"What is truth?" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday January 18, 2026 – 2^nd Sunday after Epiphany
Scripture Reading:  John 1:29-42

I’ve been reading a book this week, a novel, that has me echoing Pontius Pilate’s famous question, “What is truth?”

The book is called, Everyone is Lying to You and I’m finding the genre hard to define.  It is sort of a murder mystery.  It is sort of a thriller, though not a super scary one because I don’t do scary, but it is hard to put down and is keeping me on the edge of my seat.  It is also sort of an exposé of social media influencer culture.

 

Very early on, the book pulls back the curtain to show us how what we see on social media is far from the truth.  That influencer who presents themself on Instagram as the perfect parent, chore charts perfectly organized, children dressed in matching outfits, house never in disarray?  Behind the scenes, she probably has a bevy of nannies and housekeepers, paid to help her present this life to the camera.  And that “tradwife” influencer, cosplaying a 1950s housewife, dressed in a just-below-the-knee housedress, making breakfast cereal from scratch, subservient to her husband who is the breadwinner of the family?  In reality, she manages a multi-million dollar company whose brand is herself, and her husband is now actually an employee of her company.

Social media influencers are lying to us, presenting a lifestyle to us as reality, when in actual reality, it is anything but.

What is truth?

The layers go deeper though.  This book is told through alternating narrators – two women who were best friends in college but who were estranged afterwards, but who then reconnect a decade later as they are both managing careers and children.  One has become a journalist, writing and editing for a floundering print magazine; the other has become a tradwife influencer, presenting her six children and chickens and 3-legged goat and scenic ranch to the world on social media.

In the world of the story, we see both women bending the truth.  The influencer loves her children but hates the pretend life she has created, yet continues to create content in that pretend life.  The traditional journalist may seem more trustworthy, but we get to see her curating the stories that she sends back to the magazine, deciding what to include and what to leave out.

What is truth?

And because these two women alternate back and forth telling the story, there is no all-knowing narrator, and there is no way of knowing how much of what they are saying is the actual objective truth.  Each character is choosing how much to tell us, the readers, and each character is interpreting the story through their own perspective and experience.  I, as the reader, have no way of knowing what they are leaving out, or what they are twisting in the telling.

What is truth?

I also find myself asking this question as I move through the world outside of this book.

In a world that feels increasingly divided, it feels like everything is presented to us with a spin.  Various media sources can be placed on a spectrum of left-leaning vs. right-leaning.  There is no such thing as totally unbiased reporting – reporters are always choosing what to include and what to leave out and how to interpret what they are witnessing; and in today’s world, it feels like the biases are becoming even stronger, that editorial positions are becoming more entrenched.

Politicians too, of all colours and stripes, are guilty of this too.  It is no longer enough to just support one party, we are encouraged to demonize and dehumanize the other side.  And we tend to accuse the other side of doing this, without recognizing that we, ourselves, are guilty of the same charge.

What is truth?

AI, Artificial Intelligence, is another force at work in the world that pushes us to ask this question.  As we scroll through the internet, how many of the images that we see are real, and how many are AI-generated?  Sometimes it is easy to tell – 7 fingers on one hand is usually a giveaway, or a video of an owl sheltering her owlets under her wing where the number of owlets keeps changing as you watch.  But sometimes it isn’t possible to tell.  The same goes for what we read – how many of the stories that we read are real, and how many are written by AI, generated through a series of prompts that someone fed into it?  Again, there are certain clues that you can look for if you know the tells – things like an m-dash, lists of three, or a distinctive authoritative yet confidential voice.  But it isn’t always possible to know.  A year ago, it was estimated that over 40% of Facebook posts were generated by AI - that percentage is likely even higher now.

What is truth?

The irony of the question that Pilate is asking, is that he is asking this question of Jesus; and shortly before Pilate asked his question, Jesus told his followers, his disciples, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  Pilate is standing in front of The Truth, and yet he is not able to recognize the truth.

I suspect that at least some of you are starting to wonder if I’m ever going to get to the story from the bible that we read today!  I’ve taken the long way around to get here, but in today’s story, in contrast to Pilate, we have a number of people who encounter Jesus and who are able to see him for who he is.

Jesus approaches John the Baptist, who is doing his thing, baptizing people in the Jordan River, testifying to the light of God, and teaching the people about the Messiah who is to come.  As soon as Jesus walks by, John stops what he is doing, points at him and says, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!”  Unlike Pilate, John is able to clearly recognize who Jesus is.

And then we have those first two disciples.  They had been disciples of John the Baptist, but after hearing their teacher proclaim that Jesus is the Lamb of God, they also immediately turn and follow Jesus.  Again, in that moment they have a much greater insight about who Jesus is than Pilate does.

And then one of those first disciples, Andrew, after hearing Jesus teach (and oh, I wish that there was some record of what Jesus said that day), Andrew went to find his brother, Simon Peter, and told him, “Come and see! I’ve found the Messiah!”

And so all of these people in today’s story – all of them are able to recognize the truth.

So turning from the story back to the world that we are living in – in a world where truth feels to be so slippery, how can we recognize the truth?

If we trust that Jesus is the truth, as he claims to be, then to recognize the truth, we can look for the places in the world where we recognize God.  Places where there is love.  Places where there is peace – a genuine peace, and not solely places where violence is suppressed.  Places where generosity and abundance abound.  Places where joy bubbles up in unexpected ways.

God is present when a neighbour lends a hand to another neighbour.  God is present when a community rallies together to protect the most vulnerable.  God is present when protestors walk through the streets without violence, singing together.  God is present when someone brings you a cup of tea… or coffee… and asks, “how are you doing?”  God is present in so many big and little ways in our world.

When we share our God Sightings at the start of each worship service, we are sharing the times when we have been especially aware of God’s presence, the times when we have noticed God working in the world.  And in a world of chaos, when truth seems slippery and we don’t know what we can trust, these are the moments we can turn to when we need to ground ourselves.

What is truth?  God is truth, and in the places where we find God, we will find truth.  And may God give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to love.  Amen.