Truth or Consequences

The Rev. Dr. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
August 30, 2009

Truth or Consequences
Ephesians 4:14-16

“FINAL NOTICE”
were the words on the outside of the envelope
the mail carrier had just delivered.
Big, bold, heavy letters.
Below those words were “Verification Required.”
On the upper left corner
were more official-looking words,
this time in a box,
words that said, “deliver directly to addressee;
obstruction of US Mail is a federal offense
punishable by fine and imprisonment.”

I was clearly holding in my hand something very important,
something that required my immediate attention.
What was it?
I knew we were up to date with our bills,
so I was not expecting a notice from the gas company
or any other utility company that we were past due.
Our mortgage payments have been timely,
as have our credit card payments.
What was this ominous FINAL NOTICE?

I tore open the envelope,
expecting to find a legal notice of some sort,
mildly threatening, something to stir me to action.
Instead what I found was a certificate;
it said it was worth $300 at Wal-Mart.
I read further:
“Our Promotional Department shows that
you have been awarded two round-trip tickets
to any major international airport
anywhere in the continental USA.”

But wait! There was more:
A free stay at the Marriott;
a free dinner at Red Lobster;
an American Express Gift Card.

This was no Final Notice.
This was something very different.
Something enticing, exciting…

It was also something else:
What I held in my hand was … a lie.
A lie, a fabrication,
a phony come-on
to entice and encourage me
to telephone a 1-800 number,
most likely to hear a sales pitch,
for something I neither wanted
nor needed.

There was no identification anywhere on any of the papers
to tell me who the company was
that was behind the lie.
Nothing, just a string of lies,
to hook me, pull me in.

A lie.
A harsh word, isn’t it?
Perhaps too harsh to use for the kind of come-on
companies use all the time?

Auto dealers have for years
sent out sales pitches enclosed in envelopes
designed to look like they are from
the Internal Revenue Service,
an official letter from the IRS.
The dealers send them out about the time
tax refunds are sent out,
hoping the pitch will encourage folks
with a big refund to spend it on a car.
A lie?
Or just clever marketing?

It is a lie. Absolutely.
A lie is defined very simply:
“something meant to deceive
or give a wrong impression”
(Am. Her. Dictionary, 4th, 1010)

The envelope I opened last week
was designed intentionally,
knowingly, purposely,
to give me the wrong impression
that it was some sort of legal notice.
Inside were more misrepresentations:
that I had won something entirely free
from Wal-Mart, Marriott,
Red Lobster, and American Express.

Tobacco companies are adept at lying.
They lied all those years
they denied any causal link between
smoking cigarettes and cancer.
We know now that they knew then,
that cigarettes caused cancer.

Insurance companies lie when they say
they are on your side,
and then make you fight
to have hospital and doctor bills paid:
“that’s not covered;
that’s excluded;
that was a pre-existing condition;
that provider is out of network;
you failed to get the necessary pre-approval…”

Lies surround us, they wash over us.
False statements in the business world,
on television,
in churches,
from companies,
from individuals,
statements spoken, written, sung,
e-mailed, texted, IM’d,
and now twittered,
statements meant to deceive,
to mislead,
to provide the wrong impression,
to lie.

We’ve been lying since Adam and Eve.
Cain murdered his brother,
and when God inquired as to Abel’s whereabouts,
Cain lied to God, saying “I don’t know.”

The Ninth Commandment is often thought to say,
“Thou Shalt Not Lie”.
But that’s not what it says.
Do you remember?
It says, “you shall not bear false witness
against your neighbor.”
(Ex. 20:16)
In other words, don’t lie about your neighbor in court.
This begs the question, is it okay to lie
to my neighbor,
or about my neighbor,
as long as I don’t lie under oath in court?

Of course not.
The Rabbi who gave us the sixth chapter of Proverbs
helps us to understand that God has no tolerance
for lies of any kind: in court, out of court,
over a backyard fence,
or on a major television network:
“The Lord hates a lying tongue;
[it is an] an abomination to him.”
(Proverbs 6:16-17)

The word “lie” seems so harsh, so heavy.
So what do we do?
We come up with other words, of course!
We call them “mis-statements”.
Or we say the person on the receiving end of the lie
misunderstood.
We find it easy to make truth relative and subjective.
The company that sent me the lying letter,
thinks it is providing me with an opportunity.
Tobacco companies argue all they are doing
is providing customers with a product
in the marketplace.
But this is a slippery slope.
It wasn’t, after all, Jesus who made truth relative,
it was Pontius Pilate
when he so famously asked,
“what is truth?”
(John 18:38)

The biggest lie that has grabbed hold of us
these past few weeks is the lie that
the Health Reform Act being discussed by Congress
contains language that would create “death panels”,
groups of Kafka-esque bureaucrats
who would review cases of those nearing the end of life,
and decide who should get care, and who should not.

