Don't Lie/Wear Your Helmet (The 10 Commandments)
Exodus 20:16 (NRSVUE)
“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
Psalm 139 (NRSVUE)
O Lord, you have searched me and known me.
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
you discern my thoughts from far away.
3 You search out my path and my lying down
and are acquainted with all my ways.
4 Even before a word is on my tongue,
O Lord, you know it completely.
5 You hem me in, behind and before,
and lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
it is so high that I cannot attain it.
7 Where can I go from your spirit?
Or where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I ascend to heaven, you are there;
if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.
9 If I take the wings of the morning
and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
10 even there your hand shall lead me,
and your right hand shall hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
and night wraps itself around me,”
12 even the darkness is not dark to you;
the night is as bright as the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
that I know very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance.
In your book were written
all the days that were formed for me,
when none of them as yet existed.
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand;
I come to the end—I am still with you.
19 O that you would kill the wicked, O God,
and that the bloodthirsty would depart from me—
20 those who speak of you maliciously
and lift themselves up against you for evil!
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord?
And do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
22 I hate them with perfect hatred;
I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
Let us pray -
From the cowardice that dares not face new truth,
From the laziness that is contented with half truth,
From the arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Good Lord, deliver us. Amen.
Today is the Ninth week in a back-to-basics series on The Ten Commandments. Number 9, at least the way we number them in our tradition, is “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor,” It is often shortened to “Don’t Lie.” Which is not wrong, but it’s incomplete. In the original Hebrew, it’s more like “don’t give false testimony about your neighbor under oath.” Which is very specific, but it also gives the commandment deeper intensity - God doesn’t just care what you do in your heart, or when you are worshiping God, God cares what you do and say in the world, God cares what you do and say in public.
One day, someone should preach a sermon about the importance of honesty in community, and repentance when trust between neighbors is broken. But Dalton declared this a year of getting back-to-basics and I’m afraid that’s not basic, or at least it’s not any more. I can’t preach that sermon before I preach this one.
There’s an idea that many of us have learned that says we are not good, but we can become good if we just do what we are supposed to do, and don’t do what we’re not supposed to do. You might have even learned that you can save yourself that way, but you can’t, you never could. And more importantly, you never needed to.
You are good. You’re made in the image of a good and loving God, to be a good and loving human. The part of scripture we call The Ten Commandments are the Ten Best Ways to do that. They aren’t easy. They aren’t The Ten Easiest Ways, or The Ten Fastest Ways, or The Ten Things You Can Do Once and Never Have To Do Again. They are the Ten Best Ways, and they are a lifetime of faithful practice and work.
Last Tuesday, my 10-year old son called me on his walkie talkie after school and asked for a ride home. This is weird, because Theo rides his bike to school. So, I asked him why he needed a ride and he said, “Yeah, I forgot my helmet. It’s still at home. I got all the way to school before I realized it. I’m walking my bike right now and I need a ride home.”
Like many families we have a firm “Never ride without your helmet” rule. And in our family, one of us is alive today because he was wearing his helmet when a car ran into him on his bike. So we all take this rule seriously.
So it’s kind of like a commandment in our family - “You shall not bike without your helmet.” What would you guess is my motivation for giving that instruction?
Am I trying to catch my kids doing something wrong? I’m really not. In fact, there was no consequence for Theo forgetting his helmet, except that he had to walk halfway home before Andy picked him up.
Am I trying to teach my kids a lesson? Definitely NOT. The only way to learn a bike-helmet lesson is by needing a helmet to save your life, and I hope that never happens.
Am I trying to make life harder for them, or make biking less fun? No.
You already know what I’m trying to do. The road is a dangerous place. I love my kids. I want them to ride their bikes and have a blast doing it, but I want them to come back home to me safe and healthy every time.
You shall not bike without your helmet, is my instruction to my kids. It’s an instruction, not a condition. My love isn’t conditional on helmet wearing. It doesn’t determine whether or not you are in this family. Not wearing a helmet does not change the fact that my kids are good kids. I just want them to be ok. Riding a bike with your helmet is the best way to stay well and take care of yourself while you're doing it.
These Ten Commandments, or Ten Best Ways, work the same way. God wants us to speak the truth for the same reason I want my kids to wear a helmet. The world is a dangerous place. God loves us. Telling the truth and making peace with reality is the best way to stay well, and stay connected to God and our community.
So, when you lie, I want you to stay curious about it.
Yes. I said, “When you lie…” and not “If you lie.” I can't stand up here and pretend that you and I don’t lie, or that after hearing this sermon we never will again. You will and so will I. This is not a judgment against you. It’s a description of modern life. Let me give you an example -
If you were in line for coffee at a coffee shop, and I came in behind you and there were other people around, and I said, “Hey, how are you?” What would you say? “Fine. Good. How are you?” Even if things are really quite bad, and even if you and I are trusted friends and you CAN tell me how it really is, you’re probably not going to do that in line at Dancing Goats. And I wouldn’t either. And you can twist your brain around so that it’s not a lie, right? We do this all the time with lies of politeness, or lies of omission. But for today, I want us to acknowledge that no matter our good intention, when we do this, we’re not bearing witness to the truth. We’re just not.
