Live in such a way that
you would not be ashamed to sell your parrot to the town gossip. Will Rogers
In the Bible, we are called to be
truthful. I have always found it
interesting that the commandment addressing honesty is couched in the negative:
“Thou shalt not bear false witness”.
Why not put a positive spin on
it? Why not say, “Thou shalt bear true
witness”?
Perhaps it is this focus on
negatives – the THOU SHALT NOTs – that causes some people to see religion in a
negative light – seeing religion as a culture of NOTs.
Thou shalt NOT bear false
witness; thou shalt NOT have any other gods before me; thou shalt NOT covet thy
neighbor’s wife, livestock, or other precious commodities; etc.
It is the NOTs, I suspect, that
gets us all knotted up, and yet it seems to me that there is a value in the
negatives. Is it the “nots” that make us “naughty?”
Many of us go through life
thinking of ourselves as honest men and women.
When the clerk at the store gives us back too much change, most of us
will point it out and correct them. There
are those who don’t, of course. Some will rationalize their dishonesty and
their misbehavior – blaming the stores for short-changing them in the past, or
making too high a profit, or more than able to “eat” the mistake. But a lie is
a lie, and theft is theft, and a mistake should be corrected whenever possible.
For the most part, most of us are
honest and will do the right thing if we notice an error, whether the mistake
is in our favor or not. We “do unto
others as we would have others do unto us.”
That’s the Golden Rule; it is known and expressed in any number of world
religions and philosophies; and it is a rule that makes our world a better
place to live when practiced.
Ironically, it is our basic
honesty that often blinds us to the complete truth about ourselves. We are basically good (and I really do
believe that), but in our very goodness arises a certain complacency about our
true condition. We are good, but not perfect. Our motives may be good, but our
results are sometimes flawed.
A while back I was driving out
along Ennis Lake and saw a woman walking her bicycle on the gravel road. I
slowed down and asked if she needed help (thinking she might have a flat tire
or some other issue). She assured me she was fine, so I continued on my way.
Now, I would love to say I
offered help out of the complete goodness of my heart, but the fact is the
parable of the Good Samaritan was the listed reading for the upcoming Sunday,
and I did NOT want to be identified as the “priest who passed by on the other
side.” I genuinely wanted to help (if needed), but I was also protecting my
fragile ego!
Isaiah tells us that all our
righteousness is as filthy rags when compared to God. Is it possible that we are content to think
of ourselves as good, rest on our laurels, and not dig deeper out of fear of
what we will find?
Is it possible that the
commandments are put in the negative form precisely because our temptation is
to bear false witness? Not just about
what we have seen or heard, but in what we have done or thought in the secrecy
of our own heart?
Jesus said, “You shall know the truth,
and the truth shall set you free.”
It is often out of fear and shame
that we hide the truth from our friends, our neighbors, and ourselves, but
there is no hiding the truth from God. Further,
I have learned over the years that being honest with our friends (at least with
those who are trustworthy) – removing the masks of hypocrisy we wear – allows
us the freedom to be more honest, and greater opportunity to be the kind of
people that put a smile on God’s face.
To be human is to be flawed.
True. But we are loved by God, just the same – and called to love one another,
quirks and all.
That’s the truth – at least as I
see it here in this, God’s valley.
