Devotions Archive Archive: 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 Search Archive Print This Article Who told you? Wednesday, April 4, 2001 John 8:31-42 Listening to Jesus, they said, "We are Abraham's descendants and have never been slaves of anyone... "Abraham is our father... "We are not illegitimate children. The only Father we have is God himself." Jesus said to them, "If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. I have not come on my own; but he sent me." Earlier in this argument Jesus says knowing the truth will set these people free. Later he calls them children of the devil, wanting to carry out their father's desire to kill him. They protest and argue, they become angry and defensive. They know who they are. They are victims of their own definition. Who told them so? Their parents, of course, and their teachers and their preachers and their friends. Who told them? Their parents, of course, and ... There is nothing new under the sun. This is the way truth becomes infected and turns to lies. This is how life loses its color, how we lose our shape, our substance. T.S. Eliot wrote a poem about this... We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar ... This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. We are not who they say we are. We are who God says we are. Eliot was angry at the devil, but he realized his power: Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long So the pendulum swings between submission and rebellion, between hallowed tradition and revitalizing revolution. We seek beauty, harmony, moderation, wholeness and truth. They elude us. They escape from under our noses. We fall back. Fall back. Fall back. And we say what we've been told, not what we hear from God. I want to listen better, Lord. I will take my fingers out of my ears. Open my ears, let me hear you and only you. The truth, the truth, the truth will set me free. "; Add      Edit    Delete