You Will Be Outed ...

Darkness is a good place to hide.  But shine a light on the same place, and it is impossible to hide anything.  We don’t like to admit it, but very often we seek out the dark, to keep our secrets hidden.  We may not have planned it that way.  But just avoiding the light leaves you headed into the dark, whether you planned it that way or not.  But then that old adage comes to mind “the truth will out”, and you begin to wonder whether this was just another old wives’ tale, or whether it was a truism that cannot be avoided.  If the only variable there is the timing, and not the inevitability, it would seem that no matter how much darkness you seek out, or find yourself surrounded by, the light is coming, and the truth will be known.  You will be outed, it is just a matter of when.  And perhaps that is best.  Best for you.  Best for me.  Perhaps it is better to be revealed, than to allow the dark places to fester unabated.  Perhaps it is better for you, to have your deepest darkest secret revealed, if only to heal it.  Keeping secrets requires great isolation.  The greater the isolation, the more potential to delay the outing of the truth.  But isolation does none of us very much good.  Perhaps to be past the thing, is better than to be mired in the thing.

Sometimes our secrets are singular, ones we hold and know only about ourselves.  But sometimes too, our secrets are made in small pacts, and most often for nefarious purposes.  Think about it, if a group of church leaders conspire to make and hold a secret – is that secret really better kept for the sake of the people.  Or more likely, would the telling of that secret lead to embarrassment, or a lack of control by those same church leaders, if the people but knew the truth.  In matters of political leadership this happens so often it is expected by us.  But in matters of the church, we expect it a lot less, and would prefer it never happens at all.  But just like in political matters, we the people, are often unable to ferret out the secret for some length of time, if at all.  It usually takes a break down by one of the secret keepers, before truth ever has a hope of seeing the light of day.  It is sadly the same in matters of faith.  Church leadership comes to agree with the motives behind the secrets and then has no desire to share them at all.  What might seem like the better choice, seldom is.

Take matters of secret or personal sin, for instance.  As long as the sinner covers up his sin, and hides it, he or she suffers from it.  Martin Luther King was a great preacher, with excellent ideas, and powerful sermons.  He spoke with passion and conviction.  He was right.  His words still echo in our ears.  But he was still human, still flawed, and still suffered from the sins that men choose to indulge in.  Take Jim Baker, he too lived a life of public preaching.  But he too, suffered from the same sins as MLK, perhaps a degree worse.  Being forced to come clean, allowed Jim the chance to be forgiven, it allowed us a chance not to judge or condemn but to sympathize and pray for – even if that was not our first reaction.  These were instances of private sin made public.  But what has been happening systemically within the walls of the Catholic church in terms of abuse by priests of the penitent, of the young who had little defense, and even less belief in their word vs the parish priest – this was still private sin, but then made corporate by the institution who chose to systemically cover it up.  All in an effort to avoid financial liability (estimated to be so high it might break the church), and to avoid the “stain” on the priesthood that was sure to come.  Instead of recognizing this problem and finding a way to combat it, the church chose to deny this problem and find greater paths of darkness to cover it up.  But the truth will out, and now it is.

But not all secrets have the same level of intensity, or are perceived with the same level of darkness as say the abuse of children.  Some secrets are far more innocent to the casual observer, perhaps not worth even being classified as secrets at all.  Our Pharisee forefathers were pioneers in this area.  Take for example the practice of Sabbath keeping.  It is right there in the fourth commandment.  We are supposed to rest, not work, on the Sabbath.  That is about our behavior, driven by our motives.  But those are less clear things to deal with (pesky motives).  So instead the Pharisees focused on actions.  Practical actions.  Take walking for example.  At what point does walking turn from pleasure to work?  Or at what point does walking turn from necessity (i.e. I need to get out of bed and walk to the bathroom, then church) and into joy-ride-walks where I accomplish nothing for God, and perhaps use my feet to take me to dark places I should not be on any day, let alone on Sabbath?  The Pharisees came up with remedy for all this.  They reasoned, if they limited the steps to 1000 on Sabbath, they could still go to the bathroom, and make it to church (which was a requirement), and still function throughout the day.  Not enough steps to work, just enough steps to worship, if you kept track of them.

In today’s world if they had packaged this idea up as “guidance” from the CDC, or from Washington on how to keep Sabbath, believers might have adhered to the advice or not, as we all feel like we have a choice in doing that.  But if instead, you package up this idea as “doctrine”, and begin to teach it from the pulpits as “absolute truth” that God will ONLY accept you, if you do it as HE commands – then we have a whole different problem for believers.  Keep in mind believers back in those days, did not have multiple Bibles laying around for study (even if it would have been only the Old Testaments).  Nor did they have a population educated enough for reading and writing on their own (most were tradesmen, farmers, or soldiers, if you were not involved in the priesthood itself).  So if a Pharisee told you something was truth, you very rarely had the educational ability to question that statement.  You obeyed, or else.  Or else the vengeful God they taught you about, would surely punish the crap out of you, until you finally did what He had asked.  But in this case, God never asked that.  God wanted your time and attention.  God wanted you not to be distracted by work of any kind, and focused purely on what love looks like in action, love for others that is.  Love is what the commandments are supposed to be all about.  “Walking” not so much.

So the secret behind the truth of walking on Sabbath does not seem like such a big deal.  But teaching the truth of man for the truth of God, certainly is.  Teaching say, that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh day of the week, to the first day, even though there is not a single text in the Old or New Testaments where God asks us to do this.  Not one.  But a whole host of texts on keeping the seventh day holy as God asks, even extending this practice into heaven and beyond.  So how did that change occur?  And why has it been preserved?  It comes back to the same original dangerous premise, to teach for truth the thinking and wisdom of man, instead of what God might have in mind for us.  The same thinking that thought to limit steps, down the road, thought to change the day itself (to get away from Judaism).  And the ideas were both taught as truth, when neither were or are.  But the truth will out.  Luke talks about this very phenomenon.  You don’t need to take my word for it.  It pops up in the 12^th chapter of Luke’s gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why.

