Jack Hardaway
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There are lies, and then there are damned lies.
There are little white lies and then there are whoppers.
There is the wicked web we weave when we practice to deceive, and then there is being caught in a web of lies.
There are the people of the lie, and there are the lying liars and the lies they lie.
There is the father of lies, and then there is the way, the truth and the light.
There is Pilate saying “what is truth” as truth is taken from the room, under arrest to be executed as a capital crime, exposing the lie that capital punishment keeps speaking.
There are dry bones, and then there is the flesh and blood of resurrection.
Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
Or, the rite 2 version, you shall not be a false witness.
Or, the short hand, “Don’t lie.”
Or, as the catechism says, “To speak the truth, and to not mislead others by our silence.”
This is the fifth, and final, sermon in a series about the decalogue, the ten words that set us free from the house of bondage, the truth that sets us free to be free indeed, free enough to choose love.
Today we hear the ninth and tenth words, about false witness, and coveting.
The truth about lying is that it is any kind of deliberate deception. Spoken or unspoken.
And the truth about truth is that truth is a person.
To be in the truth, is to be in Christ, to be choosing love when others choose the lie of hate, and the deceptions that hate hides behind.
Be the true witness in a world of false witness, a world of deception, and manipulation, a world that uses and devours.
The truth, that is the person of Jesus, tells us, “Listen carefully: I am sending you out like sheep among wolves; so be wise as serpents, and innocent as doves.”
Being truthful sometimes means we must be wise as serpents and innocent as doves… we are sent out like sheep among wolves, and being true witnesses can be tricky.
Like the Christians hiding and smuggling Jews under Nazi Germany, being true witnesses required that they lie.
Like the Christians who hid slaves and smuggled them to freedom here in our own country, being true witnesses required that they lie.
Like speaking the truth in love, which is different than the truth that hurts. Truth telling is about building up and restoring others.
Like God deceiving the devil, when the powers of death and hell took the body of Jesus, and discovered God hidden within, bursting hell open from the inside out, the divine Trojan Horse putting hell in an uproar because it was done away with.
Truth is as wise as serpents and innocent as doves. The truth can be tricky and paradoxical.
The true witness of God is that God sets the captives free from the predatory lies that devour and feed upon humanity and creation.
Thou shalt be a true witness, a witness of the truth, who is a person.
Truth has a body, truth has a name, truth is personal, truth bleeds.
Therefore, be reverent to all bodies, to all names, to all that bleed.
That is how we accept Jesus into our hearts.
Being infected with reverence and awe.
That is truth.
That is the true witness.
And then there was one.
The tenth word of freedom.
Thou shalt not covet.
Or, You shall not covet anything that belongs to your neighbor.
This is the one that we just don’t give much attention to.
Our consumer economy and culture, on the bad days, is built upon coveting.
On the good days we covet good things like freedom, clean air and water, good jobs, safe space for children, justice for all, not just the privileged. Things like that.
I remember Bishop Henderson would always say that he coveted our prayers.
I like that.
So the consumer economy and culture can be a very good thing.
But on the bad days it twists our hearts, and we become seething, mindless, addicts of want.
Coveting is where the seven deadly sins and the Decalogue overlap, envy.
Of all the sins, coveting is the most poisonous.
Most sin involves something good being twisted into something bad.
There is something pleasurable about most sin.
Not envy, not coveting, there is no pleasure.
It simply saps all the life and joy out of everything.
Pure poison.
It blinds us from seeing the miraculous, the beautiful, and the ordinary.
It is a bloated ever-expanding hunger.
It is the addiction that is consuming our bodies, our country, our freedom, and the vast ecosystem of all creation.
It turns the garden into the garbage pit.
The word is setting us free from the house of bondage, from the house of coveting.
We are being set free to rejoice in other people’s gifts and graces.
Our eyes are being opened to really see others as the miracles that they are.
The best people in the world, and the happiest people in the world, are those who have the freedom to rejoice in and encourage the gifts that others have.
Think of all the great coaches and encouragers in your life.
They are those who are set free from coveting, who can see the amazing thing that everyone around them is and is becoming.
The medicine for this poison that ails us?
Thanksgiving.
Giving thanks for others. For who they are, warts and all.
Giving thanks for who we are, warts and all.
It is the gateway to perception, to true sight, to true witness.
The Eucharist is the great thanksgiving of God on our behalf.
God sees truly, and rejoices.
We give our lives to God in thanksgiving, and God takes our broken lives, blesses them, and gives them back and says, “Surprise me.”
Ten words of freedom.
Count them over and over.
They are more than rules. They show us God.
Speak the word that sets the world free.