48. Truth and Creation (Ps 84 (85), 12)

"It is time that I spoke the truth at last", the words of Jean-Paul Sartre at the end of his life! As I look for words to preach the Word in a language that will be understood by people today, I am very struck by such a beautiful statement. "I could only say it in a work of fiction. In this novel, the fictional element would be minimal; I would have created a character of whom the reader would have been forced to say: 'that man there is Sartre!' That is what I would like to have written: a fiction that would not have been a novel ( ), but fiction none-the-less, because we don't know each other very well, and because we cannot yet give ourselves right to the end. A man must exist entirely for his neighbour, who in turn must live entirely for him, so that true social harmony can be established."

I am fundamentally of this opinion: we patiently wait for men who will live and speak the truth. It is high time that we see planted almost everywhere, the seeds of genuine truth, truth sincerely spoken and with nothing held back.

Perhaps we have to begin saying this in fictional form, suggesting it imaginatively, and that this fiction, this teleological poem, approach progressively nearer and nearer to the truth, until it eventually becomes one with it, as do the parables.

"The sower went out to sow..." He was a rather unusual sower, throwing seeds around everywhere, on the tarmacadam, on ciment, on barbed wire, even in children's pockets. He was indeed a curious sower, very attentive to how the grain evolved. He was astonished at the wonderful results on the good land. Instead of ten for one, the crop yielded sometimes thirty, sixty or even a hundred for one little seed. Our sower then was a poet and for a long time. He was a literary figure and wrote copiously. Even when few read him and failed to understand him, he did not become discouraged. He had said centuries beforehand, and a long time ago: "the earth will respond to the grain, the new wine and oil, and they will respond to Jezreel, I shall sow her in the country, I will love Unloved; I will say to No-People-of -Mine, "You are my people" and he will answer: "You are my God".

He had thus his dream moments, but also some very serious ones. Once he announced himself through a delegate named Zechariah; this is what he said: "Here is a man whose name is Branch ( cf Zechariah 3, 8 and 6, 12); where he is there will be a branching out; it is he who is going to rebuild the sanctuary of Yaweh, it is he who is going to wear the royal insignia". And one day, fiction joined reality. He came in disguise, always speaking in parables, but this time the one who was speaking, was he himself in person. Some began to recognise him. He had come and had told the story of the sower who causes truth to flower. He had recounted the story of the doctor who ridiculed the "wise ones"; who passed by those who were in good health to look after those who were sick and infirm. He had come and spoken with lepers and those who were unloved. His friends were sinners and the rejects of society. A woman caught in the act of giving her body, faced death by stoning with the accompanying insults, but he defended her. Having established calm, he said to her: "Go, you are my people, sin no more!" And he succeeded in reintegrating her, even though at this stage everyone knew his truth!

He came incognito, but he was known by the fact that he did good everywhere. He quickened the seeds of faith and hope in a life that seemed to be already realised when he was around. Inevitably, he also caused truths to surface which certain people would prefer to have remained hidden...

He became a liability. Everyone came to him, and began to know him and to attach themselves to him. The people were relieved; they were so liberated from their constraints that the authorities began to worry. They said to themselves that the invader would be jealous, and that he would most certainly come and avenge himself; without doubt he would avenge himself on the Temple of Jerusalem, a most precious and sensitive point.

As for him, he continued in fiction and in parables, but this caused anxiety in peoples' minds. He said for example, that if one destroyed this temple, he would rebuild it in three days. It was a crazy notion, but in certain minds began to germinate ideas which had never been there before. They began to dream nearer and nearer to reality. He thought, as did Jean-Paul Sartre, of "a world where everybody would be honest", where everyone would be frank about his own life, able to confess everything absolutely. Where "mutual self-giving would be the order of the day". Everybody understood that for this to be possible, "every privilege and every inequality would have to be renounced."

So one day, the civic authorities, who were not going to allow themselves to be regarded as simple public "services", decided to put an end to the proceedings. From his side, there was no surprise; he had long foreseen this crisis. He knew that politicians could never write into their programme that they are going to launch out on an adventure, which means that "experience" was never on their agenda. They ambushed him one evening in the public gardens armed with swords and clubs. But when he said to them: "This man whom you are seeking, Jesus of Nazareth, it is I here present!" they fell backwards dumbfounded. They had just stumbled on the key to the novel, the character and the author were one and the same. Fiction had become reality! On that night and at that hour, the Son of God gave himself wholly and entirely. In fiction, he had revealed to them his word and his ideas; here he abandons to them his body. In him, it was the opening up to a world where privileges and inequalities are no more...in short, to the world of truth!

The others wanted to be the winners, to persuade themselves that it was their story, their own particular project which would become reality. The fruit of absolute truth, which the world in its long history had finally made manifest, they placed on a tree. As botanists are accustomed to do, they put an inscription above it in several languages. In this way, and unknown to themselves, they accorded to him the royal insignia prophesied by Zechariah. To prove that they were the strongest, and after everyone had seen him, they took him down, buried him in the earth and placed a large stone overhead so that no one would speak about him any more.

But three days afterwards, the authorities were left with only their fiction: the essential reality escaped them. In fact, what they never really wished to receive, had passed them by. Their claims toppled like a pack of cards. All that remained to them was an empty tomb, a dead and perfumed letter which the author had left them. In fact, the Temple was standing; it was his body, sacrificed but risen. His disciples had seen him. As for you and for me, since it has been given us to know: happy are our eyes because they see; happy our ears because they hear what many people have only guessed at, for example Jean-Paul Sartre by his intuition.