Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire: The Ethics of Dishonesty

 

Service of Worship

Eastern Parkway United Methodist Church

September 19, 2021

Rev. Natalie Bowerman, Pastor

 

Prelude

 

Greeting and Announcements

 

Mission Statement: We are a faith community striving to be, to nurture, and to send forth disciples of Jesus Christ.

 

Call to Worship

Who among you is seeking the wisdom of God?
We long to hear God’s Word spoken to our hearts.
Who among you is seeking God’s bright and holy truth?
We long to learn the ways of wisdom and righteousness.
Who among you is seeking a Spirit-filled life?
We long to live lives of holiness and light.
God grants God’s wisdom generously to all who ask.
Come near, people of God!
Let us worship in wisdom and truth.

 

Hymn 468: Dear Jesus, In Whose Life I see

 

1. Dear Jesus, in whose life I see
all that I would, but fail to be,
let thy clear light forever shine,
to shame and guide this life of mine.

2. Though what I dream and what I do
in my weak days are always two,
help me, oppressed by things undone,
O thou whose deeds and dreams were one!

 

Prayer of Confession:

God of the gospel, the One who sends, the one who is sent and returns, the One who is sent and remains with the church, we declare our need of the wisdom that comes from above, pure, peace-loving, considerate, open to reason. We can be devious rather than straightforward, hypocritical rather than sincere, unforgiving rather than merciful, cruel rather than kind. Forgive the bitter jealousy that leads to quarreling, the selfish ambition that destroys those who are in the way, the ungoverned passions that lead to disorder and evil of every kind. Temper your justice with mercy for the sake of your obedient Son, Jesus our peacemaker. Amen.

 

Assurance

 

Friends, hear the good news! God comes to those who welcome even a child in the name of Jesus.

We receive God when we receive Jesus and the children he loves.

Friends, believe the good news!

In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven.

 

Choir Anthem: The Lord Bless You and Keep You by John Rutter

 

The Lord bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face to shine upon you
To shine upon you and be gracious
And be gracious unto you

The Lord bless you and keep you
The Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon you,

The Lord lift up the light of His countenance upon you
And give you peace, and give you peace;
And give you peace, and give you peace
Amen, amen, amen, amen, a-men, a-men, a-men.

Exodus 1: 1-22

The Israelites in Egypt

1 These are the names of the sons of Israel (that is, Jacob) who moved to Egypt with their father, each with his family: ² Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, ³ Issachar, Zebulun, Benjamin, ⁴ Dan, Naphtali, Gad, and Asher. ⁵ In all, Jacob had seventy^[a] descendants in Egypt, including Joseph, who was already there.

⁶ In time, Joseph and all of his brothers died, ending that entire generation. ⁷ But their descendants, the Israelites, had many children and grandchildren. In fact, they multiplied so greatly that they became extremely powerful and filled the land.

⁸ Eventually, a new king came to power in Egypt who knew nothing about Joseph or what he had done. ⁹ He said to his people, “Look, the people of Israel now outnumber us and are stronger than we are. ¹⁰ We must make a plan to keep them from growing even more. If we don’t, and if war breaks out, they will join our enemies and fight against us. Then they will escape from the country.^[b]”

¹¹ So the Egyptians made the Israelites their slaves. They appointed brutal slave drivers over them, hoping to wear them down with crushing labor. They forced them to build the cities of Pithom and Rameses as supply centers for the king. ¹² But the more the Egyptians oppressed them, the more the Israelites multiplied and spread, and the more alarmed the Egyptians became. ¹³ So the Egyptians worked the people of Israel without mercy. ¹⁴ They made their lives bitter, forcing them to mix mortar and make bricks and do all the work in the fields. They were ruthless in all their demands.

¹⁵ Then Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, gave this order to the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah: ¹⁶ “When you help the Hebrew women as they give birth, watch as they deliver.^[c] If the baby is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.” ¹⁷ But because the midwives feared God, they refused to obey the king’s orders. They allowed the boys to live, too.

¹⁸ So the king of Egypt called for the midwives. “Why have you done this?” he demanded. “Why have you allowed the boys to live?”

¹⁹ “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women,” the midwives replied. “They are more vigorous and have their babies so quickly that we cannot get there in time.”

²⁰ So God was good to the midwives, and the Israelites continued to multiply, growing more and more powerful. ²¹ And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families of their own.

²² Then Pharaoh gave this order to all his people: “Throw every newborn Hebrew boy into the Nile River. But you may let the girls live.”

