skills inspired on Michelle, it happened the other way round. Mostly Michelle inspired me.

I learned that it was in fact possible to leave one's work behind and go have fun. Michelle helped me to remember that time having fun, time building relationships is important. Just as, if not even more important, than homework. Michelle showed me that life is much more fun if you learn how to forget about the “to do” list on occasion. It may be possible to do all our homework first in elementary school, but as we get older our to do lists get longer and longer. It just does not work to try to always work first and play later. We have to develop a balance. We have to learn how to incorporate play time and sabbath time in the midst of our busy lives.

The Gospel story today reminds us that what really matters is sabbath time. There will always be things to distract and worry us. Always being a “Martha” is a recipe for burnout. We need to cultivate our Mary moments. We need to cultivate time to slow down and rest. Time to be spiritually fed. Time to listen to what God is saying to us.

This is a counter­cultural idea. As any glance at a newspaper or a television will tell us, our culture is continually offering us ways to do more. The internet, email and cell phones allow us to be “at work” wherever we are. Stores expand their hours and encourage us to shop online at any time of the day or night. Now, of course, when we have a problem or need something fixed, we're glad that a repair person is willing to come out on a Sunday. We are glad when we can talk to customer service person at 11 o'clock at night. But if we are making a regular habit of doing “work” at those late hours or on what should be our sabbath, we ought to be asking ourselves whether this is really the best use of our time.

We need to slow down. We need to take a break. Now, I am not advocating throwing out our cell phones or disconnecting our computers. And I am not saying that we should never do work on the weekend. Nor would Michelle say that. She has gone on to become a successful lawyer and has put in many over­time hours. But if we find ourselves feeling tired and overwhelmed, we need to check the balance of Mary and Martha time in our lives. If we feel exhausted, chances are we have let Martha take over. We have forgotten the importance of slowing down and taking sabbath.

Because if we do that, if we slow down and take time for ourselves, we will actually be more productive in the time we do work. We need time to just sit, as Mary does. Time to sit and listen to Christ. Time to listen to who God is calling us to be. We can be assured that God is calling us to be whole, healthy, happy people. God is not interested in seeing us overworked or burnt out. As Christ reminds Mary and Martha, the fruits of the sabbath are something that cannot be taken away. The gifts of a deeper relationship with God. The fruits of listening to Christ, of taking time to “sit at his feet” and absorb his message are everlasting.

I am sure we have all met people who seem to possess an inner peace. They do not seem harried by the affairs of the world or the challenges of everyday life. This is not a unique gift that is only given to a select few. It is a gift freely given by God to us all, if only we are willing to cultivate it.

As Michelle, my roommate, showed me, it is not a gift that is cultivated by doing more work. It is a gift cultivated by slowing down, letting go and putting things aside. It is a gift that is cultivated by valuing relationships more than tasks.

It is also about filling our spiritual reservoirs up, so that we have the strength, courage and abiding faith we need to be God’s people in the world. And the world is very much in need of faithful people. There has been far too much violence in our news headlines, in California, in Syria, in our own cities and towns. Too many communities are divided. We seem far more aware in recent weeks of the realities of human sinfulness and how much pain and suffering there is. There is much work for us to do in the world. The world needs our hope. It needs our story of how God can bring new life out of humanity’s darkest moments. The world needs our conviction that God’s beautiful, restoring, reconciling love is at work in the world. The world needs to hear our belief that transformation is possible. 

And in order to do that holy work in the world, we need Sabbath time. Sabbath is meant to be an integral part of our lives. Just as we care for our bodies by eating well and drinking water everyday, so to are we to care for our souls by observing sabbath. Sabbath does not necessarily mean that we have to withdraw from the world for one day every week. But sabbath does mean that we must be sure that we do not let days go by without taking time for ourselves to be with God. Especially as our hearts are breaking at our news headlines or at events in our own lives and communities, we need sabbath so that we have the strength and the courage to live out our faith in the world.

Time for prayer and Bible study are wonderful ways to deepen our relationship with God, and those are not the only ways. Sabbath time is time to do whatever it is that is restorative. That may be time to read a good book just for fun. It may be time outside. It may be time with loved ones or a phone call to an old friend. It may be watching a movie or playing a game. It may be time to work on a favorite craft or hobby. It may be time to just sit and do nothing. Whatever it is, it needs to be an integral part of our lives. We all need time for the things that help us to breathe easier, the things that make us smile. I think those two measures are a good way to test ourselves as to whether we have enough sabbath in our lives. How's our breathing? Is it slow and deep? Do we feel relaxed? And are we smiling? How many things have we done today that have made us smile?

If the answer is zero or only one or two, if our breathing is fast or shallow – those are telltale signs that we do not have enough sabbath in our lives. And we all know that each of us, and the world as a whole could use more hope and transformation, which will only be possible if we all have a little more sabbath. 

AMEN.