For People with Bishop Rob Wright
For People with Bishop Rob Wright
Truth
What happens when we encounter truth we aren't ready for? Jesus' words about the Spirit of Truth were a guide to his disciples who couldn't yet bear everything their teacher had to share. Jesus' teachings on the Spirit of Truth remain a guide for us today too!
In this episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about truth and the weigh it carries in our lives. Most of us resist truth because we don't want our failures and frailties exposed. Yet spiritual maturity manifests in precisely this capacity: can we hear unflattering truths about ourselves without crumbling? Can we embrace both our status as sinners and saints? The liberating truth Jesus offers is that we don't need to earn our worth—we're already infinitely valued in God's eyes! Listen in for the full conversation.
Read For Faith, the companion devotional.
When it comes to this spiritual truth, we need a guide, and so Jesus says you can depend on the spirit of truth to be your guide. So truth is also an aspect of who God is. God is true, right. So God is all truth. God is not just wisdom and all those sorts of things. We believe that God in God's self, in God's nature, is truth, and we would say that God is love, and love is the ground of ultimate reality. That's what we would say. That would be truth.
Melissa:Welcome to For People with Bishop Rob Wright. I'm Melissa Rau and this is a conversation inspired by Four Faith, a weekly devotion sent out every Friday. You can find a link to this week's Four Faith and a link to subscribe in the episode's description. Good morning, bishop.
Bishop Wright:Morning morning.
Melissa:Today we're talking about truth, that is or you named your devotion this week based off of John, chapter 16, verses 12 through 15. And it's really Jesus is saying that. Listen like, uh, I got something to say, but you're not really ready to hear it.
Bishop Wright:Can't hear it all.
Melissa:Come on, I really like your, uh, your quote, how you quoted, uh, Jack Nicholson. You can't handle the truth.
Bishop Wright:Right, right. Well, that's one of the best scenes in that movie. Of course, the movie was A Few Good Men right. And Jack Nicholson is the head of the Marine Division. I think it's Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He lives on the line, he protects the border wall, he's got Marines under his care and they're forward deployed.
Bishop Wright:And, as we know, as the story goes, Tom Cruise, this young, smart lawyer, just gets a thread and keeps pulling on it and he's trying to provoke Jack Nicholson's character. Jack Nicholson's character is on the stand and finally, you know, this little snot-nosed lawyer says to this decorated war veteran you know I'm entitled to the truth. So Nicholson says you can't handle the truth. And then what follows is really phenomenal. You know, we usually stop listening and you can't handle the truth.
Bishop Wright:But then what Nicholson does effectively I mean, he's supposed to be the villain in the story, but what he does do, and maybe I have a soft part of my heart for this, being an ex-military guy he begins to describe what is necessary to keep people safe, and a lot of that we don't even want to know nowadays in America on why our gas is cheap and why this and why that and the other thing, and that we've got families pulled apart because we've got men and women now forward deployed and they're going places and doing things that they can either confirm or deny, you know. But that's where the comparison sort of ends between Nicholson and Jesus.
Melissa:That's right.
Bishop Wright:Yeah, because, you know, Jesus is not an ex-Marine as much as some of us might want to make him an ex-Marine, right? I mean, Jesus got, he's got this fleshy heart and he realizes that he's not trying to shame people for the inability to have all of the truth at this moment. He's trying to let them know that, you know, the gift is the spirit and the spirit will lead you in the truth. In other words, we know that growing up in the ability to tell and to handle and to hear truth is a journey, is a journey right? And when we look societally at this, you know, in our society, in global societies, we usually kill people who tell the truth about the way that we are as nations and the way we are as economic systems, et cetera. We don't want too much truth, because truth actually is disruptive to the status quo, the status quo we like.
Melissa:Well, can we pick that apart a little bit though, Bishop, Because I feel like a lot of people. What is truth anyway?
Bishop Wright:Yeah, well, I mean, that was Pontius, wasn't that Pontius Pilate's question?
Melissa:It might have been.
Bishop Wright:Well, what we try to say about truth is the sort of in the hand definition of truth would be reality, which begs another question. So then, what is reality? I mean, there's scientific truth and all those sorts of things, and you know nowadays, you know, any opinion will do as a way to sort of unseat anything that's even scientific truth nowadays, and we use the word feeling right, to sort of disembowel anything that might look like truth. But Jesus is basically saying is that there is a reality about God and about the nature of life that you can't hear, you can't handle, you can't sort of get your head around all at this time. And so you know I mean, think about it for just a second the reality of Jesus is a bit too much for most of us, right? And so the fact that to grow up spiritually means you're going to have to die to some things not physically right, but you're going to have to die to some things, not physically right, but you're going to have to die to some things it is, you know, a part of spirituality, modern day spirituality, that people don't want to hear, and that is nevertheless the truth. I mean, Jesus demonstrates this vividly in his own life, right, and then nature tells us this truth right. And nature tells us this truth right Is that you know the leaves fall, you know, in autumn, and they end up mulching themselves with their dead leaves and then over a period of time, then that tree comes back to life never was really dead, but comes back to life in new and vivid ways and so we have a connection to the natural world and the spiritual sort of revelation that Jesus showed us. That is truth for us, and truth for us as people who believe is that God is real and able and good and generous. We take that truth in by faith. We take that truth in by the community of faith. We take that truth in by the word of God, which we believe is many things poetry, metaphor, you know, archaeology, lots of different kinds of things. So truth would be about an hour conversation, you know, just by itself.