It is a lie. Saying so is not a political statement.
It is simply calling the statement what it is:
holding it up to the bright light of truth.
All Christians, regardless of political persuasion,
should find the death panel lie particularly vile,
first, because it is a lie;
second, because of the subject.

The language that is being misrepresented
deals with the difficult choices that confront all of us
at the end of life,
choices and options I discuss with people regularly,
as all clergy do.

Things like:
do you want an advanced directive?
a do-not-resuscitate order?
does someone have your health proxy
to make decisions if you are not able to?
What about hospice and palliative care?
Would you be willing to be an organ donor?

I have discussed these issues with many people over the years.
Does that make me a one-man death panel?

Last week we spoke of the mysteries that envelope us
as we walk by faith,
as we live our lives as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Is there a greater mystery than what happens
as we make that transition from this life to the next?
When we draw our last breath
and enter not eternal rest,
but eternal love and eternal joy
in God’s heavenly kingdom?

We may face that mystery with confidence grounded in faith,
but the process is one that can be frightening
for ourselves and loved ones.
Talking about it, planning,
thinking through choices and options,
can help lift the weight of worry,
take away some of the fear,
even just a little.

Joy Davidman, who was the wife of C. S. Lewis,
wrote that “Lies go hand in hand with language”
(Smoke on the Mountain, 107)
Lies and liars have always been with us,
and always will be.
But what gives a lie life is not the liar;
You and I are the ones who give life to a lie
by believing it.
You and I are the ones who determine
whether a lie will wither and fade,
or blossom and flourish.
It takes two to make a lie:
Liars need people to believe their lies.

That’s the lesson Paul was trying to teach the Ephesians
in our text.
In Paul’s day, there were many men and women
who claimed to know the gospel,
claimed to speak for Jesus Christ.
Paul knew they were liars,
they were, in Paul’s wonderful words,
“hucksters of God’s word” (2 Cor. 2:17)
interested only in the profit they could make
from duping others.
Paul knew there wasn’t much he could do about them.
He knew that God would deal with them
in God’s way and in God’s time.

What Paul could do was urge those who were listening
to listen carefully,
listen critically, ask questions,
check facts.
Don’t just accept what the person was saying
even if the person sounded authoritative.
Paul would say to us today,
“Just because you heard it on television
does not make it true.”

And so to the Ephesians we hear,
“We must no longer be children,
tossed to and fro
and blown about by every wind of doctrine,
by people’s trickery,
by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.”
(Ephesians 4:14)

These are words for us, too.
We are to listen carefully,
probe, do our homework,
use our minds,
test the words,
ask ourselves,
do they really make any sense?

Does the idea of death panel make any sense at all?
Of course not.
The idea is so nonsensical,
that what no one has yet pointed out,
is that it made for a great plot for a hilarious novel
entitled Boomsday, published two years ago
by Christopher Buckley.
Boomsday’s premise was that
in order to keep Social Security solvent
as the enormous cohort of Baby Boomers retired,
the government would offer financial incentives
to any and every Boomer who elected the path of
what the government called,
“voluntary transition”
from this life to the next.
and in the process, of course,
not be around to collect
Social Security.

We talked last week
that even as we are called to embrace
God’s holy mysteries,
even as we acknowledge that there are many things
we will never fully understand,
even as we accept that we walk by faith,
we still need to read, learn, discern,
live our faith with both heart and mind fully engaged.
Only then will we be able to discern
truth from lie,
myth from reality.

Only then will we not be
“blown about by every wind of doctrine,
by people’s trickery,
by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.”

The Grand Inquisitor of Dostoevsky’s famous novel
The Brothers Karamazov complains to Jesus,
“Instead of taking over [our] freedom, you increased it…
Instead of the firm ancient law,
[we have] to decide for [ourselves],
with a free heart, what is good and what is evil,
having only your image before [us] as [our] guide.”

We are free to speak the truth
and we are free to lie.
We are free to accept the truth
and we are free to accept lies.
We are free to turn from lies,
expose them,
leave them so they wither and die
the quick death they deserve.

A simple test:
Do the words build community?
Are they constructive?
Do they enhance justice?
Mercy?
Goodness?
Love?
Do they reconcile or do they divide?
Do they show a desire for the greater good?
Compassion for others?
Are they words the speaker would say just as boldly
just as confidently,
just as authoritatively
if he or she was speaking directly to Jesus?
Paul sums it up well:
“do the words give grace
to those who hear them.” (Eph. 4:29)

You and I are are called by Christ
to speak the truth
and embrace the truth.
We are called by Christ to reject lies.

The consequence of embracing lies
is that we continue to live in the flesh,
but the consequence of embracing truth
is that we live more completely in the Spirit,
the Spirit of Christ.
"Let anyone with ears to hear listen”
(Mark 4:9)
AMEN