TO TELL THE TRUTH Mark 6:14-29 July 12, 2015

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1 TO TELL THE TRUTH Mark 6:14-29 July 12, 2015 What truth is worth your head? What truth is worth your life? There are two types of people in the world we despise. The first are people who don t know how to tell the truth. The second are people who can only know how to tell the truth. We all know people who have trouble telling the truth. Is there anyone here who doesn t know someone for whom a lie is just a more convenient interpretation of reality? The great psychoanalyst Carl Jung once noted that there were only two kinds of people he could not cure: schizophrenics and compulsive liars. Both create alternative realities. The second kind of person we cannot bear are those who DO tell the truth. We can t tolerate them because they see right through our daily disguises, our fake facades. They are not impressed by all our toys, or our bank accounts, or the degrees we hold, or the opinions others have of us. We don t like them because the truth they reveal can be uncomfortable, awkward, harsh and unyielding. It s hard to know which of these two kinds of people offends our sensibilities more: the liar or the truth-sayer. Can you remember a time you got in trouble for telling the truth? I remember as a young teen, I belonged to a swim club and every day, regardless of the weather. Part of the reason was because there was a lifeguard named Vicky who was simply wonderful to look at in a bathing suit. My friends and I would spend the day talking about and fantasizing about Vick the Chick. So, of course, one day I chose to speak the truth and tell her we d been fantasizing about her. This did not go well not for Vicky, not for my friends, and it definitely didn't go over well when my parents heard about it. And I paid a serious and well-deserved price for telling the truth! Maybe you remember a day when telling the truth got you in trouble. 1

2 Maybe you were visiting a family member who cooked up this strange smelling and strange tasting casserole and asked you how you liked it. And when you told the truth, your mother looked at you with such laser beams you knew what was going to happen when you got home. Or maybe your wife was trying on new clothes and asked if the outfit made her look fat. You HAVE TO BE careful when answering that question. Or maybe you innocently retold a story you heard, but for someone hearing this story, it just hit too close to home and brought them to tears. Eventually we learn that while we should always tell the truth, we don t always have to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Some call this the art of the white lie, the polite and good intentioned way of withholding the real truth. But whatever you call it, most of us gradually master the art of keeping what we re actually thinking to ourselves. Those who fail to learn this social side-step are likely to find employment opportunities limited, friends in short supply, and relationships with the opposite sex unexpectedly brief. The truth be told? Truth be told, we don t want the truth to be told. Once we learn how to avoid those childhood social snafus that resulted in stunned parents, scandalized neighbors or relatives, and possibly smarting bottoms!), it became easier and easier to back away from the truth. Except maybe during adolescence. One of the most frustrating things for parents is when their children insist upon being tactlessly truthful. A ticked-off teen will rarely be shy about expressing their true feelings. And the most tooth-grinding problem parents of teens have? Our teens are not always wrong. There was a reason that young people made up such a large part of the backbone of the civil rights movement. The plain, ugly, unvarnished hypocrisy of segregated seats and bathrooms and the denials of civil liberties were falsehoods that were painfully obvious to them. But it s important to note that the civil rights movement of the twentieth century, like the abolition movements of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, were initially led by churches, pastors, people of faith. Truth-tellers called the rest of us to Micah 6:8 living [love mercy, act justly, walk humbly], and such truth-telling has always been a part of who we are called to be. John the Baptist was a truth teller. 2