Bishop Wright:But what Jesus I think is pointing to his who is the nature, what is the nature of God, and can you embrace all of that now? Also, Jesus has been with these folks for three years and so he's sort of got a sense of their learning habits right and their ability sort of to comprehend a lot of the stuff that he's wanting to talk to them about, but don't miss the big point. The big point is is that when it comes to this spiritual truth, we need a guide, and so Jesus says you can depend on the spirit of truth to be your guide. So truth is also an aspect of who God is. God is true, Right, so God is all truth. You know, God is not just wisdom and all those sorts of things. We believe that God, in God's self, in God's nature, is truth, and we would say that God is love, and love is ultimately right, the ground of ultimate reality. That's what we would say, and so that would be truth would say, and so that would be truth.
Melissa:lot of confusion, or at least I don't know. I don't know if it's misdirection, confusion, or maybe somebody's onto something that I'm just not sure of. I feel like a lot of people are empowered to really go down deep individually, which I think is part of it, and yet not the full story. I think we have what we have given to us by our birthright, this discerning, contemplative thing. Within that the spirit does dwell within us, and yet I don't know that we listened to spirit just by ourselves, but that it is in with community.
Bishop Wright:No, I mean. So what you're trying to do is you're trying to point to a truth about spirit, about spirit, right, you're trying to say that spirit is dynamic and alive through community, right, and is available to us through community, is not just a sole personal project. And so we would say that that is accumulated wisdom, and we would say it points to a truth about the nature of spirit. And, of course, matthew, mark, luke and John tell that story out, right, jesus just doesn't stay in the wilderness all by himself, thinking beautiful thoughts, all by himself, right, he comes and he lives. One of the truths that we point to, excuse me, one of the truths that we point to can be summed up in the cross. The cross has a horizontal axis and a vertical axis. Not only is it the instrument of shame and sort of heinous death that the Roman Empire used, but we believe it also points to a reality about the nature of life with God that it is both vertical and horizontal at the same time. So, yeah, you can go on a mountain and think great thoughts about God, and that's great, but yet it has to be lived out here on the horizontal plane that God and God's fullness can be known Right. So you know, I love when people tell me yeah, man, I'm all for the, for the Jesus thing. It's just that Jesus's friends I don't want to be involved with, right, and like, I totally get that. And they say that this, I don't want to go to church and I don't want to be involved. I get that. The truth of the matter is is you just can't think your way into the kingdom of heaven, right, I mean, jesus comes as spirit, as God, into flesh to live among us. We call that the incarnation. We would say that is the living out of a truth, right, that this has to be lived out right On the ground. You know, I like to say in fingernail, dirty places with people. And so who was it? That wonderful woman, dorothy Day, who said you only love God as much as you sort of love the person you hate the most? Right, and so that's a truth about the nature of God. And so there's lots of prickly truths about God. You know where your treasure is. There also is your heart. Ouch, right, I mean, we got to think about that.
Bishop Wright:You know, I heard a guy one time get up in the pulpit. I was sitting way in the back and he was preaching a sermon about prayer and everybody he was a good preacher and everybody was sort of on the edge of their seat listening to the guy. And then he just sort of stopped and said if the church and if the world depended on your prayers, where would the church and the world be? And I saw like a room of 200 people collectively slink down in their chairs, right. So there is that thing that we are simultaneously hungry for to a degree, and terribly afraid of at the same time, because what we don't want about truth is we don't want to be revealed. We don't want our foibles, our failures, our frailties to be revealed, and truth is a revealer, right. We don't want that aspect of truth. But also, truth sets us free, right? I mean I think I read that somewhere in the Bible, right? And so we're sort of snagged, we're sort of living on a fence about all this sort of thing.
Bishop Wright:I heard another guy say you know, god, we love you, but we are afraid to love you too much. We're afraid to love you too much means is that there's some part of us we want to and feel like we need to preserve and even keep from God, right, rather than the truth of the matter is, is that you've never been more yourself? Is that you've never been more yourself than you are living a faithful life with God? Right? And so we are this. You know what's that wonderful joke about? What's the difference between a big pickup truck and a Ferrari, right? Sports car capacity, right? So we have a limited capacity for truth because we want it, we say we want it. We're not sure we want it, we're afraid of it. Mostly, we don't want anybody to weaponize it against us Certainly not.
