Pilgrim Uniting Church, Adelaide SA SUN 01-NOV-2020 - 9.30 AM Sermon Rev Sandy Boyce Pentecost 22 – When Paul was run out of Thessaloniki, fake news had been circulating in the city and beyond to diminish his reputation, his message and his influence; so he sent a letter back to the fledgling church to assure them that his conduct had in fact been pure, upright and blameless, with very high ethical and moral standards. They knew it was true, because they had known him personally. The adjective 'post-truth' was the Oxford Dictionaries' Word of the Year for 2016, and it remains one of the defining words of our time. We are living in a 'post-truth' society in which objective facts have less influence than emotional appeal. Fake news is not fake just because it misrepresents reality, but also because it violates neighbourliness by wilfully aiming to set neighbour against neighbour. The work of the church is to tell the truth about neighbour and our neighbour-loving God, and to give value to the neighbour in restoration, emancipation and reconciliation. Flannery O'Connor, an American novelist, has a lovely way of expressing the church's call: You shall know the truth – and the truth will make you odd. The church is now summoned to embrace its oddness in the world by its truth-telling and truth-doing, and by being in the public domain to say, "I beg to differ." 1 Thessalonians 2: 9-13 Playing Time   –   11:49