 

A Message

“Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire: The Ethics of Dishonesty”

 

Good morning, beloved friends. With any luck, and by the grace of Jesus, this is the last time that I will have to preach to you over a screen. My son’s quarantine because of his exposure to covid at school will soon be over, and I will once again feel the sun shining on my face. I thank you all again for your patience, your help, your faith, and your love. I couldn’t do this without you.

 

We’re venturing forward in “Stump the Preacher”, and this week’s topic comes from a friend of mine named Reuben who threw his suggestion in the ring when I opened this up to my Facebook friends. I met Reuben when I joined the symphony orchestra at the University of Rochester, which has been about 50/50 students and community members for most of its existence. Reuben was a community member, and a physicist by profession. He’s an extraordinarily talented violinist, and we had a wonderful time collaborating in orchestra together. Reuben not only brought us his suggestion with his brilliant mind, but also with a diverse faith perspective, because Reuben is Jewish. By his invitation, we spend more time studying the Hebrew Bible this morning, but we’ll also consider Jesus’ perspective in order to answer Reuben’s question: is it ever ok to lie? What does our Judeo-Christian faith teach about that?

 

Before we crack open a word of scripture, my knee jerk answer is “of course not!” It’s one of those rules we’ve had stamped into us since we were little, a rule I’d love to impress upon my own children: don’t lie. It’s bad. Or, in grown up words, it’s unethical. And it’s bound to get you in trouble. Warning others about the dangers of getting caught in a fabricated story, Mark Twain once quipped: “If you tell the truth, you don’t have to remember anything.” Going a level deeper than just getting caught, author John Spence wrote: “If you tell the truth, it becomes a part of your past. If you lie, it becomes a part of your future.” Lies follow you. They can change you. And they can change how others feel about you, and whether others find you trustworthy.

 

When Moses receives the Ten Commandments from our Creator in Exodus 20, God makes sure to include a rule about lying: “do not bear false witness.” But do you notice how that isn’t the same thing as saying “don’t lie”?

 

That got me thinking about how complicated and nuanced our understanding of “lying” is. We have so many different words and concepts that all mean not telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. But how we feel about all those different examples, how worthy we think you should be of punishment if you slip in each of those circumstances, and whether your behavior even matters from one context to the next depends on what we’re talking about. For example: is there really a difference between a lie and a “little white lie”? If you bend the truth slightly to preserve a relationship or spare someone’s feelings, is that really so bad? To use one of the more cliched examples, if your wife asks you if this dress makes her look fat, what do you say? I’m pleased to report Sean answers correctly every time: “You’re nary a pound over perfection, dear.” If you visit a friend who hasn’t been feeling well and you tell them they look great even though they kind of don’t, is that really the important detail in that encounter? Is a “lie by omission” a lie? Does it depend on what you left out, and why? The commandment I quoted before, “do not bear false witness”, feels less about “lying” and more about doing right by your neighbor, not getting them into undeserved trouble, and telling the truth in a court of law. For that matter, a “lie” might be worthy of a time out or a grounding as a kid, but could put you in jail as an adult if you lie in court and commit perjury. Your behavior can escalate far beyond just a lie if you make a habit of it, or build a scheme around it. A “fraud”, a “ponzie scheme”, or a “hoax” all require a lie at some point in order to be effective, and all of those things can do an extraordinary amount of damage to a lot of people. Committing “slander” or “libel” can similarly get you sued and hurt someone. In this political atmosphere, candidates for office cry “fake news” to discredit media attention that paints them in an unfavorable light, and many have responded to these concerns by implementing “fact checking” But “fooling” someone, or “playing a trick” could elicit laughter and bring you closer together.

 

“Don’t lie” is a great rule of thumb, but real life is far more complicated than that. In fact, in this complex world of ours, there are situations where telling a lie, and not a fib or a little white lie but a full on lie, can help someone so much that, in retrospect, we’d have to agree that lying was the right thing to do in that situation. During the Third Reich, as Hitler hunted down Jewish people throughout Europe, people who wanted to help forged documents, created fake identifications, hid people in attics and closets, and smuggled people out in cars, trains, and boats—all to save lives. Every one of those actions involved lying on a large scale. And every single one of those actions were illegal. But the people who lied then are heroes now.

