Little Sins, Big Consequences: White Lies
Little Sins, Big Consequences: White Lies by Rev. L. John Gable
March 22, 2020
I am not sure who coined the phrase, but I am fairly certain that whoever it was who first suggested that “little white lies” are nothing more than “little white lies” may well have been telling a “little white lie.”
In this Lenten series we have been talking about “little sins” which have “big consequences” and “just fudging on the truth a little” can prove to be a “big one”.
Truth-telling forms the basis for every essential human relationship. Marriages are founded on vows which state “I do promise and covenant before God and these witnesses to be loving and faithful.” Courts of law are contingent on the premise that witnesses “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God.” Commercial agreements, even those signed and sealed by conditions and contracts, are based on principles of honesty and integrity. And I could go on, but try as I may, I cannot think of a single relationship that is important to me that is not based on the premise of trust and truthfulness. That is why we must be diligent and vigilant to safeguard the truth in both our words and our actions, for it is easy to see how “untruthfulness” in little things can lead to “untruthfulness” in bigger things.
When I meet with couples in pre-marital counseling we talk a lot about the importance of being both trusting and trustworthy. I liken it to having a bank account. Every day in marriage or in any primary relationship we make “trust deposits” when we keep our word and live faithfully into our promises, and over time those accounts grow; so then, when there is a breach of trust, a promise made but not kept, there is a withdrawal or a depletion which must then be regained, either by forgiveness or by reinvestment. Then, staying with the analogy, we can see that a major breach of trust often leads to bankruptcy, so we must be careful to establish and maintain “well-funded” trust accounts with one another. I have even gone so far as to suggest that strong marriages, really any strong relationship, is built on trust as much as it is on love, perhaps even more so. For this reason, we must safeguard the truth and be mindful that even “little white lies” may have “big consequences.”
Several months ago I was reading an article titled “This Is Why Liars Can Outsmart Your Brain.” The author, Jeff Stibel, notes that separating truth from lies is mentally taxing and the way our brains do it is unexpected. Citing numerous studies he explains that we treat information the same way a court treats a suspect: that is, innocent until proven guilty. This means that the brain starts by assuming that the information it is receiving is true and then seeks to confirm or deny that truth. The 17th century philosopher Rene Decartes assumed the process was more neutral. He assumed that upon hearing a statement one would naturally take a second or so to understand its meaning and then either accept it as being true or reject it as being false. However, those who later studied the science of psychology determined that our bias is to accept new information as being true and particularly so when our brains are overloaded. The reason being, when the brain is taxed it essentially shuts down. So if we start by assuming something is true, then when the brain is overloaded (think of the phrase “information overload”) there is little hope of its changing course. We accept lies or “disinformation” as being truth because we have lost our ability to discern the difference.
This all made good sense to me in recent weeks as we have tried to make good decisions regarding best health practices and precautions in light of the Corvid 19 pandemic. There has been so much information coming in and at such a rapid pace from so many different sources that it has been difficult to know who to listen to and what actions to take. I am not suggesting that anyone has been intentionally trying to mislead (although be aware the scammers are coming out in full force), however, we do need to be vigilant as to what sources of information we listen to and what advice we follow. All to say, we must be careful handling the information we receive and then pass on. As James Boswell wisely noted, “We ought to be perpetually watching. It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.”
For these and a myriad of other reasons we need to be diligent and trustworthy when handling the truth: husbands and wives, parents and children, teachers and students, doctors and patients, leaders and constituents, pastors and congregations. These essential relationships in our lives must be established and maintained in truth-telling, in trust and in trustworthiness. We need to have confidence that others are telling us the truth when they assure us that they are speaking the truth. Unlike Jack Nicholson’s famous line in the movie, “A Few Good Men” when he declared “You can’t handle the truth!” I don’t believe that. It is my contention and my experience that people can handle the truth; in fact, they handle the truth, even difficult truths which are hard to hear, much better than they handle “untruths” which are meant to placate and comfort and offer false hope.
Is this to say then that in all ways, at all times, in every situation, we are bound “to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?” No, I am not suggesting that. Rather, taking the admonition we are given in our lesson from Ephesians, we are to “speak the truth in love.” I take it to mean we are to be sensitive to the situation as well as to the person with whom we are talking to determine how much of the truth we are willing to tell and they are able to hear. I don’t take this to mean that we are to tell the burglar where you’ve hidden the silver, any more than when asked, “Are you pregnant?” that you are under compulsion to tell the questioner before you tell your spouse or your family. Some truths can be rightly concealed for a time given the understanding that they will be revealed at another time; and the converse, as Socrates put it, “A lie never lives to be old.”
