Dear church,
In the recent Ethicist column in the New York Times, a feature where ethical dilemmas are tackled and explored, I saw the following question. “I was asked whether someone’s loved one died peacefully. Should I tell them the truth?” I did not read that piece, but my mind started spinning right away. I know that sometimes, even in this day and age, dying people can be in agony over the last few days or hours of their life; at least, they may be uncomfortable. It’s not always smooth and peaceful. And yet, that’s what loved ones who for one reason or another were unable to be there at the bedside, hope for and frankly want to hear. “She died peacefully.” Then they are somewhat relieved. “At least she didn’t suffer,” they say. There is an ethical dilemma in the question posed, “Did your loved one die peacefully?” – if things did not go so peacefully. You want to be truthful but you also don’t want to further injure someone’s already shattered feelings. What do you do? The answer likely starts with the famous words, “It depends.”
In the gospel of John, Jesu is quoted as saying, “The truth will set you free.” The Central Intelligence Services did not invent this motto. It comes from the Bible. Jesus said it. But will the truth set you free? What if the truth scares you, paralyzes you, holds you back, brings you down, depresses you? What if a person told you as a teenager that your voice is absolutely beautiful and as a result you became confident in your abilities, even though now you realize that the person was probably trying to be nice because as much as you love singing you have to work really, really hard on it and it’s not one of your natural gifts? Was it wrong of the person to say that? No, it was not! To tell you the truth, I love those little lies! True lies, they are… Are they even lies? Probably not. They are more like a form of faith. “I see something in you that few others can see. You don’t even see it yourself!” People far exceed their natural abilities because of faith and confidence, remember? Imagine that God sees all the great potential in you and totally neglects the other stuff. Wouldn’t that be a bit of a lie on God’s part, a neglect of the full truth? No, I say, it’s a form of faith, faith in you!
Those are just a few examples to remind us how complicated this topic of telling the truth is or can be. It sounds so simple, but it’s not always as straightforward, black and white, right and wrong as a brash person would have it. I know of people who learned a certain truth about themselves or about people in their lives and that truth was more than they could handle. It did not set them free. It did the opposite, to tell you the truth. So, let us be careful when we tell the truth.
Still, ideally, the truth will set you free. People who have lived in totalitarian countries, which are always full of lies, will appreciate this statement. Milan Kundera, a renowned Czech writer, once wrote the book “The Joke,” in which a young and idealistic student sends a humorous postcard to his girlfriend, making fun of the ruling party during communism. As a result, he is expelled from the party, barred from major positions in society and gets into all sorts of trouble. Because of a small joke! Kundera explores the layers of hypocrisy in that system that forces people to affirm ideological statements even though nobody believes in them and everybody knows it’s just a game and a lie. People who have lived under such regimes will always appreciate the value of a society where you can speak your truth without being punished. “The truth will set your society free!” Our spiritual father, Martin Luther, had to risk his life speaking truth to power. It is a big-time value in the Lutheran church to speak truthfully about things and especially in spiritual matters, even if you have a question, a doubt, a criticism. Don’t lie about your faith! It’s better to wrestle with God than to pretend that everything is hunky dory when it is not. The questions and doubts are never the problem. They are just shadows of faith.
Truth needs to have a partner though. In our closest human relationships, it helps to combine truth with kindness, it helps tremendously. The pure and naked truth may lead to injury. Naked, blunt truth delivered to someone is usually perceived as an attack and provokes defensiveness. “Did you do that?” “No, I didn’t do that!” Truth wrapped in kindness and delivered with empathy may be a door opener into someone’s warped and vulnerable interior. It can set someone free to the extent that they see and acknowledge certain faults and actually change. The Old Testament prophets when you read them will teach you how not to tell the truth. Those prophets were terrible truth tellers. They told the truth, yes, but with so much venom… But the Old Testament prophets and their penchant for justice combined with the New Testament focus on love and grace, now that is a promising partnership that can lead to people being set free by the truth. Because, honest to God, we need more truth in a day and age when lying has become so easy and people get away with it so easily. It rots out a society from within. It rots out a person from within. But the truth will set us free. Jesus said that. It is true.
Amen.
