St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, March 15, 2009

The Promise of Truth-telling – Rev. David Mundy

Exodus 20:1-17 John 2:13-22

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Last Fall both the United States and Canada went through election campaigns on the way to forming governments. There were many observers expressed the wish that the one election was as exciting and as interesting to follow as the other. I will leave it to your imagination as to which election could have used a little more zip!

There was one way – an unfortunate way – in which the two elections were similar. After years of shaking our heads at the nasty tone of American political ads we have “arrived” here in Canada, slinging mud with the worst of them in the States. It has been a while in coming, but we seem to have got the hang of it now.

It isn’t just the advertising which has sunk to nasty name calling and criticism. The so-called leadership debates seem to have abandoned the notion of actually discussing the issues in a civilized manner. The candidates rail at one another’s imperfections, real and imagined while the hapless moderator tries to bring some order to the proceedings.

Even the normally commercial-free CBC radio has given air time to these rants. I was so disgusted by what I heard during the election that I wrote the CBC and suggested that the usual commitment to fair and honest reporting of events was compromised by the name-calling and recrimination. I received a polite email in response saying that the public broadcaster was required by an act of parliament to provide a forum to the political parties. I doubt very much that this is what the members of parliament who voted this provision into law had in mind.

We can label all this as childish, or absurd, or defamatory, but is it immoral? Well, were you listening to the commandments this morning? You have probably heard them many times, and we can assume we know them well. Near the end of the list we heard “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neigbour” to use the language of the King James Version, or “No lies about your neighbour” to quote from one of the modern paraphrase.

This morning we continue our readings during the season of Lent which tell us of the covenants or promises of God. Today it was the list of commandments that the leader of the people of Israel named Moses brought down from a mountaintop to be at the heart of their moral and ethical code. You know the story of the Israelites deliverance from slavery in Egypt and how they wander in the wilderness for years in search of the land which God has promised them. They are nomads for a generation before they cross the Jordan into a new life.

As you heard, the commandments begin with a reminder that God brought them out of slavery. It’s hard to imagine that they would have forgotten. But this may be here to serve as a reminder that this moral code to deliver the people from a different sort of slavery, the slavery of their destructive habits and behaviour. Moses comes down with the stone tablets and so we have this image of the commandments as weighty. But Thomas Long offers that the commandments shape us so we can “take flight” into a different way of living/

Are all these commandments created equally to help us to get airborne? There are the important directives to put God first in our lives and not to take God for granted. A couple of the commandments have made their way into our legal code – don’t steal and don’t kill. Adultery used to be illegal as well, but we gave up on that one. Others we choose to quietly ignore such as resting on the sabbath, and not coveting other people’s stuff and sometimes honouring our parents.

Then there is the poor little loner of the commandments, the one which is only a few words long and stuck near the end of the list which tells us not to lie about our neighbours. I realized this week that while I have preached plenty of sermons on the commandments I have never offered a message on “do not bear false witness against your neighbour.”

So is this commandment worthy of our attention? It might not seem as important as “don’t murder” but in some respects the prohibition against bearing false witness, or not to lie about our neighbour is one of the most practical and applicable to everyday life.

Whoever said “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me” hadn’t spent time with a group of teenage girls. Or people squabbling in the workplace. Or members of a church who decided to show the world the love of Christ by engaging in nasty innuendo and arguments.

Jesus connected the dots between you shall not murder and you shall not bear false witness and included this in what we call the Sermon on the Mount:

‘You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, “You shall not murder”; and “whoever murders shall be liable to judgement.” But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgement; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, “You fool”, you will be liable to the hell of fire. Matt 5:21-22

Smart man. It’s as though he were God or something. Jesus understood that angry talk aimed at others is a form of violence. There is a reason that we have the term “character assassination” in our vocabulary. But are we feeling a little hot under the collar? If we took Jesus’ words literally, most of us should stock up on the hotdogs and veggie burgers for eternity!

I will give you three examples of how false talk can undermine our individual and collective health. We hear regularly these days about how the internet is used by teens to start vicious rumour campaigns about some hapless victim. The so-called “social networking” can become decidedly antisocial and these rumours take off on the internet. The use of the term “going viral” is so appropriate – and the results can be catastrophic. There have been instances of young people taking their own lives because they feel so desperate and alone in the face of these attacks.

We are becoming increasingly aware of the effect of the nasty words exchanged between parents in marital breakups. I listened to a family court judge the other day who has written about his experience on the bench while navigating the rocky waters of marital disputes and divorces. Justice Harry Brownstone spoke about the parents who are warring with one another at the expense of the well-being of their children. He had a young boy in front of him who described his father as a megalomaniac, then turned to his mother to ask if he had pronounced the word correctly. He estimated that another couple who were fighting over where their children would go to summer camp, and in what month, spent the equivalent of a year’s university tuition on their dispute. Often couples who start out their separation and divorce proceedings vowing to “take the high road” end up saying and doing things which are incredibly destructive.

Unfortunately churches, the communities of Christ can be hotbeds of false witness in the form of gossip and backstabbing. Some of it would be laughable if it weren’t so hurtful.

A few years ago the Worship and Music committee of the congregation I was serving at the time put up a rainbow at the front of the sanctuary, much like the one which we have across the front of the church during Lent. We purchased swaths of coloured material and went more for the dramatic effect that the scientific accuracy. A rumour began, which I didn’t hear for a while, that the rainbow and its arrangement of colours was actually a secret signal to gays and lesbians that the congregation was a homosexual-friendly community. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or just get angry when I heard about this. I wanted to let people know that we just weren’t smart enough to come up with that idea, but the simple truth was our emphasis with the rainbow was on covenants, not focussing on a particular group of people. Obviously the people who were spreading this rumour were anxious that we might become too inclusive and accepting, but their method for dealing with this anxiety was damaging rather than productive, as rumours and gossip in the church always are.

So how do we move away from falsehood toward the truth? How does the commandment not to bear false witness allow us take flight? In one of the letters to the early Christian congregations some strong guidelines for their life together, including this: So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another. Be angry, but do not sin: do not let the sun go down on your anger and do not make room for the devil. Ephesians 4:25-27

Destructive talk is not a harmless hobby, as tempting as it might be to engage in it. It is rooted in falsehood and anger and it tears apart relationships.

The good news is that we can choose God’s promise of truth-telling. If this sounds familiar, it is because last week and the week before I have said to you that have been given the free will to make the choice to participate in God’s promises. When it comes to this commandment, we will probably be required to make this choice on a daily basis and often in some of the emotionally charged circumstances of our live.

As far as I know, the medical profession isn’t doing tongue transplants as a cure for false talk, but we can undergo an attitude transplant which can stop our tongues before they get started. We can choose to walk away from situations where others are undermined, and we might even express our feeling that destructive talk is not what we want to hear, particularly in our faith community.

After hearing about the anger of Jesus today you may be wondering if there are times when it is appropriate. We aren’t Jesus, but if there is any justification for righteous anger, it must be directed toward unfairness and injustice in positive action.

When it comes to God’s promise of truth-telling, I will come back to Ephesians for the last word.

Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Amen!