Sunday after Ascension 2008

John 17.1-11

'There's glory for you!', [said Humpty Dumpty]
`I don't know what you mean by "glory",' Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. `Of course you don't -- till I tell you. I meant "there's a nice knock-down argument for you!"'
`But "glory" doesn't mean "a nice knock-down argument",' Alice objected.
`When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'

When I use a word it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less. Humanity has wondered about the relationship between words and meaning since the beginning of language-the question 'What is truth?' has spiralled down the ages. Even Pilate asked it.

There have been philosophers who have tried to tie down words to strict and limited meanings-that every word has its corresponding sense that can be identified within the world of experience. "Table" equals Table. That works. But "glory"? "truth"? It's a bit more difficult to tie down such abstract words in the same way.

Other philosophers have argued that words belong within language games. Where games are understood as a set of rules that the players understand and which give meaning to the way language is used. So if here at the Cathedral we started using the word 'blinky' to mean 'it's time to get the gin and tonic out', then the word 'blinky' would have meaning within the language game that we play as a community here. It's a view of language that has much to commend it-a lot of philosophers today would argue along these lines. It's borne out in practice: take the word Nada, for example: in Spanish it means 'nothing'; in Croatian it means 'hope': same word, different meanings, dependent upon the culture and context in which it is used.

The trouble with Alice is she doesn't know what language game Humpty Dumpty is playing. The trouble with Humpty Dumpty is that he's making the rules up as he goes along. There in lies madness-or at least the crazy world that Lewis Carroll creates where nothing is as it seems.

`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `which is to be master -- that's all.'

So, as the conversation between Humpty Dumpty and Alice continues, he takes us right to the heart of questions of power. Which is to be master? Who has the power to shape language, words, and determine meaning?

And I think immediately of Zimbabwe-Zimbabwe, for whom the Archbishops Rowan and Sentamu have asked us to pray today. They also call for concerted, immediate and effective action by South Africa and other regional countries, and the UN to intervene: to stop the supply of weapons that fuel Mugabe's regime; to support all those who are intimidated and tortured as the country collapses after the fiasco of the election. There is real fear that the country will escalate into mass violence, while Mugabe continues to use language to deny the reality of the situation, cloaking his corrupt doings with rhetoric and propaganda. Under his leadership the concept of truth is meaningless. Humpty Dumpty's question: which is to be master? Is played out with chilling force. As it was in Hitler's Germany, in Stalin's USSR; in Burma-in countless other states where power has corrupted absolutely in the hands of masters who sacrifice truth to power. And such slipperiness with words and meaning can be found in countries we'd like to trust. G W Bush is on record as saying: "I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace." It could come right out of George Orwell's clever satirical novel 1984 where Newspeak becomes the new language of domination,

We are profoundly fortunate in this country to have a form of governance that honours free and truthful speech-and we need, as citizens-to be constantly scrutinizing those in power to ensure that integrity and honesty are at the heart of public life. That those who lead us seek after truth-rather than pursue power for its own sake.

There's a Quaker expression that is worth remembering: Quakers talk of 'speaking truth to power' - having the courage to speak out against the ways in which power can corrupt. To hold powerful people to account; to hold them to truth. Tony Benn says there are five questions that should be asked of anyone in power: "What power have you got? Where did you get it from? In whose interests do you use it? To whom are you accountable? How do we get rid of you?" - it's important to appreciate the radical and critical voices that such people as the Quakers and Tony Benn bring to our public life and institutions.

For me the bedrock of such scrutiny for the sake of truth comes from faith-faith in a God revealed in Christ as the way, the truth and the life. As Pilate asked the question, you could say that the spiralling question of truth came to rest in the man standing before him.

And today, as we wait between two key events in the narrative of our faith, between the glorious ascension celebrated in great style here on Thursday and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost next Sunday, we wait in a state of seeking the means to know the truth for ourselves. Jesus talks of glorifying God in finishing the work that God gave him to do; and asks the Father to glorify him in God's presence-in the glory of the presence before the world existed. Jesus is the embodiment of God's presence, God's truth: the Holy Spirit comes that we may learn to walk the way, know the truth, live the life. Each-Father, Son and Holy Spirit gives us a knowledge of truth and all that goes with it: love, goodness, justice. Without the presence of God, we would have no ultimate, no sense of reality that calls us onwards into truth. A truth we glimpse in all right actions and altruism-as God's glory present with God from before the world existed.

As we prepare for the coming of the Holy Spirit-power from on high-let us remind ourselves that such power enables us to hold the power of the world to account: power that offers a bedrock by which we can discern the truth of the language we use, our own motivations; the honesty and integrity of ourselves and others. Such discernment takes skill and practice. It takes the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds.

When Jesus claims the glory that he had in God's presence before the world existed, he is claiming that the qualities that belong to God's glory: truth, love, peace-have endured, and endure with God through all eternity. The changelessness of truth in God, revealed in Jesus, is the basis of the truth of our existence and language. You could say that God underwrites the truth of humanity. Our existence and our language finds its ultimate meaning in God.

And so we should strive for truth in all our words and actions. Then it's possible to say-with meaning and truth:
There's glory for you.