There is not one of us that would say that relationships are not important. In fact, we tend to prioritize them above everything else in our lives other than God.  Yet, the reality is that most of us are more in love with the idea of relationships than the actual experience of them.  The hardest experience of building relationships is to be able to tell the truth.

Prayer - O God, the One who came among us in Jesus Christ and embodied truth, draw us first to His Truth and His love that we may share in His ministry of creating an authentic community where truth is told and grace is given.  In His Name, Amen.

It's a game most kids know about. Adults don't usually play it. It's too darn risky.  But when I was a child, my friends and I played it: Truth or Dare.  When you play truth or dare you ask someone what they choose. The question usually goes like this: "What do you want? A TRUTH OR A DARE?" 

TRUTH means that you have to answer truthfully any question someone might ask you however embarrassing that question might be. A DARE means that someone is going to ask you to do something probably really crazy, and that because you agreed to the dare you are going to have to do it to save face and not tell the truth.

So, for instance, my friend took a dare. He took the dare because he was afraid someone was going to ask him whether or not he had kissed a certain girl. He had. So instead of telling the truth about this fact, he chose a dare. The dare was that he do the chicken dance around one of the adults in the other room. He did. I later thought about why he considered the chicken dance to be less embarrassing than just telling the truth. 

The game is a metaphor for the way we will do everything we can to avoid telling the truth.  I have been known to play the game, and so have you.  I have been known to do little dances around people because I am afraid to tell them the truth. Ironically, I usually have the hardest time telling the truth to the people I love the most. That is why church seems so artificial sometimes.  We love each other too much to tell the truth. I am afraid I might hurt their feelings. I am afraid that for some reason telling the truth is not Christian if it is not a nice truth that I am telling.

I am afraid that the person I tell the truth to will not like me any more.  I have been known to hide the truth and take the dare to live in a way that avoids conflict. Often times Christians also not only avoid telling the truth -- they avoid hearing it.  They don't ask questions that need asking for fear of knowing the real truth. They have constructed a nice, pretty Christian world with a bow tied around it, and that world would fall apart if they had to confront the true ugliness of their lives or of others they prefer to revere. Sometimes we can't even hear the positive truths others speak to us because we think they are "just saying it" or it is their job to say something nice. 

Telling others something less than the truth is one thing -- it usually begins by refusing to see the truth yourself -- so much so that you even withhold the truth from God.  The first step towards telling others the truth is first to tell yourself and God the truth. It gets easier from there.

But we avoid that kind of truth telling.  We would rather dance.  We move deftly around issues, and sweep blandly by heartfelt concerns.  It requires a lot to keep up the dance -- a lot more energy than it would have to admit the kiss. I think churches are experts at this.  We are taught that we should be nice, that peace is a virtue, and that love comes before all.  We also learn that we must appear to have our act together when we come to church, or we will not be welcome.  People might not like us, they might shun us, or they might fear us if they knew the truth about us.  And the truth is, no pun intended: They often will.

The only problem is that not telling the truth perpetuates a vicious cycle. It is a complicated chicken dance, but the dare of doing it is far more alluring than the truth. We are "chicken of the truth." The truth is an un-welcome intruder. The truth might mean we would have to change the way we see the world, the way we act, the way we live. And it is terribly threatening.

The biblical understanding of truth means non-concealment. No hiding. Bringing everything into the light. It is the disclosure of the full or real state of affairs.  John writes of Jesus the Truth (John 14:6) this way, "This is the message we have heard (declares John) that God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5) No hiding. No darkness. The full or real state of affairs revealed. That is what Jesus comes to do – to bring everything out of the darkness and into His light.  But sometimes truth is hard to take.  Do you ever catch yourself avoiding it?

Every time you don't open the bills right away after a major vacation it means you don't want to know the full or real state of affairs. Or if you gained five pounds over the holidays, and you avoid the scales because you dread what it will tell you. You convince yourself that your pants must have shrunk – it couldn't be the truth that you ate too much.  Or that thing in the refrigerator you forgot about - you don't want to peel back the cover on the container and reveal the full or real state of affairs. Too gross.  So you just leave it there for days, then weeks, then . . . not speaking from personal experience;). 

