Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church

“I can not tell a lie.”  Most of us have heard the famous story about George Washington chopping down the cherry tree.  We use the story to teach our children that it is wrong to lie.  Is this always a clear black and white issue? Is there ever a time when it is appropriate to say less than the whole truth?

“Do you like my haircut?” (Were you going for a mohawk?)

“Does this shirt go with these pants?”  (Don’t worry; with that tie nobody will notice the pants.)

“Does this dress make me look fat?” (Is there ever a right answer to this question?)

This weekend we are continuing our Genesis series by looking at the story of Abram’s lie.  Abram worried that the Pharaoh might desire his wife Sarai and want to take her into his harem.  Abram was afraid that other men might kill him in order to take his wife.  So he asked her to join in his deception.  Together they told the Pharaoh and his men that Sarai was Abram’s sister.  It was clearly a lie.  Abram was wrong.

Moral of the story?  Lying is wrong.  If this were all the Bible had to say about lying we could finish here.  This is clear cut: lying wrong… truth right.  There are, however, other Bible stories which clearly make it more complicated.  Let’s talk about what it means to tell the truth.

Read Matthew 5:33-37.

Tony Campolo comes from a traditional Italian home.  One day his mother called him at his office to ask if he would please go to Mrs. Kirkpatrick’s funeral and show his respects.  It was an easy, “Yes.”  He recalled that Mrs. Kirkpatrick had been very kind to his family when he was a child.  So Tony rushed up the steps of the funeral home arriving just as the service was starting.  He darted quickly to a seat.  Then looking around realized there was only one other person.  Catching his breath and beginning to wonder what was up, he went forward to pay his respects to Mrs. Kirkpatrick.  Imagine his shock as he gazed down not at a her, but at a him.  He was obviously in the wrong service.

As he turned to leave, the widow asked him to sit next to her and thanked him for coming to the service.  “You were his friend, weren’t you?” she asked with a tone of desperation looking for a fellow mourner.  In the moment he lied.  Then, for the next two hours he sat at the widow’s side through the service and even accompanied her to the grave site.[1]  

Most of us believe that lying is wrong.  But it isn’t always that simple.   When we get to the gray areas of Tony’s situation, I appreciate that Jesus won’t let us stop with such a superficial easy answer.  In order to unpack Jesus’ teaching about telling the truth and lying we need to review a couple of Bible stories where God honored the telling of … shall we say less than the whole truth?  Must we always answer with the whole truth? 

One of the most fascinating stories about lying versus truth is found in the life of Samuel.  God sent Samuel to anoint a shepherd boy named David to become the next king for Israel.  When he heard the lord’s message, Samuel reminded God that King Saul would not be happy to hear that he was anointing a new king. Samuel worried that his life as well as David’s life would be in danger.  So he asked God what to do if he was asked why he was in Bethlehem.  The Lord told Samuel to simply answer that he was there to offer a sacrifice and lead in worship.  They did not need to know yet that he was anointing the next king.  God encourages half-truths?  Apparently.

So is there ever a time when an outright lie in the Bible is considered acceptable by God?  Indeed there is.  Her name is Rahab.  She is considered one of the honored saints in the Bible. 

Rahab lived in Jericho when Joshua sent two spies into the Promised Land.  When the Israelite spies came to her door, she welcomed them.  When the guards of Jericho came to arrest them, Rahab hid the spies.  On being questioned, she lied to the guards and claimed the men had already departed from the city.  After the guards left she asked if she could convert to the faith of Israel.  In other words, she told a lie in order to follow God.

So must we always tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?  These words remind us that our court system is built on distrusting people’s words.  What do we require when someone offers testimony in court?  The person puts a hand on the Bible as an officer of the court asks the question, “Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”   This ceremony implies that we would normally not trust them but now expect them to fulfill their vow before God.  In fact, we can add various threats of punishment if they lie.  Implication: “We assume most people are not trustworthy, but now we expect you to tell the truth.” 

This is exactly what Jesus challenged in his teaching about truth and lies.  In Jesus’ day people took holy vows to assure the truth.  A typical vow would go something like this, “Do you promise before the holy altar in Jerusalem that you are telling the truth?”   Do you know where a person put his hand when taking such a vow?  It is the place where we get the word TESTImony.  A man (women didn’t speak in court) would do a Michael Jackson move as he took his vow.  Implication: “May I lose my potency if this isn’t the truth.” 