Here’s another one. After Theo was born our church in North Carolina set up a meal train for us, and one night the nicest lady brought me a tuna quiche. This is where you put eggs and canned tuna in a pie crust and cook it. She thoughtfully left out any cheese or seasonings, in case the baby was sensitive, so it was just eggs and tuna. She was so proud to bring this dish to me. She said that it was what she craved when she was nursing her baby back in the 1970’s, so she wanted to make one for me.
I was so touched by her thoughtfulness. AND, I threw the quiche in the trash. I ordered steaks from Outback for dinner THEN I emailed her and thanked her for the delicious quiche. I did. I told myself at the time that it was delicious to be so thoughtfully cared for, so it wasn’t a lie.
These kinds of lies are not bearing false witness against our neighbor - when we do this, we’re not talking trash, we’re not lying under oath, we’re probably not directly hurting anyone, except maybe the next new mom who gets a tuna quiche delivery because I wasn’t honest.
But, anytime we choose to hide the truth, or to present something other than the whole truth, it should give us pause, and we should ask ourselves, why? And our answer to that question needs to be brutally honest.
So, let’s go back to the coffee shop for a minute. If someone asks you how you are, and you answer “fine, how are you?” even though you are not fine. In the spirit of Not Bearing False Witness, it’s worth asking yourself why you answered that way. An honest witness about your life would be that it’s hard sometimes, right? There are good days and bad days.
For me, if I’ve run out of coffee at home… and I’m in line at Dancing Goats… yeah, I’m probably not fine. So why would I say that I am, when an honest witness is that I am not. I can think of three reasons I might tell this lie.
It might be because I’m too proud to admit that anything is wrong. I sometimes need to present myself as having it all together. Pride is a stumbling block to both faith and authentic relationships, so if I’m lying out of pride, that’s helpful information.
Or, it might be because I’m so overwhelmed that if I start talking honestly, I’ll start crying in public, and that would actually make things worse. If that’s why I lied, that is also helpful information. That lie is a sign that I am doing too much and I need to find a way to take a break.
Or it might be because the person who asked is someone I don’t trust. That is also helpful information. Maybe I really do need to check in with someone about how I’m doing, but that wasn’t a safe person to have an honest conversation with.
Instead of bending my mind to make a lie seem like the truth, the better use of my brain is to reconnect with the truth and ask why I stepped away from it. When we stay curious about things like this, instead of feeling shamed by them, or defending them, we have an opportunity to learn and grow. It’s also a chance to check in with God.
The Psalmist does this so beautifully in our Psalm this morning,
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
24 See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting.
This is a powerful prayer, particularly after lying, because it can be difficult to tell sometimes who that lie is for and who it is protecting. There is no better way to get clarity around that, than to ask God to help you know your own mind and heart.
The Psalmist prays these last four lines after saying some pretty aggressive and questionable things - O, that you would kill the wicked, O God. Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord? I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.
And after saying these questionable and aggressive things, the Psalmist stops, changes course and says, “Check me God, that might not be right. Check my mind and my heart, and if something bad is going on, help me get it right.”
Sometimes going to God when we’ve messed up is the last thing we want to do. We fear God’s anger and judgment, and we’ve been taught that we can and should save ourselves by doing the right thing all the time. But that’s just wrong.
When Theo called to ask for help, because he’d messed up, my primary feeling was gratitude. I didn’t want him to try to bike home without his helmet, and I was just so glad he called for help, instead of fearing that I’d be mad about it. He still had to experience the natural consequences of messing up, but his dad headed in his direction and met him halfway.
Isn’t that what we all hope for - that the kids in our lives will reach out when they need us? Especially if they’ve messed up. And if that’s true for us, how much more do you think it’s true for God? No matter how far off we’ve gone, or how bad we’ve messed up, I trust that God is grateful when we turn back.
So when you lie, I hope you will stay curious about why you did it.
If you pretend that things are fine, when they are not…
If you blame someone else when it was your responsibility…
If you lie about how early in the day you start drinking…
If you aren’t honest about who you were with…
If you minimize how often you yell at your kids…
If you minimize how often you yell at your parents…
If you describe your childhood in a way that isn’t accurate…
If you say you’ll try, when you know that you won’t…
This is not about whether or not you are good, it’s not about whether you are a child of God, or a follower of Jesus. You are. It’s about staying well. Being honest, first with yourself, is the Best Way to stay healthy and to stay connected to God and your community.
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my thoughts.
See if there is any wicked way in me,
and lead me in the way everlasting. Amen.