We also tend to frown upon those who really tell the truth. I once had a boss who wanted you to tell him the truth, but then he punished you for being the bearer of bad news.  If your wife asks you if a dress makes her look fat, you know better than to say how you really feel.  We disdain Simon Cowell on American Idol because he actually says what is painfully true. We love the idea of the truth, but in reality we don't like hearing it too much. 

Who likes to be told that they are a workaholic and that they need to do something about it?  Or who wants to take a hard look at one's marriage or family and realize that although the outside might look great, on the inside things are falling apart?  Or who wants to tell the truth to the church that they struggle with anger, or substance abuse, or a sexual sin?  It's not always easy to deal with the truth.

When we avoid conflict or messiness in our families and in our churches, when we avoid the real state of affairs, we are really just doing a chicken dance.  We are chicken of revealing the true state of affairs or speaking the truth in love. But that is the only way relationships can be sustained.  At some point love has to be grounded in common truth or it will just blow away. Without an agreed upon truth, love cannot exist.  But love coupled with truth -- now that makes for a great relationship.  If we insist on the chicken dance, it just means we don't trust grace enough, either in ourselves or in the other person to make truth telling constructive and freeing, both for ourselves and for others.

The consequences of doing the chicken dance rather than speaking the truth in love are many - but here are a few:
    Emotional exhaustion
    Pent up anger (Ephesians 4:26, 31)
    Superficial relationships
    Fear-based living
    Harmful words (Ephesians 4:29)
    Ongoing lack of resolution to chronic relational problems

You know, truth is ultimately easier than concealment. Yes, it avoids all the dance steps and it is direct and to the point.  Truth is the building block of relationships, and of an authentic church. When we tell the truth, we no longer use up our energy in hiding the truth, or in keeping up a facade. We now can put that energy into the hard work of transformation. 

But how do we do this when everyone else seems so perfect, so together?  It takes a different vision of life -- it takes something real, something that tells how it really is.  It takes a cross.  There is no more truth that can be revealed about us than the truth that we see when we look upon the cross of Jesus.  It reveals a truth about me, and about us, that we would prefer not to see.  It reveals that we are broken, weak and desperate sinners.  And that is what we all are in the eyes of God.  We learn an humility at the cross that can guide our truth telling.  I think that is why Paul told this community of Christians first, "With all humility and gentleness, with patience bear with one another in love."  That is how you speak the truth, both to yourself and to others - it is a cross-shaped truth telling.

That is why John writes in I John, "If we claim to be without sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8.) Later, of course, in the verse it says that if we do look at the truth of our own brokenness - if we confess, we will be forgiven. Once we realize that we all stand there broken at the foot of the cross, then we can create space to hear the truth from others.  No sin will surprise us. No truth will shatter our innocent illusions.  We all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  Once I understand this and then also comprehend the truth of God's grace, I am then prepared to hear all the truth from anyone who wants to tell it to me – about me, or about them.

The cross is the ultimate truth about who we are, and who God is.  Telling the truth often involves suffering, but it also sets the context for a freeing grace. That is how it is with the cross.  Grace is always the other side of the truth coin. 

While I was writing this I started imagining all these family spats happening after this message, or someone finally telling someone off in the church lobby after worship service.  "Now I finally have permission to tell you what I think of you! I'm going to stop being nice and just lay into you because it's the Christian thing to do!"

