Why the Truth?--November 12, 2020

Why the Truth?—November 12, 2020

“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.” (Ephesians 4:25) 

So, why exactly should we tell the truth? 

Maybe it seems an odd thing for the preacher to be asking (I would hope it seems odd, at least at one level), but seriously, why is it that the followers of Jesus are taught specifically to be honest people? Why are we taught not to lie and deceive people? 

Afghan American novelist Khaled Hosseini offered an interesting answer through a character in his first novel, The Kite Runner. One of his characters proposes that there is really only one sin—theft—and that all other sins are forms of theft, and so lying, he says, steals someone’s right to the truth. 

An interesting way of framing things, isn’t it? That the truth is something your neighbor has a right to, and that you and I have obligations to each other and to everyone else to honor that right by giving the truth to people. 

I have to tell you, I think that notion is at least on the right track. It moves us beyond seeing “Thou shalt not lie” as just one random rule in a list of random rules, and says that we have a responsibility to each other, a connection to one another, that is grounded in honesty and that falls apart if we deceive one another. 

See, I think the problem for a lot of us is that we don’t make that connection—a connection that Paul makes, too. We often just hear the commandment, “Thou shalt not commit false witness against thy neighbor” as a rule you are supposed to follow as just one of a long list of rules God has come up with, and that if you follow that rule (along with all the others), you will be earning God-points to cash in upon death so that we can get admittance into heaven. We get sloppy with our talk about morality, and make it seem like my only real reason to be “good” is so that I can get some eternal reward for myself after death, or alternatively, to avoid some kind of eternal punishment. And the danger with that thinking—in addition to the fact that it completely forgets that grace means we are not judged on the basis of what we have earned or deserve from our deeds—is that is it makes truth-telling seem like it only affects me. “I should tell the truth because of how I could end up being punished if I get caught for lying,” or something like that, is how the common line of thinking goes. And if I do lie to others, well, the only one who really gets hurt is me, because I’m the one who will get the divine ruler on the knuckles for doing it. See how narrow and self-focused that is? 

The letter to the Ephesians doesn’t have so small a view. Paul doesn’t say, “You all should tell the truth or you will each go to hell.” In fact, Paul doesn’t really ground his teaching about truth-telling in the post-mortem consequences for the “teller” at all. It’s because we have an obligation, a commitment, a responsibility, even a covenant, with the people around us. And that commitment is to be truthful for the sake of relationship. Paul doesn’t say, “Don’t lie or else God will zap you, or your boss/spouse/parent will find out.” Paul says, “Don’t deceive anybody, because you belong to each other.” In other words, we tell the truth to each other, even when it is difficult, awkward, or painful truth, because love binds us together, and love requires eyes made clear by truth-telling. 

Love means bearing the truth together, even when the truth is uncomfortable or not to my advantage.  In fact it is precisely because I am called to love my neighbor that I owe my neighbor the truth even when I don't like what the truth is.

We don’t often think of it that way. We don’t think—at least when we are the ones doing the deceiving, the fudging of facts, the clever omission of part of the real story—we don’t think about how dishonesty is like dry-rot for relationships, whether friends, family, or just people who work together. It undermines the substance that keeps the friendship strong. And when the floor is weakened at any one point, the whole thing suffers. I might like to think that I can tell, you know, “most” of the truth to someone, and think I’m doing them a favor, or at least doing enough to sustain the friendship. But when I hold things back, when I twist things because I am afraid of revealing how things really are, when I keep the truth from someone for my own purposes (even if they are well-meaning and seemingly noble or nice purposes!), I am sawing on the branch we are both sitting on. Like the mold spores eating at the strong fibers of the wood, every time I withhold the truth, it weakens the connection between us, making it harder and harder for you to really trust me again. 

You and I can each surely recite times when your heart sank into your feet to find out that you had been lied to—and usually not just because of whatever the lie was actually about, but because all of a sudden there is this wedge between you and the other person. And worst of all, once it’s out there that some of the truth has been kept, hidden, twisted, or covered over, it makes you start to suspect everything that gets said by the other person, so that you feel you can’t count on anything that the other person says. 

You and I both know, too, how long it takes, and how hard-fought it is, to get back to a place of trust when that trust has been lost. Even if it is never said out loud, the past deception is always there in the background, haunting ever possible future moment of honesty and soul-baring like a ghost. Maybe those past falsehoods, whether by saying something false or keeping something vital to the truth, maybe they never really go away. Maybe at best they scar over, and in time, you learn how much weight you can put on the friendship again, like a recovering patient with a broken leg learning again how much weight the healing-but-fractured bone can bear. 

It’s a big deal to be truthful people. It really is. Just not merely for the usual reasons people give—not because God just likes giving us rules to follow, and not just because there are rewards and punishments in store for truth-telling Gallants and lying Goofsues. It’s a big deal because truth is a part of what love looks like. 

If there are any people in your life who are worth your love—your real, authentic, enduring, go-to-the-mat-for-them love (and to be a Christian is to belong in such a community of brothers and sisters that we call “church”)—then those same people are worth the risk and the courage it takes to be honest. Not just to tell technically-true statements of fact, but to BE honest people, people who dare the vulnerability it takes to put the truth out there, and who risk that love means they will be accepted and cherished regardless of what that truth is. It means, too, that we will insist on truth from one another, that we won't settle just for telling ourselves a lie that makes us feel better but has no substance to it, and that we teach our children and grandchildren to do the same.  

So to answer the question at the start of all of this--why the truth?  We who follow Jesus are committed to speaking and living truthfully because it is a part of how we love.  And because we are called to love all people--even the people we may not like, may not agree with, or may not know--we are called to be truthful with all people as well.  We owe it to each other, because we belong to each other.

Lord God, give us the love to be truthful people, and give us the courage to recognize that love.