Beginning in verse 1 it reads …”In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”  And there it is.  The first counsel to the disciples, to those listening in a crowd so big, it was standing room only, with people pressed right up against each other was … “beware” the leaven (that is the embellishment, or the teaching of man’s wisdom for truth) of the Pharisees.  That leaven constitutes hypocrisy.  Yes, in yet another ironies of irony, the Pharisees did not even “keep” their own doctrines they knew to be false.  Again, if they had packaged their ideas up as “advice” or “guidance” maybe it would have gone down better.  But instead they packaged it up as the absolute truth of God, that He alone requires, and coincidentally, that they themselves did not keep.  They actually did “know” better.  They just did not teach it. 

As with the Sabbath question posed earlier, the Catholic church actually also did “know” better, they just reasoned that the Pope had the authority to change the day, and so he did.  The teaching of it as Biblical imperative instead of church preference became the danger to us all.  Now the matter boils down to simply one of authority.  If you accept the supremacy of the Pope, even above the clear edicts of scripture, you must follow whatever the Pope says – whether he changes days, or commandments about graven images, or systems that may someday wind up permitting the abuse of children.  But if you accept only the supremacy of Jesus, they you must follow what He says about Sabbath even to keep it in heaven, about His commandment to avoid graven images, or His long history of seeing the wickedness of man towards children resulting in punishments by God Himself to stop the practice.  There is a wide variance between those two views, and only one has true authority, the other does not.

Jesus continues in verse 2 saying … “For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. [verse 3] Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.”  These too are words of Jesus, where it comes to our entire lives.  The truth will out.  The systemic abuse of children continued many years, but not forever, it was discovered, and revealed, and now stains us all as Christians.  For it was done under the supposed banner of our Lord.  The origin of the change of Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday too was hidden for a great long time, but it too was discovered, and revealed.  So was the change in covering up the 2^nd commandment on graven images and avoiding them.  All once tightly held church secrets, now out in the open.  But few people even pay attention to them anymore.  We are consumed with other matters of more importance, able to gloss right over the mistakes of the past, wanting to be rid of them, able to move on, but not able to undo them, or change them.  Most have come to accept the wisdom of men, for the teachings of God, and do not question any tradition they are familiar with, or content with.  So what looks so innocent as leaven from the pulpits, persists to this day, robbing us of even greater love, and greater truth, and we content to be robbed.

Jesus continues in verse 3 saying … “And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. [verse 5] But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.”  For many years after the times of Christ on our earth, people remained largely uneducated.  Scriptures then, were believed to be better tightly controlled by the church, and only read or studied by the clergy.  We prolonged the errors of our Pharisee forefathers, as we still seem to do today.  But throughout history there have always been those rebels, those labeled heretics, because they too sought to protect and preserve the scriptures themselves, until the age of printing press came to be.  These men and women lost their lives to persecution.  But Jesus here says do not fear that.  Fear instead, the one who seeks to see us burn with him in the last great lake of fire.  Aligning our interests with those of Satan should be what scares us.  That is what we should fear most of all.  When we teach our own wisdom instead of that of God, we align with the enemy of God, even if that was not our intent.  It is that we should fear above all else.  But do we?  The truth will out, you will be outed at some point.

Jesus continues in verse 6 saying … “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? [verse 7] But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.”  It is a frightening picture that has been painted.  How are we to know the walking rules of the Pharisees were never God’s rules in the first place?  Not all of us have read the Bible from cover to cover, maybe it is buried in there somewhere.  It’s not.  But maybe it could be right?  And what about the doctrines of the Catholic church as they are taught today?  Or my own church as they continue to be taught?  Perhaps in every faith, error is mixed with truth, or worse, taught as truth and continues to be leaven which leads to hypocrisy.  How is a man to be saved?  And this is where Jesus brings us back to the one constant.  Our salvation is based in Jesus.  Our submission is what allows Jesus to teach us His truth, in His time, in His way.  Our journey’s may be at various points, never the same between any two people, even husband and wife.  But our Lord is the same.  Our destination is the same.  And that we each submit ourselves is also the same.  I may never reach your level of truth, or understanding of truth.  You may be far beyond me on the path.  But I have faith in Jesus to save me in spite of myself, and I trust that Jesus, and only Jesus will get that job done.

This is not a segment to bash our Pharisee forefathers, nor is it a segment to bash our Catholic brothers and sisters.  This is not about bashing at all, it is about seeking the light of Jesus, whether you were a church leader 2000 years ago, or now, or anywhere in between.  It is about challenging what you have come to accept as truth, when it might simply be tradition.  ALL denominations, and all believers, need to take this posture.  Let us run from darkness and into the light.  Let us air our dirty laundry if needs be, in order to be purged of our mistakes, and able to embrace the truth that lies in front of us.  The truth is beautiful.  It teaches us to love differently.  It teaches us to support each other differently.  Not to embrace our sins as inevitable, but to embrace our Jesus as the singular cure for sins we will never defeat, but He can and will and does on our behalf as we submit to Him alone.  If there are to be challenges of authority; whether the authority of the state to dictate your conscience, or the even the authority of the church to try to do the same, let us repel those supposed authorities in these matters and look singularly at Jesus as our only authority for all time.  That is how our salvation works.  That is how we begin to learn how to love differently.  That is how the most secret desires we harbor, dissipate, till only what He creates in us remains.  I want His love to be what is outed in me, don’t you?