3 But he wasn t always the whole truth truth-teller. John the Baptist didn t decry Herod s opulent lifestyle. John the Baptist didn t call Herod on the carpet for helping the oppressor and out-rome-ing the Roman royal style of politics. John the Baptist didn t berate this Jewish king for riding roughshod over the needs of his own people, and instead nuzzling up to the cruel Emperor. Why didn t John the Baptist do what he could have done? Why didn t John the Baptist tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Because John s agenda wasn t political. John was a prophet of God called to speak the gospel truth. And the gospel truth he was called to speak was repentance and righteousness. Even though John didn t tell the whole truth, he told the truth of repentance and reform. John s call offered no room for negotiation, no room for mediation, no room for dispensation. John the Baptist s call required the gospel truth of repentance and reform. The gospel truth meant, first and foremost, an admission of wrong-doing and attempt at right-turnings. As hard as that might be, true repentance was not achieved through any one-time confession. True rebirth [justifying grace] takes place once, but conversions [sanctifying grace] take place every day until we are ushered into eternity [glorifying grace]. True repentance can only be genuine if it is expressed in moral action. For Herod, the price of true repentance was far too steep. He couldn t admit his own wrong-doing. He wouldn t send his wife Herodias back to his brother, Herod Philip. He had flagrantly flaunted the Torah-directive that no man may marry his living brother s wife (Leviticus 18:16). John the Baptist understood Herod s actions as an offense not against Roman power or the snares of Palestinian politics or even the rules of good leadership. John the Baptist saw Herod s actions as an offense against God. John s moral integrity is what ultimately cost him his head. What truth is worth your head? What truth is worth your life? John the Baptist, like all the other prophets of old (v.15) had perfected the art of giving offense. Have you? 3

4 Let s call the art of giving offense sanctified indifference. It is not that John the Baptist, or Jeremiah, or Nehemiah, or Hosea, or Zephaniah or Peter or Paul, or Jesus, or you, don t care about staying alive. But all of God s prophets develop the art of sanctified indifference to the consequences their truth-telling might bring. And one of the great problems in the church today is that we are missing that sanctified indifference. For the prophets, it s not that they didn t care. It s that they cared more for what God cares about than what kings and bishops and majorities care about. John the Baptist spoke the truth. John the Baptist was not afraid to offend. John the Baptist was more afraid of divine reprimand than human reprimand. He was well-practiced, well-prepared in the art of giving offense. Threatened by the local ruler, John refused to amend his message. Imprisoned, he never wavered. He kept up his offense even while locked up in his prison. Talk about sanctified indifference. Herod couldn t let John, and his offensive truth-telling, out of prison. But he couldn t quite bring himself to take the final step and quiet John forever. But the oath he swore to give his dancing daughter anything she wanted forced his hand. Though greatly grieved, he can at last be rid of that offensive voice that kept chiding him. John s sanctified indifference was his hallmark, and that sanctified indifference came from an unyielding, unswerving, undiluted obedience to God. So I ask of us all this morning, myself included: who are we offending? What are we if we are not offending someone? Jesus said Beware when all speak well of you. Should we be beware-ing this morning? Do we even have any sanctified indifference? Are we doing our job as disciples of Jesus if we are not giving offense somewhere, to someone? Truth-tellers often don t end up with good labels. But it s with sanctified indifference that we hear the epithets hurled our way of whistle-blowers, tattle-tales, spoil-sports, goody-two-shoes, wet blankets, prudes and prunes. They used to be called simply Christians. Dick Staub, author of some great books on theology and pop culture, quotes a friend of 4

5 his who says: truth without grace is legalism; grace without truth is romanticism; grace & truth together are dynamism. The Christian voice in history has often been dynamite because we brought together grace and truth, because with sanctified indifference we spoke the truth in love. Nowadays, so as not to offend, maybe we should be honest and call what we do and who we are "Sermonettes for Christianettes"... short and sweet worship that keeps Christianity light and easy the way we like it and which never challenge our consumerist values, our latent prejudices, and our actions which we know to be wrong but which we will keep on doing simply because we can. John's sanctified indifference was just a warm-up show for Jesus' offensive abilities. John just got in trouble with a lower case political figure. Jesus got the local ruler, the Roman governor, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees, until almost everyone took offense at him. And the more people took offense at him, the more sanctified indifference he showed. It was with love but with firmness that John spoke the truth. It cost him his head. It was with love but with firmness that Jesus spoke the truth. It cost him the cross. Telling the real truth is sometimes the most difficult thing we are ever asked to do. We do have to be careful with the truth, but there are times when, for the glory of God, we must be truth-speakers to the world. And the truth will set us free. Amen 5