Half Truths

Reflections on John 16:7-13

“Nevertheless, I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” And when he comes, he will prove the world wrong …”

Four-year-old, Amanda asked her mom how babies got inside their mother’s tummy.  Amanda’s mom told her a half-truth or maybe even a quarter-truth.  She said that it was miracle, a special gift from God and left it at that.  That worked just fine for little Amanda.  It was just enough truth to make her feel loved and special and connected to God … all good things and of course, absolutely true.  It was also just enough truth to ease the uncertainly of welcoming a new baby brother or sister in a couple of months.  If it is God who is giving her a baby brother or sister, well then it must be a good thing, she thought to herself.

Eventually, Amanda would need more truth.  She would ask her mother that very same question, worded differently of course, at ages six, seven and ten.  At age six she asked because her mom was pregnant again, at seven because her best friend’s dog was about to give birth and at ten because she was picking up some conflicting information from the older girls at the school bus stop.  Each time the topic came up, Amanda’s mom doled out a little more of the truth.  

Michael too found himself in the business of doling out the truth.  As a family physician, he was often in the position of calming the panic of internet self-diagnosticians and sounding the warning alarm for those who thought it could never happen to them.  He found himself, on a patient-to-patient basis, deciding with every appointment how much truth to tell.  It is a fine line between inspiring healthier living and stirring up unhealthy anxiety.  Most of his patients can’t handle the truth, at least not the whole truth.  

Life is series of unfolding truths.  The whole truth never comes all at once.  It is always just beyond our grasp.  It is too big.  We cannot take it all in.  We can’t handle it.  It slips through our fingers like water.  We cannot contain it, nor can we harness it.  We cannot manipulate it or own it, because it doesn’t belong to us.  It is beyond us and yet from time to time we bump into fragments of truth that satisfy us for a time.  Like the tale of the blind man who encounters an elephant bit by bit, our experiences expose bits of truth, quarter truths and half truths. As we age and grow, as life knocks us around a bit, as our vision expands along with our questions, more truth lies waiting to be mined. 

“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now^.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth…”

Photo by Jaime Owens

Jesus was preparing the disciples for his departure … for his death.  He had shared so much with them in the time they traveled together.  So many miracles, so many memorable moments, so many bits of truth, but there was still so much to say, so much to do, so much to experience and yet their time together was about to come to an end.  Change was in the air.  A storm was brewing.  Things would not be the same, but not even death could stop truth from coming. Truth telling would not end with a Galilean Jesus.  The truth would continue to unfold.  It would continue to find them just as it continues to find us.  Jesus had more truth to tell.  And even now God has more truth to tell and it is the Holy Spirit who guides us to it, shines the light on it and stirs within us a hunger for it, if we will just pay attention.  

People grow and societies grow.  Experiences and experiments, getting it right and getting it wrong, all carry within them treasured truths to be mined and embraced or rejected and ignored.  No one has it all right and I venture to guess no one has it all wrong.  Those, who in their arrogance, believe they have it all, the whole truth, revel in their ignorance.  While those, who in humility, discover that the more they know, the more they don't know,  grow closer to the whole truth with every question they ask.  For God is in the business of doling out the truth, bits at a time.