Bishop Wright:And yet life with God, right, life with Jesus, life with his words, life with his example, right, is like a level, you know carpenter's tool, like a level for our lives, right. And so one of the you know, let's get to the end part of this, one of the great indicators for us as we're walking along with God in our life is our ability now to hear and to handle truth, even unflattering truth, about ourselves. You can go to Harvard and study leadership and they will tell you that people who have a lot of fragility cannot lead effectively because they lack the ability to interrogate their own actions and motivations. They can't see their own triggers and vulnerabilities. Therefore, their companies and the work that they do sort of prematurely plateaus. So here we are now with the 2,000-year-old wisdom from Jesus and cutting-edge leadership studies from Harvard Kennedy School now singing the same song.
Bishop Wright:So there's something about us that we need to grow up Now. The good news is, as Jesus promised in this text in John 16, the Spirit will guide you into all truth, and that's what we would call spiritual maturity is can I get to the place where I acknowledge that I am both sinner and saint? Can I get to the place where I can acknowledge I am fearfully and wonderfully made and I'm at the same time frail? Can I get to the place where I realize that, for all of my distinctions and achievements, I am loved and valued just as much as the drunk in the gutter in God's eyes? I mean that's an amazingly freeing place to be finally to get to eyes. I mean that's an amazingly freeing place to be finally to get to. Is that I don't have to gin up any worth? That's a truth that I'm already worth everything in God's eyes, and so is my neighbor.
Melissa:Well, yes, yes, yes. All of that and I'm going to dumb it down a little bit, Bishop, because you sounded very mature in everything that you said, Because all I had the word glaring in my face is ego, and that's the problem and so my question is is how might we be better? Or how might we because truth and trust go hand in hand, right?
Bishop Wright:Yes, they do.
Melissa:How might we better reveal God's truth, capital T, without our own personal agendas, and actually trust the Spirit to guide even other people in their own communities and trust them to understand what the Spirit is saying to them, without trying to lead the witness, if you will?
Bishop Wright:Well, we have to start with the fact that this is not to self-help society. You know this podcast does not point ultimately that we're good people. This podcast, I hope, points to the fact that we have an aid in the Holy Spirit and, just like Jesus is saying so, I think if we want to grow up I mean, I've said this countless times St Paul says this in 1 Corinthians 13. If we want to grow up right, maybe we ought to start with prayer. Lord, I realize the ways in which my behavior seem to be at oddsges that I hold and the lack of forgiveness you know I. You know I hold up. You know I see how I live at odds with who you invite me to be Lord, and so I see that now, lord, and I ask you to help me to grow up right in the full stature of Christ. We're supposed to be growing up in the full stature of Christ, not some arbitrary measurement, right, but Christ as we know him in Matthew, mark, luke and John. So to bring these stories into our lives and then try to live them, try to square up to them as much as we can, realizing that nobody's perfect, that we all fall short, but to begin to intentionally bring those stories, bring the grace of the Holy Spirit into our lives, to say welcome. I think that's where it is. You know, one of the things I love about the AA community is that they say you know, look, I realize I have no power right over this thing, right, and so I know I need help.
Bishop Wright:And yet Christians, you know, years after years, Sunday after Sunday, sit down and act like this is a self-help society. And so what we do is we do a discredit to the spirit, we do all the fake church smile and we do sort of the performance of what I call religious entertainment and all that sort of stuff, and it's just not worth anything. What's worth anything, and everything is to say, is to confess the ways in which we fall short. And what if we can't see those ways? That's a good question too. It might be even to say Lord, help me to see the ways if I can't see them.
Bishop Wright:You talked about ego. Sometimes ego has blinders and we just can't see, we don't want to see or we're too fragile to be able to see. A lot of us have had a lot of trouble, a lot of up and downs, a lot of family of origin issues, all kinds of trauma in our lives, and so to begin to pull back that sort of stuff, we feel very vulnerable, we feel very fragile, and so that becomes an impediment to a real, deep and abiding relationship with Christ. And so the truth is is that it's going to take time, it's a process, right, but we can get started today, if we want to, by simply saying Lord, here I am, I'm made in your image. I know that, and yet I want to know you more and I want to make more room in my heart for your truth. So you know that may be one of the most dangerous prayers that we could ever pray, you know, is to say Lord, I think I'm ready now to integrate you know all that. I am right as a, as an opportunity to worship you.
Melissa:Love it, Love it. Bishop, thank you so much for bringing bringing that truth for us and listeners. We're grateful to you for tuning into For People. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright, or by visiting www. forpeople. digital. Please subscribe, leave a review and we'll be back with you next week.