Blessed Are the Truth-Tellers

Last Sunday, as part of our sermon series "Practicing 'the Way' of Love," Pastor Alison spoke about the importance of embracing truth-telling as a spiritual practice.

Alison said this:
"In this moment, when we see dominant expressions of American Christianity moving further and further away from truth-telling, with little regard for who is harmed in the process, I believe that it is more important than ever that those of us who seek to embody a more liberative expression of Christianity intentionally choose do the opposite: that we hold firm to truth-telling as an essential spiritual practice. A commitment to truth has always been part of what it means to be a person of faith. We see this clearly in the prophets of the Hebrew Bible who were tasked with speaking truth to power. . . . Many of us are familiar with the witness of the Hebrew Bible prophets and also of various contemporary truth-tellers. These exemplary individuals absolutely deserve of our admiration. But it’s also worth noting that problems emerge when a commitment to truth is delegated to the select “courageous” few. You’ve probably seen this firsthand — whether it be in a family system, a workplace, a community, or a nation. When there isn’t a collective commitment to honesty, one or a few individuals must take on the burden of truth-telling for everyone. And are these individuals rewarded for doing so? Not usually. More often than not they are viewed as disloyal irritants, as the black sheep of the group. Sometimes they are viewed as a threat and find themselves pushed out, scapegoated, or even or martyred for their efforts like Jesus was. Perhaps you’ve found yourself in this position or taking on this role before, as the one who refused to follow the script, who, in order to maintain your own integrity, couldn’t help but speak the truth as you understood it. I can tell you from my own experiences — it doesn’t feel good to be this person, to take on this role. It is far more life-giving to be part of a system where commitment to the truth is shared among many. And this is actually what God invites us into. We see this in the claims that Jesus made about himself and about the Way of Love; in the wisdom of the early church leaders around what it looks like to grow in spiritual maturity; and in the movement of the Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts."

Alison made the case that anything that helps us to “belong to the truth” as Jesus put it (in John 18:37) — anything that helps us to be more present with reality, or to more fully embody authenticity, or to create something genuine — can be considered a truth-telling practice. 

To close the sermon Alison invited us to consider and reflect upon these two questions:

• What might it look like for me to lean into truth-telling as a spiritual practice?
• Is there a next step that I am being invited into?

​As you consider next steps around truth-telling in your own life, you may want to revisit some of the possible suggestions that Pastor Alison shared in her sermon.

Perhaps you are being invited to lean into honesty with yourself around . . .

• Your life experiences — both the things that have happened to you and the ways you have responded to them. (Meeting with a therapist can be really helpful for this kind of work. If you need a referral, please reach out to the staff team.)
• What you are thinking and feeling on a day-to-day basis. (Consider setting aside dedicated time to think and feel; to practice the Daily Examen, or to use the RAIN Feelings Check-in.)
• Your likes and dislikes.
• Your needs and desires.
• Your hopes and dreams.
• Your strengths and growing edges.
• Your current capacity.
• The particularities of the season you find yourself in.

Perhaps you are being invited to lean into honesty with those around you by . . .

• Choosing to put yourself out there in new ways.
• Sharing a bit more of yourself or to allowing more of yourself to be seen and known in safe and brave contexts. (Perhaps with God. Or perhaps with people in your life.)
• Taking small steps to let people in.
• Being someone who helps others to feel seen, known, and loved for who they are.
• Becoming someone who can sit with people and help them to hold life’s complex truths — the ways that the world is both beautiful and terrible at the same time.
• Having a difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding — being honest about the ways you have been harmed or have caused harm to others.
• Speaking up more for yourself.
• Taking a step back to create space for others to share their experiences and actively listening when they do.

Perhaps you are being invited to lean into honesty in how you navigate and move through the public sphere by. . .

• Bolstering your media literacy skills.
• Strengthen your ability to fact-check and to identify reliable sources.
• Learning about an aspect of history or a current event that is unfamiliar to you — perhaps especially one of the painful ones that those in power want us to forget or to overlook.
• Intentionally seeking out the voices and perspectives of those in our world who have been silenced, erased, marginalized, or otherwise pushed aside; to learn from them and amplify their voices when you can.

Perhaps we are all being invited to lean into honesty through creativity by . . .

• Engaging in artistic practices that reconnect us to our genuine humanness and that expand our souls.
• Celebrating the ways that the arts help us to see the truths of our lives and our world in powerful ways.
• Working to support artists so that they can create without being subject to censorship or exploitation.

Perhaps, as followers of Jesus, we are collectively being invited to lean into honesty by reclaiming and reimagining the Christian practices of confession and repentance . . .

• Not in order to induce shame or self-loathing or an unhealthy fear of God;
• Or to pursue some unattainable standard of personal holiness; 
• But rather, as practices that have the power to free us up to be more fully ourselves, to connect us to one another in our shared humanity, to help us acknowledge our limitations and temptations with greater self-compassion, and to encourage us to hold onto hope that transformation and change are possible for ourselves and for our world. Because it is only by honestly naming the truth of what is that things like healing, repair, forgiveness, and reconciliation can ever become possibilities for us.

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Also, the quotes and resources included below may be helpful you as you explore truth-telling as a spiritual practice. Give them a look!

Cole Arthur Riley:

• "Truth telling is a liberation practice." (@BlackLiturgies)
• “If we have any interest in representing a liberating spirituality, we must adopt a spiritual psyche whose deepest concern is not enlightenment or education but doing our best at telling the truth.” (This Here Flesh)
• "I’ve accepted that the whole of my life will be a pilgrimage toward the sound of the genuine in me. This may sound troubling to those who’ve been conditioned to believe that our journey is to God and God alone, but I say the two paths are one. My journey to the truth of God cannot be parsed from my journey to the truth of who I am. A fidelity to the true self is a fidelity to truth. I won’t apologize for this." (This Here Flesh)

James Baldwin

• “People who shut their eyes to reality simply invite their own destruction, and anyone who insists on remaining in a state on innocence long after that innocence is dead turns himself into a monster.”
• “We know, in the case of the person, that whoever cannot tell himself the truth about his past is trapped in it, is immobilized in the prison of his undiscovered self. This is also true of nations. We know how a person, in such a paralysis, is unable to assess either his weaknesses or his strengths, and how frequently indeed he mistakes one for the other.”
• “The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.”

bell hooks

• “Commitment to truth telling lays the groundwork for the openness and honesty that is the heartbeat of love. When we see ourselves as we truly are and accept ourselves, we build the necessary foundation for self-love.”
• “To be loving we willingly hear each other's truth and, most important, we affirm the value of truth telling. Lies may make people feel better, but they do not help them to know love.” (All About Love: New Visions)
• “The heart of justice is truth telling, seeing ourselves and the world the way it is rather than the way we want to be.” (All About Love: New Visions)
  

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"Truth and Reconciliation" by Desmond Tutu

"Love Speaks the Truth" by Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis for the Center for Action and Contemplation

"Why the Faithful Might Need a Complaints Department" by Kate Bowler

"On Living with Regret" by Kate Bowler