The speaking of the truth in love implies a sensitivity to the feelings of the other with whom you are talking. As Lewis Smedes instructs, “The art of honesty is to tell the right truth to the right person at the right time. You have no obligation to tell a father that your daughter just made Phi Beta Kappa the same day he told you his son just dropped out of school. You have no obligation to tell of your promotion at work on the day the other was laid off. You may firmly believe that God has a good purpose in mind when terrible things happen to good people, but the time to tell your truth is not when the other has suffered a terrible loss. Some people have an instinct for telling the right truth at the wrong time, but telling it does not make them more honest; it only shows them to be more callous and insensitive. We do well to remember that Paul himself told us to “speak the truth as it fits the occasion”, that is to “speak the truth in love.”
The real question we need to be asking in all of this, however, is “What is truth?” That actually is the question of the ages, this age and every age. Is truth objective or relative? Is your truth the same as my truth or do each of us get to choose our own truth? By what standard do we measure truth or is there a standard at all?
The story is told of the man who, on his way to work every morning, walked past a clockmaker’s store. It was part of his daily ritual to pause long enough to gaze at the big grandfather clock standing in the shop window. One day the clockmaker, who had noticed this daily routine, stepped outside and struck up a conversation. “This one’s a real beauty, isn’t it?” he said, pointing to the clock in the window.
“I’ll say”, said the man on the street. “To tell you the truth, I actually have another motive for stopping here every day. I’m the timekeeper at the local factory. It is my job to blow the whistle at precisely four o’clock. This wristwatch of mine is notoriously unreliable, so every day I stop to recalibrate it to this magnificent timepiece of yours.”
“Is that so?” said the clockmaker who was beginning to feel a bit uneasy. “I hate to tell you this, but the reason this grandfather clock has never sold is that I’ve never been able to make it work precisely right. In fact, I re-adjust it every single day – right at four o’clock, when I hear the whistle go off at your factory.”
What is truth? This is the question famously posed by Pontius Pilate in our Gospel lesson this morning. Jesus has been arrested and charged with “blasphemy” – speaking untruths about God, and “sedition” speaking untruths against the state, and now He stands before the Roman authority to give answer to those charges.
Pilate asks, “Are you the King of the Jews?” and as He often did, Jesus responds to the question with a question, “Do you ask this on your own or did others tell you about Me?” It is possible that Pilate was indeed a spiritual seeker and if so, Jesus wanted to know; if not, He was willing to play Pilate’s little game.
The governor discloses his motives, “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” In this, Pilate showed his hand. He was simply acting in the best interest of the Roman Empire, that of keeping the peace, the Pax Romana, in Palestine. So Jesus revealed His motive as well, “My Kingdom is not from this world. If My Kingdom were from this world, My followers would be fighting to keep Me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, My Kingdom is not from here.” Pilate parlays, “So you are a King?” to which Jesus gives His answer and offers an invitation, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came in to the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to My voice.” And then it happens, Pilate asks, “What is truth?” Ironically, he asks his question to the very One who says, “I am the Truth, and the way and the life”. The Truth was standing right in front of him.
Friends, the Truth (capital T) is not a proposition; not an intellectual argument; not a theory or theorem written in a book, or to be discovered or revealed in a laboratory or a classroom. The Truth is a Person, God “in the flesh”, revealed in Jesus Christ. The primary proposition for us as Christians, our ultimate act of faith, is trusting in the trustworthiness of Jesus Christ. It is here that the Christian faith finds its place to stand. (Elton Trueblood)
Every essential relationship in our lives is based on truth and truthfulness.
Look at Jesus Christ, at His life and the lessons He taught, at His sacrificial death and at His glorious resurrection. He taught us how to live and showed us how to die in the full confidence of hope and faith in the trustworthiness of God and His love for us. He showed us, not just told us, but showed us the way to live with others and to live in to the promise of salvation, into a life full and abundant and eternal.
While every essential relationship in our lives is based on truth and truthfulness, on trust and trust-worthiness, there is no more essential relationship than this one. Jesus Christ is trustworthy and True, because He is the Truth and the Way which leads us to the only Life we will ever really know.
Can we handle the Truth? Absolutely we can because this Truth is already holding on to us.