I’ve always had
a fondness for the Just William stories of Richmal Compton, particularly when
narrated by Martin Jarvis. They will often provide the accompaniment for long
car jo urneys. A favourite is ‘William’s Truthful Christmas‘
which begins appropriately enough with
William in church, listening, or rather not listening to the sermon. As we
hear, ‘William, however, had no use for the sermon. He considered it a
waste of time’. On this particular Sunday he was getting through the
sermon by playing with his pet stag-beetle but he was drawn by the vicar’s
frequent use of the word ‘Christmas’. The vicar was calling on his flock
to have a truthful Christmas, ‘to cast aside all deceit and hypocrisy and speak
the truth one with another’.
So William is
brought under conviction and decides that this Christmas will be dominated by
the practice of truth.
On Christmas
morning William receives a book of Church History from Aunt Emma and a box
containing compasses, a protractor and a set square from Uncle Frederick.
When Aunt Emma asks if he liked the presents he says, ‘No. I’m not
int’rested in Church History an I’ve got something like those at school.
Not that I’d want ‘em if I hadn’t em.’
This is just the
beginning of William’s practice of truth which increasingly offends and
infuriates those around him. The climax comes when Lady Atkinson sweeps
into the house. A large, over-dressed, domineering woman she has come to
bestow on Aunt Emma and Uncle Frederick her Christmas gift: a signed photograph
of herself. She says: ‘It’s very good, isn’t it?’ But then she
makes the mistake of asking Williams opinion. Committed to truth William
responds:
‘It’s not as fat
as you are.’ Was William’s final offering on the altar of truth. Undeterred
by the howls of horror around him he goes on:
‘It isn’t’s fat
as what she is an it’s not got as many little lines on its face as what she has
an’ it’s different altogether. It looks pretty an’ she doesn’t - ‘
The story ends
with William totally disillusioned with the truth. The vicar had said
that this could make this Christmas the happiest ever but instead it had made
it the worst. ‘Everyone mad at me all the time.’ Thus his bold
declaration with regard to truth: ‘I’ve done with it. I’m goin’ back to
deceit an’ - an ‘ what’s a word beginning with hyp -?’
Being truthful
can get you into trouble. Perhaps it’s best not to worry too much and instead
try and shape things as we think they ought to be and tell others simply what
they ought to hear.
I’m sure you all
know what the Oxford English Dictonary word of the year for 2016
is…’post-truth’.
It simply means ‘Relating to or denoting circumstances in
which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than
appeals to emotion and personal belief:’ It’s a term that is most often used
with regard to politics. After all it has been an eventful year in politics,
and not just in this country. Appeals to emotion have abounded; experts have
been mistrusted; those who purport to speak the truth have often been ignored. Populist
politicians often tell people what they want to hear.
An example might
be Donald Trump’s dismissal of the CIA telling him that they have evidence
that the Russian government deliberately leaked private Democrat e-mails in a
bid to bolster the Trump campaign. He offers no reason for disbelieving the CIA beyond that what they say doesn’t fit
in with how he wants to see the world.
Perhaps the
dominance of ‘post-truth’ is just an inevitable extension of post modernism. It
says that My experience is at the centre of how I interpret the world and
truths that might inconvenience that narrative can be legitimately dismissed.
Or as Mark Twain might say ‘Never let the truth get in the way of a good
story.’
Yet we who live
in a post-truth society have just heard and proclaimed and affirmed a gospel
that tells us that ‘The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace
and truth.’ Full of grace and truth. The one whom we gather here tonight to
worship, wonder at, welcome is ‘full of truth.’ As St Paul wrote to the
Colossians ‘In him the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.’ One of the
reasons that I am a Christian, one of the reasons I have pledged my life to his
service and do what I do is because I have always been captivated by the one
who is ‘full of truth’ and who provides a marker by which I can measure and
judge my own story. Though I often fail, I try and listen to what Jesus says
rather than what I want to hear. Christmas assures that we can continue to speak
of ‘truth’, that we can see it in Jesus, God’s truthful word, made truthful
flesh. In a post-truth world that is surely grounds for hope.
In becoming
flesh, in becoming one of us in Jesus God unveils his face and the light of his
presence shows us the truth of ourselves, strips away our deceptions and
illusions. God shows us his true face and risks rejection because we can’t
always stand the offer of unconditional love. There is pain here for God. And
there is pain for us in recognising ourselves as afraid or divided or trapped
as we stand or kneel before the one who is full of truth and who knows the
truth about us and yet who continues to love us because he is also full of
grace.
The ‘glory of
God in the face of Jesus Christ’ is bearable because that glory is shown in the
face of a perfect love, a perfect acceptance, a faithfulness which violence and
death cannot destroy.
Like the vicar
in the Just William story, I too wish you a truthful Christmas, but unlike
William I wish you a Christmas that is full of truth because it is full of the
one who is full of truth, Jesus, the Word made Flesh, Emmanuel.
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