The Ten Words from
God p8
Liar, Liar, Pants
on Fire
By Rev Steven R
Mitchell
Mountain View
United, Aurora, CO 2/15/2015
Based on Exodus
20:1-2,16 & James 3:2-6, 9-10
For example, when
you go out hiking in the mountains, there are trails that we are asked to
follow – the guideline. We don’t have to
following that trail, we can stray off and make our own path. By going off the marked path doesn’t mean
that anything bad will happen to us, but what it does mean is we are walking in
unknown territory. We do not know what lies
ahead of us, it could be something beautiful or it could be filled with lots of
danger. Sometimes we can unknowingly do
harm when we deviate from the guideline – such as destroying a part of the
eco-system by stepping on plants that might not recover from the damage done by
of our feet.
This
week we are looking at the Ninth Commandment, “You shall not bear false witness.” As I contemplated during week about what I
was going to say about this commandment, I found no shortage of personal
stories of how I was affected when “bearing false witness” was involved. In fact I could hundreds of examples about
the follies and destruction that takes place when we do not tell the
truth. What I realized is that this is
possibly the most “personal” of any of the Ten Commandments. Personal because each of us has participated
in both telling lies and being lied to.
And because of this so personal of commandments, I think we need less
examples, because we already have our own, but could use another way of seeing
this commandment.
We
know that lying breaks trust. When we
steal from somebody, we are stealing things, things that can be replaced. Much of the time, these things are insured so
we might not even have to put out much money in order to replace it. But when we lie to someone, we are breaking
the bond of trust, and trust is something that often can never be
recovered. I love watching the Vampire
Diaries. One of the re-occurring
activities brought out in this T.V. series, is the disasters that happen when
people are either directly lied too or intentionally kept out of the loop of
information, on the theory that keeping the secret or lying outright will keep
that person safe, which it doesn’t.
Every soap opera, every opera, every novel tells of the same story –
lying doesn’t do anything but destroy trust.
And what do you have in a relationship once “trust” is gone?
This
year some of us are studying the book The
First Christmas, which might seem strange studying the birth narratives
when generally one focuses on something that leads to the Easter story. In reality, this book does lead to the Easter
story, by taking an in-depth look at why in the four Gospels only two, Matthew
and Luke, share the story of Jesus’ birth.
One of the most important questions asked in that study by one who is
attending this Lenten study was, “if we
start to dismantle a part of the scripture from the way that we have
historically been taught to look at it and are told that this is the more
factual way to understand it, then does that mean that other parts of the
scripture are not factual and by not being factual does this mean it isn’t
telling us the truth? If any part of the
scripture isn’t telling us the truth, then is our faith just a lie?” Truth is the most foundational principle that
we need in order to build a relationship.
Our faith is God, comes with believing a truth, if that truth is
violated, then the relationship with God becomes violated. So in our study of this book, we are
wrestling with trying to understand what Matthew and Luke were trying to tell
us, when most of the story involves acts that go against what we know about
physics and natural law.
Words
are an amazing thing. How many of us
think about the words that we speak as being sacred? Why are our words sacred, Pastor? I’m glad you asked. Speech
is sacred because it is godlike. It
creates our world! How we speak to
an infant will either help that child grow in a positive view of themselves or
it can destroy the beautiful creation that they are.
Sister Joan Chittister puts it this way: To speak is to
make a reality. To speak a falsehood
about anyone or anything is to profane the self. But it also violates creation as God has made
it by naming it something other than it is.
It undermines the kind of trust the human community needs to function
together as one family of God. It erodes
personal relationships. It countermines
the credibility of the self. But more
than this, lying obscures the real self- even from the self. In
lying, we begin to lose touch with what we really think, really feel, who we
really are. When we speak with
half-truths, those lies reduce us to a false self, because it violates the
image of God in us. Pg
101-102, The Ten Commandments by Joan Chittister
The really interesting thing is that it takes from the
one who lies as well as from the one who is lied about. Lies go on in a way that stealing never
does. People can recover with
restitution. But lies blanket both the
lied-about and the liars in suspicion, mistrust, and dishonor forever.” Pg 106, The Ten
Commandments by Joan Chittister
As Joan Chittister
notes about the Ninth Commandment, “You
shall not lie” is the spiritual mandate that is meant to save a great deal more
than our reputations. It is a
commandment meant to preserve an entire people from the cancer of mistrust, the
individual from the pitfalls of pride, and the society from living with the
corrosive effects of a culture of deceit.” Pg
106, The Ten Commandments by Joan Chittister
As we leave here this morning, let us
remember that even the littlest of lies, those that we call “white lies” are
the seeds that will corrupt any relationship, but more pointedly, will be the
seeds that start to eat away at our very humanity. “You shall not bear false witness” goes so
much deeper than just lying, it affects who we are as a person. Amen
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