Reading 1 Jer 11:18-20
I knew their plot because the LORD informed me;
at that time you, O LORD, showed me their doings.
Yet I, like a trusting lamb led to slaughter,
had not realized that they were hatching plots against me:
“Let us destroy the tree in its vigor;
let us cut him off from the land of the living,
so that his name will be spoken no more.”
But, you, O LORD of hosts, O just Judge,
searcher of mind and heart,
Let me witness the vengeance you take on them,
for to you I have entrusted my cause!
Gospel Jn 7:40-53
Some in the crowd who heard these words of Jesus said,
“This is truly the Prophet.”
Others said, “This is the Christ.”
But others said, “The Christ will not come from Galilee, will he?
Does not Scripture say that the Christ will be of David’s family
and come from Bethlehem, the village where David lived?”
So a division occurred in the crowd because of him.
Some of them even wanted to arrest him,
but no one laid hands on him.
So the guards went to the chief priests and Pharisees,
who asked them, “Why did you not bring him?”
The guards answered, “Never before has anyone spoken like this man.”
So the Pharisees answered them, “Have you also been deceived?
Have any of the authorities or the Pharisees believed in him?
But this crowd, which does not know the law, is accursed.”
Nicodemus, one of their members who had come to him earlier, said to them,
“Does our law condemn a man before it first hears him
and finds out what he is doing?”
They answered and said to him,
“You are not from Galilee also, are you?
Look and see that no prophet arises from Galilee.”
Then each went to his own house.
In an argument, eloquence, clarity, sound premises and logical conclusions are important but the most important in any
argument, situation or discussion is truth. Truth gives joy, truth gives freedom and confidence. There are two powerful forces driving the human person in all his activities- they are: the desire for truth and love.
As important as truth is, many times we are also not willing to know or accept it. Sometimes we are scared of the truth. To be sincere, truth can also be very discomforting. A young man told me how he refused to undergo HIV test because he could not face the truth if the result comes out positive. Sometimes too, there are some things we don’t want people to talk to us about because we know within us that we are off the mark but we do not want to be hurt, we do not want to change and we don’t want to feel guilty.
There is even a modern war against truth now. This is the act of relativising truth. We customize ‘truth’, we invent our own truth and we don’t want anyone to challenge or analyse it. Truth is what I feel or what is convenient for me. Whereas truth is not what we create but what transcends us, it is what we accept not generate.
In today’s gospel, we see a growing hostility against truth by those who were meant to recognize, defend and spread it. Several people who listened to Jesus marveled at what he taught and they recognized the truth therein, even the police who were meant to arrest him were convinced that he taught the truth. The chief priest and the Pharisees would not, they don’t even want to give him a fair hearing, all they wanted was to silence him even if it is by killing him.
Same situation in the first reading, the friends of Jeremiah planned to kill Jeremiah because they could no longer bear the truth he speaks.
Dear friends, the Lord want us to have an attitude of openness to the truth. Truth may discomfort us but in the long run, it liberates. Truth is not what I have invented or what is convenient, such truth can only lead me from myself to myself. May God deliver us all from the greatest imprisonment- which is the fear of truth and may God give us the wisdom and grace to avoid what will make us afraid of the truth.
Sermon preached by Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Okami on Saturday April6, 2019.