Telling It Like It Is.
Truth Telling!
“You are the one!”
2 Samuel 12:1-13, Ephesians 4:15,16
It has been a wonderful vacation…a week at the beach with my sister and her husband, my brother and his wife, their newborn and baby Lauren who is now three. I had forgotten how much truth telling there is with a 3 year old. We hadn’t been all together for an hour when Lauren asked my sister why she talked so funny? How do you explain a Yankee accent to a three year old! With the cars unpacked of groceries and suitcases, we soon put on our bathing suits to head for the first swim of the week. Seeing me in mine, Lauren tells it like it is, “Aunt Laurey, your tummy sure does stick out!” Truth telling can be hard to hear.
But the kind of truth telling that I want to talk about this morning is not simply blurted out from the innocence of a child. Nor is it the kind telling the truth to deliberately hurt or be mean like telling someone that the dress they are wearing is the ugliest one you’ve ever seen. It is what Apostle Paul means about speaking the truth in love for the sake of building up a person or a community or even a church. It is to confront a wrong…a sin with the truth….and telling it like it is.
In their role, parents are called to do it all the time.
He was sixteen, the youngest to be elected ever as an elder of the congregation. His parents were proud but worried. When the police escorted him home one Saturday night with the proof of an open six-pack of beer, his parents were furious and grounded him for the summer.
Truth telling doesn’t come easy for any of us whether it is in our family or the family of God. Part of it is that no one likes conflict and truth telling usually is confrontational. Even in my own immediate family, we would all rather sweep something under the rug than have to deal with an issue straight on with the truth.
It is also hard because none of us is without sin. We think who are we to confront someone else’s wrong when we have our own to deal with? But one good thing that has come out of the Penn State’s Sandusky trial is the reminder and the call for us all in our communities and in our families truth telling. There is a time and a place for it. As hard and as painful it may be, truth telling is much needed in our world. And speaking the truth in love is what we are called to do as part of living out our faith.
His parents not only grounded the 16 year old for the summer but also told him that he would have to resign as an elder for how could he serve after doing such a thing. They demanded that he go before the session and confess the truth of the matter.
In Barbara Brown Taylor’s book, Speaking of Sin, there is an interesting chapter called “Sin Is Our Only Hope.” Taylor states that in the medical community sin is referred to as a “sickness” and the law calls sin a “crime.” But the church must call it what it is: “sin.” Only then can we fully understand what wrong is and the consequences of brokenness in relationships between us and ourselves and God. Confronting sin as sin, telling it like it is no matter how painful it may be, is our only hope for being redeemed and restored.
Coming in to the room where the Session was getting ready to meet, the young man cannot meet anyone with his eyes even when several elders say something to greet him. He thinks he will be sick right there on the spot as he slides into a seat. When the pastor calls on him to speak, the 16 year old explains, with his head hung low in shame, how he had disappointed his parents, his family, himself, the church and most of all his Lord. He says how sorry he is for what he has done and suggests that they kick him off the session. His eyes stay down as his voice breaks.
Truthtelling has to do with God’s saving grace—our salvation. Salvation is not a ‘me and sweet Jesus” kind of word that so many of us mistaken it for. Nor is it simply about the future when we die and go to heaven. In the New Testament, The Greek word in the NT for salvation—-soteria—-really means health, healing, peace, harmony, oneness, wholeness for the whole person (body/mind/spirit), and for the whole community. It is a synonym for the Old Testament Hebrew word shalom.
Truthtelling upheld with love can lead to healing and wholeness. It is perhaps one of the most difficult things we are called to do in our faith but it leads to coming together and having peace within ourselves and each other. It is a gift that is a part of God’s saving grace that we know in Jesus Christ.
You could have heard a pin drop- in the Session room that night. Finally the oldest person on the session cleared his throat. “Young man,” he began, “There’s not a person sitting around this table that hasn’t disappointed somebody they loved. If we all confessed our sins just for this week to you, we’d be here all night.”
“Maybe all week,” someone else spoke up.
“We hear you, son. You did wrong and you are sorry about it. Now hear us, son. Being a Christian isn’t about being ashamed and living with it. It’s about telling the truth, confessing the wrong and being sorry for it. And then…then it’s about being forgiven and going on. That’s what I learned from Jesus…that’s what we’ve all learned and want for you. Son, you are forgiven.”
The boy finally looked up with his eyes brimming in tears and the elder said to him, “Now let’s go on living that good news of God’s saving grace.”
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