Speak the Truth | November 9, 2025 | Rev. Dr. Kathryn Benton

Speak the truth, without fear and without exception, and see everyone

whose work is related to your purpose. You are in God’s work, so you

need not fear man’s scorn. If they listen to your requests and grant

them, you will be satisfied. If they reject them, then you must make

their rejection your strength.

The opening words come from Mohandas Gandhi. In a letter to Muriel Lester, Gandhi was giving her advice on how to move forward in the struggle. I found these words in Howard Thurman’s consideration of deception in the book, Jesus and the Disinherited. They resonated for me with the election of Zohran Mamdani in New York City…a first in so many ways. Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani is also a Democratic Socialist. Quoting Eugene Debs in his acceptance speech, Mamdani said,  I can see the dawn of a better day for humanity. Debs was probably the most famous socialist in US history. In 1918, speaking in opposition to the war he said:

 Every solitary one of these aristocratic conspirators and would-be murderers claims to be an arch patriot. Every one of them insists that the war is being waged to make the world safe for democracy. What humbug. What rot. What false pretense. Wars throughout history have been waged for conquest and plunder.

Debs certainly spoke the truth without exception. Considering what we are now facing in the year 2025, can we hope for this better day?  Gandhi advised Lester to, make their rejection your strength. Is that what Eugene Debs did and what this young person is being called to do? Is he being called to speak truth, without fear and without exception? His message to Donald Trump was clear. He said,

“To get to any of us, you will have to get through all of us.” He went on, “New York will remain a city of immigrants: a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and, as of tonight, led by an immigrant.”

His defiance resonates with the sentiments of Gandhi. He is speaking the truth without fear…he is pointing out that we are together in this…we are one…as we stated last week:

The forms are many, but the informing spirit is one.

How can there be room for distinctions of high and low where there is

this all-embracing fundamental unity underlying the outward diversity?

For that is a fact meeting you every step in daily life.

Remember, Gandhi said that we are in God’s Work. And if, as Gandhi says, God is Truth and even Truth is God, then we do not have to fear man’s scorn…we can speak truth without exception as one spirit. And it is this unity, I think, that we are experiencing in the election of Zohran Mamdani and others…a unity of spirit that had the power to win an election…that perhaps has the power to fight the current fascist powers masquerading as arch patriots.

Let’s remember that, although we are doing God’s work, God does not come down in person to relieve suffering. God works through human agency. And this is what we are seeing…human agency…performing God’s work. And this work begins with truth.

Leo Tolstoy, whose philosophy influenced both Gandhi and King, spoke of truth after experiencing a spiritual awakening in the 1870s. He wrote:

It is necessary to be truthful in all matters regardless of their importance or

of the consequences they may have. We can change our lives to be in

harmony with truth, but we cannot change truth to justify our lives.

Falsehood is used to justify a life that is not in agreement with truth.

Tolstoy continued with some good advice as to how to discern the truth from a lie. He said:

Truth is recognized by its simplicity and clearness;

falsehood is complex, imaginary and wordy.

Thurman spoke about truth in his book, Jesus and the Disinherited. Speaking of the hounds of hell that dog a person’s existence, he said that truth was the third alternative open to the disinherited. Instead of using deception, which he said causes one to become a deception, one could utilize a complete and devastating sincerity…the sincerity that Gandhi was speaking of in his letter to Muriel Lester...sincerity with God and

sincerity with our brothers and sisters. Thurman wrote:

Unwavering sincerity says that [a person] should always recognize the fact that [one] lives always in the presence of God, always under the divine scrutiny, and that there is no really significant living for [a person], whatever may be his/her status, until he/she has turned and faced the divine scrutiny. Here all [people] stand stripped to the literal substance of themselves, without disguise, without pretension, without seeming whatsoever. No [one] can fool God. From God nothing is hidden.

There is indeed no hiding place from God...no hiding place from truth. We are stripped to the literal substance. We cannot fool God. Truth is as Tolstoy said, recognized by its simplicity and clearness…by its presence both within us and everywhere at once.

The words of the 139th Psalm, said to be Thurman’s favorite psalm, describe the ever-presence of truth…the ever-presence of God…

Thou compassest my path and my lying down,

And art acquainted with all my ways.

For there is not a word in my tongue,

But, lo, O Lord thou knowest it altogether…

Whither shall I go from thy spirit?

Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?

If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:

If I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there…

If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me;

Even the night shall be light about me.

Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee;

But the night shineth as day:

The darkness and the light are both alike to thee.

And from Osa Otura, a sacred verse of the Ifa tradition,

What is truth? Truth is the Unseen One guiding the earth. Truth is the word that cannot fall. The wisdom of God is using – great wisdom, many wisdoms.

May each of us have the courage to continue our search for truth…our search for God, recognizing that we stand in the light of God, every waking moment. May we be God’s human agency in our time, joining in the unity of the spirit.