Not exactly.  Remember how John said in John 1:14 that Jesus embodied both truth and grace -- neither apart from each other.  Listen to what Paul tells the Ephesians in verse 29, “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” You can't understand grace if you can't hear the truth, and you can't bear truth if you don't experience grace. That is the heart of Jesus that Paul must have had in mind when he told this church that it will build itself up as it "tells the truth in love."  The verse says nothing about yelling the truth in love. It says nothing about jabbing your finger of truth in love. Here is what it says: “Speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Him who is the Head that is, Christ.”   (Ephesians 4:15)

Speaking the truth in love is not a trip into authoritarianism. It is done with humility, after a good dose of prayer to the One who saves us all because we're all broken and in need of help. Speaking the truth in love is simply meant to set us free - so that we can put down the rocks we're holding and build authenticity and trust with one another. Truth marinated with Grace.  That is the Jesus Way, and that is how the church truly becomes a distinctive community of truth and grace in the world.

This is who the church needs to be. Real. Genuine. Honest. Otherwise it won't be a safe place in which to grow spiritually. If you are going to panic the first time someone tells the truth, maybe you should go to Disneyland where everything is perfect and happy.  This isn't Disneyland.  But church should be a community where you can be completely yourself -- warts and all -- and know that in telling the truth you also will find grace. In fact, this is a place we should just expect sin – but not leave it there. But sin should never surprise us.

There is nothing clandestine about the God of Jesus Christ. Our God is a God who reveals, opens the eyes of the blind, unlocks closed doors, loves to expose truth. When Jesus came among us, Truth was revealed.  The real state of affairs was made known and articulated in the Word become flesh.  As we embody the nature of Jesus - grace and truth - in our families and in our church, we must first take assurance and courage in the fact that the truth is that God is with us right now fully revealed in Jesus - no longer concealed. His love for you today is the full and real state of affairs. And that God who wants all things to come to light will empower us by the Holy Spirit to speak truth, and to speak it in love. 

Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa tells of an amazing story of the day the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was investigating army officers who had given orders for their soldiers to fire upon a demonstration sponsored by the African National Congress.  The room was filled with families of those who had been killed by this tragedy.  Four officers came before the commission, three black and one white.  The white officer spoke up and said, "Please forgive us, and please forgive these men.  We gave the orders for the soldiers to use their guns."  The room was silent.  He then looked to the families and said, "Please forgive us.  And please receive these colleagues back into your community."  The families slowly stood to their feet and began applauding until the sound was deafening.  The Bishop got everyone's attention, and said, "Let's keep quiet, because we are in the presence of something holy."  In that room, truth was being told, and grace was being given.

That is the power of speaking the truth in love.  It builds up relationships, families and churches.  It creates moments for new beginnings.  It is really the only loving thing to do.  Truth or Dare?  I dare you to tell the truth. I dare you to forgive.  It's the only way to be true to the grace of God.

The Christian singer Amy Grant experienced the end of her marriage to singer Gary Chapman at the end of the last decade. Because of her status as a Christian singer and a pop celebrity, the divorce was the subject of much speculation and gossip. As she came to terms with her failed marriage, and with her secrets about it, she penned a song which can be found on her last album called “Out in the Open.” Hear the words she wrote:

They were the sweetest words I'd ever heard
My heart could barely take it in
Like water offered to the lips
Of a tired and thirsty man

Cuz it's a tangled web of woven
I don't know all the reasons
But it amazes me to wake up
To your mercy every morning

So I'm standing here spinning around
In the fields of freedom
And I'm still alive and reaching out
And I can feel the healing

Cuz you say
Come on out come on out
Come on out come on out
Out in the open
Come on out come on out
Come on out come on out
Into the light
There is no jury
There is no judge
Ready and waiting
Are the steady arms of love

For the sake of never making waves I
Kept my secrets to myself
And no one ever really knew the
Darker shadows of my heart

But I will be a witness
That there's nothing in me dark enough
The power of forgiveness
Cannot rescue from the deep

So I'm standing here spinning around
In the fields of freedom
And I'm still alive and reaching out
And I can feel the healing

And you say
Come on out come out
Come on out come out
Out in the open
Come on out come on out
Come on out come on out
Into the light
There is no jury
There is no judge
Ready and waiting
Are the steady arms of love

Amen.

» Back to top