This week on Monday the news bulletins in the evening were full of two stories, the first was that Gordon Brown had made his conference speech. The second was a report that Cherie Blair had apparently called him a liar.

There in the last moments of the clip is where I think the most significant theme lies: we expect our representatives, the people who serve us to be honest.

Many of us are pretty cynical about politicians and their take on the truth - but we still feel let down when we find out that they've been dishonest. We expect our doctors to tell us the truth about our health. We expect the police to deal with us honestly. We expect the people who serve us to be honest.

All Christians are people of service. And so the expectations fall on us as well. We have to be honest about our faith. We have to be truthful about what God's message means to us.

Now, most of you who know me know that I'm a strict vegetarian. It's a lifestyle choice that I'm happy with for me. Do you know - I wish that the Bible said it was better to be vegetarian. But it doesn't. In the beatitudes Jesus does not say 'blessed are they who feast upon the Quorn sausage'. I've heard people construct the most astonishing arguments trying to claim that it does, taking phrases out of context so that their meaning becomes changed. It is wrong. It stops being God's message and starts to be our message - our agenda - our imperfections. I've seen people try the same trick with the bible over other subjects over the years - That of course is nothing like what's been said and done regarding homosexuality over the years. It stops being God's message and starts to become a message of bias or worse, the message of the bigot.

We are blessed that we can worship and be a part of a denomination that welcomes a broad spectrum of belief - it's something we can, if we choose, learn from. It's something we can be proud of.

This week we can start to sign up for our next church weekend. While on our last weekend away I had the privilege of exploring the bible with people who approached scripture from both a fundamental point of view as well as an academic and challenging perspective, and this is good for us because it helps us to grow. It's not about competing with each other - about how one of us can prove the other wrong - but what we can learn from each other. Two people can sit next to each other in this church one with huge questions over the resurrection and the other believing that God created the world in 6 days and then took a day off - and they can both be enriched - they can both grow - and why? Because honesty is at the heart of what we do and what we preach - that not only do we provide a place where all can come to worship God - but also we affirm the TRUTH that God loves us completely.

And once you know that truth, our lives can never be the same again - knowing it is one thing, but BELIEVING it can be an experience that changes our lives forever.

Preaching the truth, that Jesus' message is as relevant today as it was it the time of St Paul can make us rather unpopular with some. Paul himself made plenty of opponents as he went on his mission, a reading from which we heard today. Paul frowned on any behaviour that was not in accord with the character of the gospel that he preached. His opponents, however, had no scruples in this regard. They quite willingly exploited the Corinthians for financial gain. Paul was different in that he told the gospel message in a plainspoken way, in the hope that people would realise he was genuine and that he was speaking the truth however outspoken he may have been.

In our clip today we see a character struggling with a difficult choice - should he be honest about his beliefs with the people he wishes to serve? Or should he gloss over it or avoid the issue, because he knows the answer and the truth may be unpopular? Ironically, this clip about someone 'coming out' as an agnostic has a simple truth for us as people of faith. In a world of spin doctors and media consultants telling him to go to church and suggesting he change his stance on moral issues to secure more votes - he chose to maintain his integrity.

We too are people of service in our own way: the neighbours we encounter, the people we meet at work, the friend we share dinner with, the homeless people we pass on our way. When we stand up and live our lives with integrity and with passion - knowing that God loves us for the people we are - then we become living testimonies of the gospel truth.

The message in our reading is that we need to be plain speaking about our faith - that is the most plain speaking way that each of us can "Let light shine out of darkness"

Amen

(Dan Joseph)

This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.