#1 – Tell the truth without fear or favor – We live in a world full of lies. Jesus came to bring truth. Expose the lies told by both your allies and your opponents and counter them with truth.
– Bishop Peter Storey
January 16, 2025
Dear siblings in Christ,
You’ve heard me talk about Bishop Peter Storey, his life away from South Africa, and the four principles he committed to live by when he returned to his homeland during the Apartheid era. He chose this code for himself in order to live as a person of integrity in the face of unjust political and social systems. In so doing, he was a force of resistance and change. Beginning today, I’m going to reflect on one of Bishop Storey’s rules each week. I would love to hear what they spark in you. They certainly challenge me.
Jesus told his followers that truth, found in relationship with him, sets us free (John 8:31-32). He says this in the context of describing people as being slaves to sin, which is, of course, one of the great scriptural metaphors for the human condition. You can’t always flip a teaching like this in the opposite direction and still have something sound. But in this case I think we can. Truth sets us free. Falsehood and lies are both the agents and expressions of our enslavement to sin, both the cause and the evidence of our bondage.
Exposing lies is important as followers of Jesus. It is a first step to healing and recovery, an initial and necessary move toward wholeness. The prophet’s first task is to name what isn’t right so that they can offer a hopeful alternative. When we name the lies we hear and counter them with truth, we are part of that healing, restoration and hope.
You and I are always called to speak up when we identify a lie. But it isn’t always easy. When we do, we risk offending, being judged ourselves, or even sometimes becoming the target of an opponent’s ire. Speaking truth to power comes at a cost.
Speaking truth to an opponent is hard. And, harder still, are those times we call people on “our” side to a greater honesty.
During one of her college summers, our daughter Sophie was an intern for a powerful D.C. lobbying group, of the stripe we might call “liberal”. Sophie was tasked with researching data that the group could use to support its cause. It was a disruptive and sorrowful eye-opener when, having found solid research that, in fact, supported the other side, she was told the group knew all about that but did what they could to ignore and even suppress those data. She believed in the cause. And she struggled with the deception, evasion, and half-truths – all euphemisms for “lies” – that sometimes supported it.
The bedrock of our ability to live with integrity is to speak liberating truth to our allies and opponents alike. To not let ourselves or someone we agree with get away with hedging “just a little bit” for what feels like a greater purpose. “They aren’t being completely honest either” is not a Christian teaching. Any lie we tell, even those that feel justifiable, contributes to our own enslavement. (Full disclosure: I think it’s OK to tell someone that you do like their new haircut when, in fact, you think it looks kind of weird. Just saying.)
Tell the truth without fear or favor. We live in a world full of lies. Jesus came to bring truth. Expose the lies told by both your allies and your opponents and counter them with truth.
With you on the path,
Jenny+
コメント