Did you know that “truthiness” was Merriam Webster’s “word of the year” for 2006? Various Internet sources define “truthiness” as an argument or assertion that claims to be true, without regard to evidence. Faux newscaster Stephen Colbert coined the word in the pilot episode of his political satire The Colbert Report, and the truth became—well—history.
Which leads me to wonder just what manner of divining spirit it was that occupied the hapless slave girl we met at the beginning of our lesson from Acts, whose primary contribution to salvation history seems to be that she annoyed Paul? Was it a good spirit or an evil one? Was she telling the truth about Paul and Silas’ mission, as the text seems to suggest? Or was her bothersome public insistence that they were servants of God proclaiming a way of salvation a kind of truthiness?
What we do know for certain that it was a valuable spirit, because her owners became so very litigious after it was exorcised. And then, in a weird series of reversals, Paul ends up in captivity for having freed the girl from her possession, only then to be freed himself by another kind of supernatural power. The story reaches its denouement when the jailer praises God for the very thing that the spirit-possessed girl proclaimed on behalf of Paul and Silas , a way to salvation through Jesus Christ.
Earthquakes, prison doors swinging open, the conversion of an entire family… the drama in the second half of this narrative threatens to overwhelm the encounter between Paul and the nameless slave girl. The supernatural events seem bigger and their theological significance greater. The jailer who had been so frightened was saved and rejoiced. What a happy ending, right?
And yet, the first half of the story nags at me. What about that slave girl? Did she go on to salvation and rejoicing, or—more likely—to destitution, as she no longer was in possession of the valuable fortune-telling spirit? The text is utterly silent on the matter. You might even say annoyingly silent. And so I, like Paul, have found myself pursued by the girl for days on end. To the point where I want to turn to my Bible, which so consistently privileges the stories of men, and cast out whatever spirit possesses the text to keep women’s voices so very silent.
What happened to our girl? What might she have said once the voice of the spirit left her? Is it possible that Paul’s reluctant exorcism freed her from servitude to that insidious truthiness that mimics truth, but did not actually reflect her enslaved reality? I should mention that I have a slight argument with the Wikipedia definition of truthiness: I think its not so much a claim made without evidence as it is a claim made in the service of some concealed economic motive, like the oil industry denying climate change. So when the slave girl lost the voice that enriched her owners, was she able find her true voice?
We can’t know for sure, but part of our job as people of faith is to claim the integrity of the salvation story, and insist that the God of Exodus and Easter is the God of freedom and resurrection for all people. So I ask you today, how will you listen for the authentic voice of the as-yet unheard? Is there a persistent inner voice telling you something you really need to pay attention to? Is there a marginalized person in your family or neighborhood who needs you to listen to what they have to say? In the name of the nameless slave girl, let me invite you to be annoyed with the way things are, to distinguish truth from truthiness, and to create opportunities for those whose voices are silenced to tell their stories. This is the real work of faith, completing in ourselves whatever is lacking in Christ’s sufferings, as Paul wrote the Church in Colossus. Because we trust that even the news we don’t want to hear can, and will—in the fullness of time—be made good news by the God of Jesus Christ.
