Tossing out the lies

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/123118.cfm
1 John 2:18-21
John 1:1-18

What else does God tell us about himself in our readings today, especially the epistle of 1 John? Once again there’s always too much to capture and cram into one train of thought. One thing, however, stuck me. That every lie is alien to God, because lies are alien to the truth that is God. The ramifications of that bit of revelation ripple in every direction. I have so many lies stored away. I do not like to talk about this, but as the train has now left the station … all aboard.

The setting of those folks initially reading the first letter of John had to have been at a gathering, likely of elders, anointed priests and deacons of the Church. Some suggest they were probably gentiles. The letter is presumably written by the Apostle John and is dated near the end of the first century. John writes to believers wrestling with a heresy that’s settled into their community. The heresy isn’t clearly stated, though most scholars believe it was docetism, the constructed belief that Jesus came to earth as a spirit not a physical person. I say constructed, because the scriptures never make such a proclamation.

The focus upon knowing truth, being able to measure viable teachers, and how Christians live in love makes for a broader appeal by John. John could be talking about almost any heresy, any false teaching. The particular heresy of docetism doesn’t get much publicity because John pinpoints all lies as alien to God and therefore known as dangerous for Christian behavior and Christian doctrine.

From the first book of John, our reading for Monday includes my further edited section taken from Chapter two:

Children, it is the last hour; 
……
But you have the anointing that comes from the Holy One,
and you all have knowledge. 
I write to you not because you do not know the truth 
but because you do, and because every lie is alien to the truth

John Sorensen, who loves to quote Brennan Manning, reminded me of one of the philosopher’s famous quotes from The Ragamuffin Gospel. “In philosophy, the opposite of truth is error; in Scripture, the opposite of truth is a lie.” 

When we grasp that God is the epitome of truth, and more than just a personification of good — being both the source and channel of it — then we who align ourselves with God also should leave no room for lies. Lies don’t always get categorized this way. Errors and transgressions and mistakes viewed through non-spiritual eyes end up weighing failures, including our lies, as simply fixable delays in our daily personal and communal progress toward some romantically defined success. Lies, however, do none of that. They foolishly attempt to hide the motive and selfish desires of our own manipulations from the spying eyes of others. Lies then trick us into believing we can hide from God.

Truth, however, displaces everything that is false. Every false thing is a lie. All lies, subsequently, are alien to the truth, and must exist outside of truth’s circle and domain. While a lie may lead us to believe we have hidden our thoughts and desires and outright corruption we have only taken ourselves outside of the circle of God’s love, and eventually we end up outside the love of God’s people.

Do not love the world or the things of the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, sensual lust, enticement for the eyes, and a pretentious life, is not from the Father but is from the world. Yet the world and its enticement are passing away. But whoever does the will of God remains forever.
1 John (2:15-17)

This conclusion from John follows an appeal for repentance and forgiveness to remain in God’s word and to repel the evil one and his twisted teachings. Not everyone can hear this. We struggle to condemn and therefore disassociate from the quasi-religious calls of the world — politics, isms, ideologies, and odd exclusive bodies of those very things. Condemnation is not the teaching and probably not the real truth of our struggle to hear John’s words. And separation or disassociation is the result, not the actual urgency of God’s teaching. 

I believe we struggle more to belong to God and to live under his will than we struggle to leave the false religious bindings we have wrapped around ourselves. We don’t need to worry about cruelly abandoning the world and our friends. We need only to focus upon joining the Kingdom and being introduced to the believers that the Holy Spirit gathers us into. The world, in fact, needs to see us do that. Our friends, coworkers, family and partners in everything we do should be actively aware of our first allegiances, to God and to his gathered people. 

If we don’t want to be the one who witnesses to them, for some strange thinking that we’re not charismatic or interesting enough, then certainly God can work through those we now associate with. How many of us have been enticed to seek God and eventually convinced that God is real through the witnessing of others? Likely all of us.

Calling the world lustful and pretentious, posing as the source of our life and the one that calls us to some successful venture, is not condemnation. That is clarity in order for us to turn to God’s love, a pure relationship flowing with grace. Jesus and the Church do not, and certainly should not, call us to condemnation. We are called to witness.

How can we be with God, those of us who know our lying, cheating hearts? Not only do we leave room for lies as we stand under God’s care, we have closets, garages, and secret cabins where our lies enjoy our protection. Mine are even heated and have their own dreary lighting. 

My apologies to those who do not lie, the truth-sayers and honest folks, forthright in everything that they do, say, and think. Indeed, I know you exist, because the graces that I receive, reminding me of my constant need to repent, allow me to see you. You take your anointing seriously, and my jealousy only slowly is fading as I desire so much to be truthful like you.

Again, reflecting on more of Brennan Manning in Ragamuffins:

“Getting honest with ourselves does not make us unacceptable to God. It does not distance us from God, but draws us to Him — as nothing else can — and opens us anew to the flow of grace. While Jesus calls each of us to a more perfect life, we cannot achieve it on our own. To be alive is to be broken; to be broken is to stand in need of grace. It is only through grace that any of us could dare to hope that we could become more like Christ.”

This truth, that the holy ones we know have been made true by graces that flow from Christ, illuminated from the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in them, reveals the importance of witness. Not in so many words, but in so few lies.

An old adage, more than 300 years old and attributed to everyone from Jonathan Swift to Mark Twain, says, “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” (Another quote sparked by John Sorensen.) I find it fascinating that this one peculiar shoed-referenced quote cannot find its true source, but instead people insist on crediting it to everyone of popular acclaim. The stuff of lies plays out in every way!

How can anything stand up against God? It cannot. It will not. Even though it stands for a little time, maybe even for a thousand years, the lie will be fallow, unsown. God allows a period to pass where a lie lays fallow, uncultivated by God, not pregnant with life. And then he plows the ground, turning the lies into the dirt, composted, rotted into something for life to feed upon.

For me, I am happy to toss my lies into the compost. It’s a rather long task to dig them all out of the closets and cabins, so I am grateful for the Holy Spirit’s clearing out of those spaces where lies have lay hidden. I am practiced in repentance and looking forward to the inability to lie anymore, and to stop storing them away.