 

If we were all together sharing our own stories we could surely come up with several, either from our own lives or from history, that involved a person helping another by lying. When I did an internet search for those kinds of stories, however, I discovered the great irony that many of those stories are, themselves, untrue. Among the most famous of these stories that I found involved famed inventor Thomas Edison. A popular and oft shared story recounts that when Edison was a young child he struggled greatly in school, and was labeled as “addled” or mentally ill. It sounds like this part is true. Infuriated by the way the school treated her child, Edison’s mother pulled him out of school and educated him at home, fostering in him a lifelong love of learning, a curiosity for the natural world, and a drive to pursue his deepest passions. This also is true, and Edison spoke very affectionately of his mother and her homeschooling methods throughout his life. What’s sadly untrue is the sweetest detail in this story. The story has it that one day Edison’s school mailed his mother a letter. She opened it, and told her son that it said Edison was far too smart for his school, and that she should educate him at home from then on. The story ends by revealing that one day, as an old man, Edison found the real letter, which called him addled and announced his expulsion from school, and realized that his mother lied to make his life so much better. Snopes, a website that exists just to clear up the lies on the internet, breaks this down for us. It’s amazing how lying overlaps with folklore and storytelling. It doesn’t offend most people if you stretch, bend, or embellish the details of a story to make it more emotional, or more impactful. You can even make up large details that never happened, and as you see in this story about Edison and his mom, those lies become an act of love. In this case, either Edison’s mom lied to protect her young son from heartbreak, or we lied in order to convey the depth of a mother’s love. If the final message is the same either way, and one that teaches us how we should be with one another, than are the details really that important?

 

You can ask yourself this same question about many beloved stories in our holy scriptures, many of which would not hold up to the scrutiny of Snopes. In fact, so many nonbelievers have poked holes in our scriptural stories and casted doubt on our traditions that religion has been dubbed “the opiate of the masses” and “the greatest hoax in all of history”. In fewer words: a great big lie. Did God create EVERYTHING in 6 days? Did Noah manage to make a boat that could hold 2 of every animal on earth, plus his whole family, and keep them there for a month and a half? Did Moses use a stick to divide a river in half so that he and the Hebrews could walk across it? Did Jesus heal the blind, the deaf, the disabled, and bring Lazarus to life? Did he come back to life?

 

Though our faith teaches us, as one of its core principles, not to lie, we lose a lot from our faith journey if we cling to such a rigid understanding of true and untrue. I’m not saying any of those stories are untrue, I’m saying they’re more important than fact. They teach us the vastness and majesty of God, the depth of God’s love for us, the wonder of Jesus’ salvation, and our sacred place in all of it. And that Good News is very, very true.

 

The scripture I lifted up this week tells us a complicated story on the front of truth and lies. It tells us the story of how Moses, one of the most important characters in our scriptures, came to be born, and live. It introduces three very important characters in Moses early days: the Pharaoh who came to power just before he was born, and the two midwives tasked with delivering every one of the Hebrew babies, Shiphrah and Puah.

 

The fact that there’s only two of them has casted doubt in the minds of religious skeptics about the veracity of the rest of Moses’ story—how many people did he really lead out of Egypt if they were all delivered by two women? Nevertheless, these two women—no matter how many babies they delivered and whether or not they even really lived—teach us a vital lesson. The reason the Hebrew people lived in Egypt and were now thriving there was because of the heroism of their ancestor Joseph, who became adviser to his Pharaoh, prepared Egypt for a devastating famine, and then eventually welcomed and saved his whole family in a land that he didn’t choose, but that became his home. Now we’re a few generations later. No one remembers the famine, few remember or care about Joseph, and this new Pharaoh feels extraordinarily threatened by this race of people that may soon outnumber those who look like him. He wants to control them, utilize their strength for his selfish gain, and then wipe them out. This is a story that has told itself in history over and over and over again. Pharaoh enslaves the Hebrews, but that doesn’t slow them down one bit, and it doesn’t stop them from having babies and growing in number. Pharaoh plans a genocide: he orders Shiphrah and Puah to murder the Hebrew boys at birth. This is the law, straight from the mouth of the king. This is their job. And they refuse to do it, and put in motion what might be the world’s very first act of civil disobedience.

