The New Lift List: Honesty

Colossians 3: 9-11 I want to talk about honesty y’all. Paul straight up says in Colossians – do not lie to each other. That verb, in Greek, “to lie” means exactly what it means in English. No fancy translation magic there. It means to speak falsely, to speak in order to deceive. Do not lie to each other. I would bet that this gives you flashbacks to your mama or your daddy, or your grandparents. Holding up some broken thing, pointing to some scribbles on the wall, “did you do this? Don’t lie to me.” It can seem so straightforward, this honesty thing. It’s part of the mythology of our country – we pride ourselves in being simple, honest, straightforward Americans. George Washington and the cherry tree – probably, ironically, a myth – but the idea behind it remains. The founding father of our country was so honest he couldn’t lie about cutting down that cherry tree with his little hatchet. Or maybe it was Abraham Lincoln who that story was about – the one called Honest Abe. But politicians have made big money by assuring people that they are the honest one. That they are the straight-shooter, no matter how crooked the deals behind the scenes. We value honesty in this country. But do we practice it? Are we actually honest? We wish honesty was as simple as little George with his hatchet. But as we grow we learn there are shades of honesty. “Do I look fat in these pants?” is the ultimate dishonest question, begging for a dishonest answer. What about lying to keep a surprise party a secret – is that dishonest? What about when a waiter asks if everything is good, and honestly your soup is a little cold, but they are so busy, and they look desperate for a kind word, and you just say, “it’s great – thank you.” What about when a friend says something that stings a little and they too ask, “did I hurt your feelings” and you say, “no, I’m fine. We’re fine.” Is it OK to call in sick when you just need a day off to relax? What about exaggerating on your resume, to make your work history seem a little bit better, to get the job you need to feed your family? What about lying on your taxes? What about big lies – to people we love? Are you cringing just a little bit more with each example – and can you see the shades of gray in between a lie and the truth? It’s not enough for a Christian in a complicated world simply to say “don’t ever lie.” We have to dig a little deeper. Our complex lives require it. Plus, add this to the mix: when I was at my last church, because it was in a town, and a fairly high-poverty area, I got a lot of foot traffic from people asking for money. We get some of that here, not as much. But I would always listen, always pray, almost always offer a meal or snack of some kind, and sometimes offer to help financially. The thing was, I never knew if the stories I was listening to were true. I bet some of them were. I know some of them were not, because I heard almost the same story verbatim from several people. But for the most part, I had no idea. It was pointless to even guess, because there was no evidence, just the word of a stranger. Not only a stranger, but a desperate stranger, whose lights were about to be cut off, or whose car was going to be repossessed, or who was about to be evicted, or whose family didn’t know where their next meal was coming from. Those parts, I know were true. Or at least truth-adjacent. But I asked myself – if my family was going to starve, or go without heat in the winter, or get kicked out of their home – might I tell a lie, even a small one, to a compassionate stranger to get help for them? Sure, the truth will set us free, but it’s not much fun to be free when you’re also cold and hungry.

It all came together when I was on a mission trip to Haiti and someone from the local mission center where we were staying said, “don’t always believe everything people tell you here. Of course, it could be true. But people here are poor, and because they’re poor, they will tell whatever story they need to tell, to get you to buy something, or give them a dollar, etc. It’s not a moral failing – it’s survival.” Ah. This adds even another layer to the complex puzzle of honesty. Would you lie – if it meant survival? Even if it was just surviving the day? For most people in poverty, here and in other countries, surviving the day is all they can worry about. Dishonesty isn’t just a moral issue – it’s a survival strategy. In our Christian history, when the Romans were heavily persecuting the Christians, many Christians denied their faith to avoid being horribly killed. The church struggled then with what to do with those people who had renounced the faith – even though it was just in words, not in their hearts. Should we allow these people back in – even when they denied they were part of the church? Even though that denial was at spearpoint, or under threat of the lions, or whatever the punishment was that day? Would you be truthful, in that moment? Or would you survive? Which is why it is fascinating what Paul says next in Colossians. He says, “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. In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!” Basically, Paul is saying, do not lie to each other, because you are new creation, made in the image of God, and you are all equal. Of course, we know from the book of Acts that churches in that time were encouraged to share everything they had together – to make sure no one went without food or clothing. To sell their houses and land even, to give the money to the church. So maybe it’s easier to be honest with each other, if you don’t have to worry about what you’re going to eat or wear, if you know on some basic level you’ll be taken care of – or if you come on some hard times, at least you’re in it together. You’re a team. You don’t lie to your teammates, it hurts the team. You can’t accomplish much if you’re not honest with each other. But if some member of the team is hungry or feels less important or less taken care of, they might also be less honest. When, on the other hand, everyone is equally taken care of – it removes a lot of things there are to lie about. For us today, we think of honesty as such an individual thing. We think that we, our own individual selves, are responsible for this moral trait. We are the ones, after all, who control whether we lie or tell the truth. But last week we talked about how everything we do as Christians is done in a group – we call thing connectionalism. It’s what we celebrate at the table – that we’re all part of one body. And what one person, one member, does affects us all. The same goes with honesty. If someone has what they need to survive and even thrive – they will have less of a need to lie. So what is our responsibility as the body of Christ to make sure other people are taken care of? Also, if someone feels connected to the body, and knows they are able to tell the truth, because the body will embrace them and forgive them, rather then kicking them out – remember, connectionalism, not correctionalism – pulling people back in, rather than pushing them out – doesn’t the environment do a lot for whether people are willing to tell the truth? For example, if a member of a church has been struggling with something – let’s say alcohol addiction. And they know that the congregation is judgmental about drinking. So they keep their addiction super secret. And it gets worse, and worse. Until finally someone finds out. And kicks them out of the church for drunkenness. Where does that leave that member? If, on the other hand, they feel loved and accepted, enough to confide in the pastor or a trusted friend in the church – and that person they confide in connects them with someone else who’s had that same struggle, or to a group like AA, and they begin the process of being honest with themselves, and with others, about their struggle, and the church embraces and forgives them– now where is that member? Which is the better, more Christ-like model? This is the truth – honesty isn’t just about truth-telling for us as individuals. It begins there. But it is also about the body of Christ. Remember Paul doesn’t just say don’t lie to each other. He says don’t lie to each other because you’re now all equal parts of the body of Christ. For us as Christians, honesty is just as much about making the body of Christ a place where honesty is possible, where honesty can flourish, as it is about not telling lies. It means making sure people have what they need to survive – so they don’t have to lie to survive. It means making sure people know they are loved and accepted – so they don’t have to lie about who they are in order to be loved and accepted. And the same tasks are important wherever we are – in our own families and households, in our workplaces, in groups we’re a part of. And when that foundation work is done, honesty will naturally grow and bloom. We won’t have to work hard to be honest. We will want to be honest with one another. We will want to speak the truth in loving ways, which is the gold standard for truth-telling as Jesus- followers. It will pain us to be dishonest with one another.

So our work this week, on our New Life List, is to ask ourselves lots of good questions. Where are the areas of my life that honesty is easy? And why? And where are the areas where honesty is hard – and why? And what can I do in all the different communities I’m in, to make honesty easier for everyone? Our challenge is not just to force ourselves to be more truthful – our challenge is to make our lives so full of new life that honesty can flourish and truth can be as easy as breathing. Not just for ourselves but for everyone. Thanks be to God. Amen.

#God #nature