Jesus moves his teaching about truth and lying out of the court system based on vows and instead instructs us to speak truth in our every day conversations.  According to Jesus, we don’t need to take a vow at the altar or the temple.  The goal is to be a person of honesty and integrity.  We grow trusting relationships all around us by being a trustworthy person.  Let your “yes” be “yes” and your “no” be “no.”

This brings us back to Abram.  Actually, the Genesis story of Abram is really two stories.  The first is a story of a lie. The second is a story of a truth.  In chapter twelve Abram worried that the men in Egypt would kill him in order to steal his wife so he asked her to join him in his lie.  “She’s my sister.”  “He’s my brother.”  How must that have impacted their marriage?  How do you think Sarai felt about the lie?  How did that damage her trust in her husband?

Fortunately, this is not the only story about this lie.  This story happens a second time in Genesis 20.  Again Abraham tries to fool a foreign people by saying Sarah is his sister.  She again goes along with the lie.  This time, however, there is a moment of truth.  The king finds out through a dream from God that they are husband and wife.  Then the king confronts Abraham’s lie.  The way the king asks the question forces Abraham into a spiritual exercise.  “What were you thinking of, that you did this?”  Pause for a moment: Listen to the question again, “What were you thinking?’  Not “Why did you lie?”  “What were you thinking?” 

Abraham explores the implication of this question and comes to an important realization.  He realizes that the outward lie to the king began with an inward lie in his own mind.  “I thought, ‘there is no fear of God in this place’…”  He realizes an important truth.  He has been lying to himself, which led to his actions of betrayal in his relationship with his wife.

This is what Jesus wants us to do.  The issue is not whether we tell the truth with our hand on a Bible.  The real issue is to confront the inner lies we tell ourselves.  Jesus points to how we rework our stories to put ourselves in a better light.  “I never said that…  What I meant was….”  Instead of a simple, “I’m sorry I was wrong.”  We have an amazing ability to justify ourselves with our inner stories.   The only way we build trusting relationships and grow trustworthy is to stop lying to ourselves.

Confronting the inner lies may be the hardest thing we ever do.  Becoming a person of integrity is a lifetime journey.  As long as we continue lying to ourselves we will remain stuck in addictions and patterns that hurt ourselves and those around us.

Perhaps this is the power of the Twelve Step program to confront addictions.  While most Twelve Step programs address a specific addiction, those who have worked the program discover that our inner lies are like layers of an onion.  We peel back one lie and discover more.  Each time we think we have gotten honest with ourselves; we face another layer of deception.

Step One confronts the deception that we think we are in control of our lives.  “I can handle it.  I can stop any time I want.  I don’t really have a problem.”  Okay, let’s get honest.  We are in trouble.  We are not in control. 

The Second Step invites us to admit the truth that we need help.  “I’ve tried to stop over and over, but I am stuck.  I can’t make myself stop.  I can’t fix it by myself.”

The Third Step asks us to honestly and humbly reach out to God.  “I’ve been lying to myself and pretending I didn’t need you.  But now I am asking for your help Lord.”

The Fourth Step pushes us beyond the presenting addiction: food, anger, sex, drugs, alcohol, bad relationships… to do a thorough and honest moral inventory.  What are the other places where I tend to lie to myself?  What do others see in me that I refuse to admit?  We do a fearless inventory of our lives.

See how powerful this is?  The goal is not whether we tell lies or speak the truth to others.  The goal is to be people of integrity who confront our own inner lies.  Only then can our “yes” be “yes,” in every day conversations and our “no” be “no.”

The truth has to start with our hearts before it plays out into our relationships.

Around our 35^th anniversary last month I asked Kate for honest feedback about how I lie to myself.  “Kate, you know me better than anybody else does, what do you think is my number one sin?”  Kate reflected for a moment and then said, “You are impatient.” 

She’s right. I expect too much too soon.  I get frustrated when the institutional church changes so slowly.  I want the bottom line not the twisting story that gets there.  I finish other’s sentences when I think they are not talking fast enough.  I tend to be impatient with myself and others.

Knowing that I struggle with impatience, you can appreciate how difficult it was for me to save the end of Tony’s story until now.  As Tony and the widow climbed back into the car following the burial of the casket to return to the funeral home he took her hand.  “Mrs. King, I have something to tell you.  I really did not know your husband…. I want to be your friend… I came to the funeral by mistake.”

She paused and then responded, “You’ll never ever know how much your being with me meant to me today.”

Jesus said the truth will set us free.

[1] Tony Campolo, Let Me tell You a Story (W Publishing Group, 2000) 42, 43.