 

The Hebrew people continue having babies, and thrive despite Pharaoh. He notices all the Hebrew boys still alive and well and asks Shiphrah and Puah why they didn’t do their jobs. Here, I believe, is the most detail rich and telling part of this story. Shiphrah and Puah know they’re just lowly Hebrew midwives, and that Pharaoh holds the power, so they don’t want to put themselves in harm’s way. But they also have every intention of defying him. Rather than directly telling Pharaoh to stick his fascism where the sun don’t shine, they use his own racism against him and lie. They say “Uh, well, the Hebrew women are just so strong that they pop those babies out faster than we can get there!” They utilize this idea they know the Pharaoh has that women of a race he looks down upon can just throw their baby over their back and go back to work, whereas women of his race somehow deliver in a slow, “dainty” way and need lots of help. It’s a ridiculous notion, yet it’s the same way that white enslavers in 19^th Century America caricaturized the women they enslaved—unable to feel pain, built for hard work and nothing else, and more like animals than human beings.

 

Shiphrah and Puah lied. They said a big, premeditated, purposeful lie. They conspired against the reigning monarch to undermine his entire regime. By the letter of the law, their behavior is inexcusable and likely worthy of capital punishment. By the letter of the Ten Commandments, their behavior is sinful and puts them on the wrong side of a divide between human free will and God.

 

But by the greater spirit of God’s Law, of God’s will for creation, of God’s love, what they did was righteous action. They saved countless lives. Their defiance of Pharaoh’s order is what allowed both Moses and his brother Aaron to live, paving the way for the freedom of their people, and the beginning of a whole new walk journey between humanity and the Divine. They saved the day by lying.

 

When I find this difference between the letter and the spirit of the law confusing, when I struggle to discern what choice I should make in difficult and even dangerous circumstances, like Shiphrah and Puah must have, I turn to the advice Jesus gave us in Matthew 15: 11—“It is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.” Jesus said this when his followers were fighting over purity codes related to food, and struggled with what to do when just following the rules didn’t always turn out well. And Jesus told them: don’t focus on the rule itself, focus on the outcome, and especially focus on the impact your choices have on you and your heart. Will your choices put you on a righteous path, and bring you closer to the will of God? Or will your choices lead you astray? If telling the truth reflects the values our Creator wants you to have, then please do so. But if a lie will help another person, and bring us all closer to the Kingdom, then please, follow your heart.

 

And whatever choice you make, treat your actions like you, too, are a midwife, holding life in your hands and gently cradling it in its vulnerability. Our words can deliver us to health, to safety, and to prosperity in the Lord.

 

Amen.

 

 

 

 

Hymn 445: Happy The Home When God Is There

 

1. Happy the home when God is there,
   And love fills every breast;
   When one their wish, and one their prayer,
   And one their heav’nly rest.
2. Happy the home where Jesus’ name
   Is sweet to every ear;
   Where children early speak His fame,
   And parents hold Him dear.
3. Happy the home where prayer is heard,
   And praise is wont to rise;
   Where parents love the sacred Word
   And all its wisdom prize.
4. Lord, let us in our homes agree
   This blessed peace to gain;
   Unite our hearts in love to Thee,
   And love to all will reign.

 

Offering, doxology, and prayer of dedication

 

Pastoral Prayer and Lord’s Prayer

 

Holy and Gracious God
We give you thanks for the gift of life
for the gift of your Son
for the gift of the Holy Spirit

Lead us through the trials
the suffering and sorrow
the challenges and struggles
the tired times and dark places

Be with those who weep
or cannot sleep
who have no peace
who seek release

Lead us
with grace
with love
with peace

Fill us
with hope
with patience
with stamina

Transform us
in your image
in your Son
in your Name

Transform us
to grow
to understand
to see

Transform us
that we
can be
made whole

And in wholeness
may we
be
the hands and heart of Christ.

Our Father, Mother, Creator God, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who have trespassed against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory forever. Amen.

 

Hymn 433: All Who Love and Serve Your City

 

All who love and serve your city,
all who bear its daily stress,
all who cry for peace and justice,
all who curse and all who bless,

In your day of loss and sorrow,
in your day of helpless strife,
honor, peace, and love retreating,
seek the Lord, who is your life.

In your day of wrath and plenty,
wasted work and wasted play,
call to mind the word of Jesus,
"I must work while it is day."

For all days are days of judgment,
and the Lord is waiting still,
drawing near a world that spurns him,
offering peace from Calvary's hill.

Risen Lord! shall yet the city
be the city of despair?
Come today, our Judge, our Glory;
be its name, "The Lord is there!"

 

Benediction

Our God, our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, will guard our going out and coming in from this time on and forevermore. And as all God’s people we say together, Amen.

 

Postlude