Sincerity and truth
I stood at the kiosk, trying to get my boarding pass. I’d gotten up early, taken the subway to the bus, waited for a while, gotten on the bus which got in traffic, and arrived at the terminal with plenty of time before boarding. It felt like an accomplishment, but now the machine couldn’t locate my reservation. I immediately attributed it to the incompetence of airlines, a favorite theme. Then I took another look at my itinerary. My flight was booked for the next day.
I could not have been more sincere about my intention to fly that day. But no amount of sincerity would compensate for the fact that I had the wrong day. After I composed myself, and recalled that I had recently mocked a friend for doing something similar, I thought of the line from one of Paul’s letters. (This kind of thing happens to preachers.) Paul tells the Corinthian church that we are to keep the feast (i.e., to be spiritually observant) with sincerity and truth. We need both.
What does it mean to be sincere? Its etymology suggests purity (literally, molten metal that is free of wax). Sincerity is about purity of heart, which according to Kierkegaard, is a matter of willing one thing. It is essential, but on its own is probably not enough. We need to figure out the truth piece.
That is risky, because I think people tend to speak with too much conviction about religious truth. It’s not that I doubt such truth exists, but I have little confidence that we can handle it. (Channeling Jack Nicholson’s speech here, from A Few Good Men.) So much of religious truth is beyond our understanding. The Bible says as much. Many religious people use their small slice of insight to exclude others, to beat them up, to gratify ego, or confirm preexisting ideas.
But think with me this Monday morning about truth we are called to embrace with sincerity. How would you articulate it? On her 61st birthday, Annie Lamott wrote a Facebook post on what she knows (see below). Inspired by her, as I often am, here’s what came to mind when I considered the truth I feel called to embrace with sincerity:
- God exists. Sunrise at the ocean confirms that.
- God seems to have some interest in relationship with us, for some peculiar reason.
- God made each one of us with value and dignity and significance, for some peculiar reason. Each one of us. Each one.
- Jesus shows up in person to demonstrate God’s peculiar interest, just in case we might miss the point.
- We have a knack for messing up our relationships with God and with each other.
- God loves us in spite of that propensity. That love has power to heal and get us back on track and create a future.
- Jesus invites us to follow him into that future, which we do when we focus (with sincerity) on giving instead of receiving, on forgiving instead of being forgiven, on serving instead of being served.
That’s some of what I believe to be true. My faith journey is a matter of trying to embrace all that with sincerity, ever mindful of the counsel of a wise bishop who said that he never met a motive that wasn’t mixed. Newsflash: I could be wrong, as sure as I showed up at the airport on the wrong day. But there’s I’m not going to let that deter me from trying to navigate the spiritual journey, with sincerity and truth. At least I’m going to try this Monday.
How about you? How are you navigating the spiritual journey, with sincerity and truth? What will that look like? What do you know to be true?
– Jay Sidebotham
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Excerpts from Annie Lamott’s Facebook post on the occasion of her 61st birthday. In this post she spoke of what she knows to be true: All truth is a paradox. Life is a precious unfathomably beautiful gift; and it is impossible here…It has been a very bad match for those of us who were born extremely sensitive. It is so hard and weird that we wonder if we are being punked. And it is filled with heartbreaking sweetness and beauty, floods and babies and acne and Mozart, all swirled together. Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you. Everyone is screwed up, broken, clingy, and scared, even the people who seem to have it more or less together. They are much more like you than you would believe. So try not to compare your insides to their outsides. Families; hard, hard, hard, no matter how cherished and astonishing they may also be. (See #1 again.) Earth is Forgiveness School. You might as well start at the dinner table. Grace: Spiritual WD-40. Water wings…The movement of grace is what changes us, heals us and our world. To summon grace, say, “Help!” And then buckle up… Emerson said that the happiest person on earth is the one who learns from nature the lessons of worship. So go outside a lot, and look up. Exercise: If you want to have a good life after you have grown a little less young, you must walk almost every day. There is no way around this. If you are in a wheelchair, you must do chair exercises. Every single doctor on earth will tell you this, so don’t go by what I say. |
Contact:
Rev. Jay Sidebotham
jsidebotham@renewalworks.org
RenewalWorks is a ministry of Forward Movement.
www.renewalworks.org