Honest to God--August 5, 2025

Honest to God--August 5, 2025

"Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. (Colossians 3:9-10)

Let's be honest. We live in a culture that has an increasingly difficult time telling the truth--or even believing that "the truth" is worth the effort to hold onto. We live in the era of spin doctors who take the "bad news" and try to find a way to make it sound like "good news."  We live in a time in which, if you don't like the numbers in the latest report, you fire the person who published them rather than acknowledging that your expenses are way over budget or your revenue isn't what you hoped for, so that you can make course corrections.   We live in a society in which it is possible, when you don't like where the facts lead, simply to find different "alternative facts" that will suit the conclusion you would rather come to. The Scriptures are under no illusions that the world is full of that kind of lying; but we who are disciples of Jesus are called to something different. We are called to be truth-tellers... and to be willing to listen to the truth from one another, as well.

The letter to the Colossians makes no bones about it. This passage, which many of us heard in worship this past Sunday, puts it succinctly:  "Do not lie to each other."  Presumably, Christians are not to lie to folks outside the church, either.  But there is something vital about knowing we can rely on each other to tell the truth as disciples in community.  It is important to know that I can count on you to be honest with me, and for you to know that I will be truthful with you as well.  That allows you to believe me when the message I have for you is unbelievable (including the gospel itself, which sounds too good to be true to our ears).  It allows you to know that bad news or a difficult message isn't merely a matter of someone trying to hurt your feelings, and reminds you that you can't just ignore a fact you don't like simply because you don't like it.  And it allows me to believe you whether your message for me is what I wanted to hear or not.  When I can trust you, I know you will keep your promises; when you can trust me, you know I will do my utmost to keep my word to you as well.  That's the only way community can function. We can only be supportive of each other in love and face challenges together when we can be honest about what those challenges are and reliable when we say we will show up to face them.

Now, at one level, we could say that every community needs truthfulness to function, whether it is specifically Christian or not.  A family needs to be truthful among its members, regardless of their faith. A business and its employees need to be honest among the staff and with their customers if they want to function, no matter their religious affiliation. And citizens of a country need to be able to trust their governments and elected leaders if the nation is going to survive, even though they may hail from many different religious traditions or have no particular faith at all.  All of these different social groups and communities require a certain basic level of truth-telling, or they will collapse. But the writer of Colossians makes an even stronger case for the Christian community; we are called to be truth-tellers to one another in particular because of the character of the God we have met in Jesus Christ.

As our verses for today note, our vocation to be truth-tellers arises from our "new self" which we have put on in Christ, and which is being renewed in the likeness of the one who created our "new self," which is to say, God.  So the writer of Colossians isn't just wagging a scolding finger at us and saying, "Don't lie, because it's against the rules," or "If you don't tell the truth, you're going to hell."  Rather, the apostle is saying, "We don't lie to each other, because lying was always a regrettable fashion choice that came along with the old selves we used to wear like a bad leisure suit.  But now, you've put on a brand new self--you are clothed with Christ--and now truth-telling is the way we present ourselves to the world, because we are being made more and more to look like and be like the Master Tailor who made these new selves for us to wear." In other words, we are called to be truthful people, even in a world bent on deception, because God is truthful.  It's not about whether the people bloviating from podiums are honest with us (they often won't be), or whether the voices on social media are giving us facts or conspiracy theories (it's frequently the latter). We don't get to say, "Well THOSE people are lying to get people on their side, so WE can do it, too!" We are called to be truth-tellers because we follow Jesus, who is the Truth.  

And that's the other thing we need to acknowledge as we head out into this day: the world around us will not suddenly or automatically decide to stop lying, no matter what we do or say.  We don't tell the truth only if it is a popular thing to do, and we don't insist on integrity only when it's trending on social media.  We are sent out into the world, Jesus says in the gospel, like "sheep into the midst of wolves" and are called to be "innocent as doves" while being as "wise as serpents" (Matthew 10:16).  That means we won't be naive when the world around us is still parading around in the tired old clothes of gaudy deception and dazzling lies; we know to expect as much, and yet we are called to be voices who can say out loud when the emperor is wearing no clothes.  Our presence in the world will be a surprising one, indeed a refreshing one--we'll be known as the people who can tell the truth, both when it puts us in a positive light and when it means owning up to our failures.  We will known as people who don't have an angle to push, an agenda to ram through, or a product to sell--we'll simply be honest, because that's what we've come to see in the character of God through Jesus.  Because Jesus is both reliable (trustworthy) and honest (truthful) we will be shaped more and more in his likeness, no matter whether the world thinks it is savvy or smart or makes us "look good."  And because we know our belonging to Jesus is grounded in his unconditional love rather than how many red pen marks are on our permanent records, we don't have to be afraid of owning our mistakes honestly, confessing our sins openly, and speaking the gospel's good news to one and all freely.  That's what the world most deeply needs from us, even if the world doesn't know it because it's still fooled by its own lies: our capacity to be truthtellers and trustworthy people like Jesus.  

That might just be the way someone else is led to place their trust in Jesus, who is the Truth--by discovering in the lives of us, his disciples, people who are brave enough to be honest in a world full of lies.  May it be so among us.

Lord Jesus, give us the courage to be truth-tellers and trustworthy people in this day, so that others might come to see you, truly, through us.