The Truth is…

Passages: Is. 14:3-17; 2 Corinth. 10:18-11:10; Mark 10:1-12
Ընթերցուածքներ՝ Եսայ. ԺԴ 3-17; Բ Կորնց. Ժ 18 – ԺԱ 10; Մկ. Ժ 1-12

In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Amen!

A few years ago, a study was done regarding people’s honesty. What was surprising was that researchers found that approx. 60-70% of people lied at least once during a 10-minute conversation. What is alarming about this is that majority of us in society would say that lying is bad. To lie, deceive and cheat are characteristics of someone untrustworthy. And what is unique about those who lie however, is that they know the truth. When a child breaks a toy and we ask, “did you break it?” they lie, knowing the truth of who broke the toy. My dears, how often do we lie to ourselves? How content are we with lying to ourselves?

Lying isn’t merely about the words we use with one another but also about our attitudes and the excuses we use to justify our choices. Some of those are mundane, for example, “I plan to start my diet tomorrow, so I will eat an entire box of cookies today” or “I can study for my exam tomorrow so it’s okay if I’m out all night today or if I binge watch this show tonight.” Yet, some of these lies can be about far more serious matters: “I don’t need a doctor for the pain I’m feeling” or “I’ll be fine, I don’t need anyone to help me.” My dears, we lie to ourselves, and we create excuses to justify the decisions we make that could impact our mental, emotion and physical health. Yet, the truth is we also lie to ourselves about our faith.

In the Gospel today the Pharisees ask about divorce, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?” The Pharisees knew the law according to Moses, and they knew that Jesus knows the law as well. So, what the Pharisees were attempting to do is justify their actions, their decisions. Yet, Christ sees this and while giving the example of Adam and Eve, He emphasizes a point, “For your hardness of heart he wrote you this commandment. But from the beginning of creation…” R.C. Sproul, who is a Presbyterian minister, has a general rule in how Christian’s should interpret the scriptures: anytime we read of a story in Scripture about someone doing something stupid or acting wrong, that’s most likely us. I don’t say that to be insulting but rather to bring to a realization that all of Scripture is written about us and for us. So those rules, and regulations we have been given by Moses, St. Paul, and the Church, Jesus says, those are given to us because of our hardness of heart. What is that? It is our decision to choose self-justification, self-indulgence, self-gratification over what God had ordained, created for us from the beginning of time. It is the idea that by coming to God, we will feel better and so we can continue to live on in our way. Yet our faith is not about feeling good but becoming good; not being justified but redeemed.

Throughout the beautiful sacramental marriage service in the Church, we repeatedly speak about the union of man and wife being that like the union of the Church (humanity) and God. If a husband and wife are lying to each other, they begin to distance from one another, they fall apart, they lose trust and ultimately that union breaks. If we lie to ourselves about our own health, our own choices, our careers, our surroundings and friends eventually we lose ourselves, we break. My dears when we come to God and we approach Him with lies in our heart, with the desire to justify our choices and life of sin then our faith will likewise break. The result in all three cases is the same. A couple that falls apart either cheats or leads to a broken family causing hurt; a person who has lost their way falls into despair, hopelessness, physical and mental illness until (God forbid) they begin to cause irreversible self-harm; and a person whose relationship with God is polluted with lies begins to live not just a life of sinfulness which continues to distance them from God but they begin putting their trust in everything else but God. A husband and wife are there to sharpen each other, help each other. Sometimes that painful and difficult – we don’t want to face the reality of how our spouse sees us. God through our faith has given to us through all those rules for us to see ourselves even in the most unpleasant way – so that we can be healed from our hardness of heart – from our lies.

Contrary to what we might think, the purpose of Christianity is not for God to forgive us for “breaking the toys in our life.” Christ dying on the Cross already has forgiven us for all the sins we have, and we will in the future commit. Our Christian faith, our Communion with God is our response, it is for us to recognize and acknowledge the truth about our brokenness, the lies we choose to live by which hurt us, devalue us and cause us to fall away. My dears, I’ve asked this question in the past, why do we come to Church? Why do we pray to God? And to take it deeper if we come to Church and if we pray, then why do we lie to ourselves – when we know the truth. It might sound like a roundabout argument, but if we think we aren’t lying to ourselves, if we think we are faithful or “we’re not that bad”, though we don’t know what is in each other’s heart, we can never lie to God. God looks at us and calls us to Him, to be with Him in Communion. God rejects our sin and not us.

If the Pharisees are asking Jesus about divorce and Christ gives such a stern answer about those who come into a relationship with a divorcee, well what about the Samaritan Women at the Well? In John 4 Christ speaking to a Samaritan women who has been divorced not once or twice, but 5 times and who Christ says, the man you live with now is not even your husband. Not only is this women committing adultery by having had 5 husbands but she was also living out of wedlock with the man she was with now. Yet, Christ calls her to come and drink from the living water, to be cleansed and forgiven of those sins. She was not worthless because of her sin but she needed to face and recognize her sin; likewise, my dears our brokenness, our doubt, our fears, our anger, our sins are not what determine our value. It is in facing the truth of our sin and recognizing we need Christ to heal us that gives us value and purpose. True healing, true love, true forgiveness of sin comes from God. A truth we know, but for whatever reason choose to remain dishonest about.

My dears, Christ loves each and everyone of us and call us to the light, not for our sins and brokenness to be exposed but so that seeing clearly we can trusting in Him, be honest about ourselves and ask for healing. Not come to Him with excuses or arrogance but humility and a desire to be lifted out of our darkness. Those rules found in Scripture, in the Church, in our life, are tools to help soften our hardness of heart. So as we sit here, as we pray at home or go out about our daily lives, let us be honest with ourselves, about everything and let us recognize by the grace of the Holy Spirit that our Heavenly Father loves us each, and desires us to be in Communion with Him through Christ Jesus, because from the beginning of Creation it is that which God intended for us. Amen!