Ninth Word of Community Design - Deuteronomy 5:1-5, 20
You know, early on when we started this series on God’s Words of Community Design, our journey through what we commonly call “The Ten Commandments,” I briefly referenced the controversy that has erupted over the years and the fact that, for the most part—in most places in the United States—The Ten Commandments can no longer be displayed in a courthouse. However, it was not until this past week that I came across the real reason. You cannot post “Thou Shalt Not Steal,” “Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,” and “Thou Shall Not Lie,” in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.
As we have already gone covered the words relating to “not stealing” and “not committing adultery,” today we turn God’s Ninth Word of Community design, “Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor,” or as the Contemporary English Version of the Bible puts it, “You shall not tell lies about others.”
While the Ten Commandments have been removed from the courthouses, this commandment most readily is applied to a trial setting. We hear, “Neither shall you bear false witness,” and it makes perfect sense that it is about testifying truthfully in a court of law. That means, “hey, if were not in the middle of any judicious litigation then we don’t have to worry about violating this commandment or word of God’s design, right?”
Well, actually wrong. According to at least one scholar:
“…“the Jewish people understood that it was meant to apply to the whole realm of human relationships, covering all forms of slander, defamation, and misrepresentation…in truth all the world is a courtroom. Everywhere and always, reputations are on trial. It is not only before judge and jury that you and I are called innocent or guilty; would that it were so! Such decisions are constantly being made at business meetings, luncheons, during telephone gossip, at parties, during coffee breaks, in letters, and in Email.”[i]
With this understanding of the commandment—that “all the world is a courtroom” and that judgments are constantly being made, then every word that proceeds from our mouth as it relates to another person falls under the umbrella of “Neither shall you bear false witness against your neighbor.” We remember from Jesus that all in the world, everyone we encounter is our neighbor, and we see just how far this commandment expands. We are not to speak lies about anyone. This is why this commandment is so often shortened simply to, “You shall not lie.”
The truth of the matter is, my brothers and sisters, that we probably violate this commandment more than any other. It would seem that in one way or another we all simply fail to speak the truth. Why do we lie? Sometimes we lie make someone else look worse than we are…a common practice as we gear up for the campaigns of 2012. Sometimes we lie simply to protect ourselves…knowing that if the truth were known, we might be in trouble… “Did you take the last cookie out of the cookie jar?” or “Where were you on the night in which Billy Bob was murdered?” Sometimes we lie to make ourselves look good…job and loan applications are full of these. Other times we lie in order that we might profit…we all know the stereotypical reputation of the used car salesman, but what about the figures we report to the IRS? We might lie to protect a friend…to keep them out of the trouble in the same way we would protect ourselves… “Yes officer, we were at the movies when the bank was robbed”…or, one teenager telling another teenager’s parents that their child was going to spend the night with them, while they were really out with their boyfriend. There are those lies that we tell to spare someone else’s feelings, “I know it has been 50 years since we graduated, but you haven’t changed a bit.” Of course, there are also those lies that we tell that we are not sure who we are protecting…you know, our response when someone close to us asks the question, “Do I look fat?”
Lying takes place so often in our society that it is hard to know whether anyone is telling the truth. Samuel Langhorne Clemens knew this of his own reputation when he wrote in his travel memoir, Following the Equator, “My own luck has been curious all my literary life; I never could tell a lie that anyone would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe.” In fact, Mr. Clemens, who we better known as Mark Twain, offered his own debate on truth-telling, in his short story, “Was it Heaven? Or Hell?” In that short story, while debating the validity of always speaking the truth, points out the ways in which some of the best of us misspeak, not with our lips, but with our body action, or with words left unsaid. It is those half-truths that many of us try to get away with. I will confess, when I was in my early 20’s, I was wondrous at telling those supposed truths that were not all of the story, such as calling up my employer to tell them I could not get to work because my car would not start. I did not share with them that my car would not start because I failed to put the key in the ignition. I figured I told the truth and tried to justify it that way.
The question we have to ask is, “what is wrong with telling a lie?” Why would got put “bearing false witness” or lying right up there with murder, adultery, and stealing. Those big three, especially now that over the last few weeks we have considered the depth of those commandments, seem pretty obvious to us, but why include lying?
The truth of the matter is that lying is a violation of the previous three. Lying can destroy another person. If I were to slander, ____________, and go around and telling everyone that I know that he/she opens and reads his/her neighbors mail, what would that do to her/his reputation…it would murder it. If I were to suggest that it may be possible that ________ is stepping out with _________, though I am not sure, what could that do to the one flesh that God has joined together in marriage…it would divide it. If I were to slip an anonymous note to _________’s employer suggesting they might want to check him/her for embezzlement, knowing that my friend would be next in line for the position if _________ gets fired, I have stolen their reputation. And, my friends, when those kind of things happen within a group of people that are called to live together…it steals our ability to trust one another, it divides the body of Christ, it murders any sense of community.
How we speak to and about one another is just as important as how we speak to and about God. In fact, the Hebrew word for false witness is the same word used in the third commandment, when it says, not to misuse the name of the Lord. Just as we are not to misuse God’s name, not to use God’s name in vain, the ninth Word of God’s design for the community tell us that we are supposed to have the same respect for our neighbor’s name that we have for God’s name. This commandment tells us that we are to speak of our neighbors in ways which build them up, not destroy them.
So that means that harmful lies are out, but little white lies, those are okay, right?. You know those lies that help protect someone else’s feelings, we can tell those, can’t we preacher? Well, consider this, I was told those kind of lies more many years, up until over a year ago, “you’re not really fat…you can’t way that much….” Hey, in some ways I appreciated folks trying to spare my feelings, but honestly, as I carried around that much weight and the damage it was doing to my body, those white lies were harmful, as they gave the assurance that everything was okay. That does not mean that we should go around bluntly telling folks everything wrong about them, but learning to lovingly come alongside them and guide them in an honest and caring way.
So no lying, no harmful words, no words that intentionally or unintentionally destroy, no words that bring disparity upon our neighbor…so how are we to speak?
It was not my planning, but I think it is a God-thing…not a coincidence, but a God-incidence as one of my colleagues puts it, that we come upon this ninth Word on All Saint’s Sunday. Today we remember those who have gone before us…we remember that “great cloud of witnesses” of which Hebrews speaks. We remember those whose lives and words enabled us to be a people of faith. We remember those who spoke words that brought us together and built us up to be who we are today, to be St. Paul’s, to be God’s Church, to be part of the people of God.
That is how we are to speak to and about our neighbor. We are to use words that speak the truth in love…words that will build them up and strengthen them…words that will give them a firm foundation. God’s design for his community is that we not be false witnesses against our neighbor, but speak to and of one another in such a way that we build one another up and enable to be one another all that God has called us to be—to faithfully live in community together—to be able to love, support, and trust each other.
As we gather at this table today, sharing the meal of Christ’s community, let us offer to God the false witness of our past, and receive the grace of God, to go forward, speaking His truth in love, trusting in His Spirit to build us into His community.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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