Honesty

Sermon preached at Wood Green Mennonite Church
Sunday 15th February 2015, 3pm.

Reverend Smith was shaking people’s hands at the door.

            One by one the members of the congregation filed past

            “Thank you so much…”

            “Lovely sermon today…”

            “very uplifting…”

            “Oh, you were so helpful today…”

Reverend Smith resisted the urge to reply

            “in what way?

            “how was it helpful?

            “what area of your life did it challenge?

            “how did God speak to you?

This really wasn’t the time or place

            Not with another hundred or so hands to shake

            Another hundred or so smiles

            Another hundred or so brief pastoral encounters

“Pastor, thank you so much for the worship”

            said one elderly lady with grey hair

            “you were really in touch with the Lord this morning.”

As she said this, Reverend Smith thought to himself “if only you knew”

            His mind was already on how he was going to try

            And sort out the argument he had had

            With his whole family

just before leaving home to come to church

He looked past her to his wife and children

            All smiling happily

            Keeping up the image of Happy families

And so the members of the congregation

            Smiled their way out of worship

            With the rousing tune of the final chorus

            Still ringing in their ears

They got into their cars,

            And set off back to their lives

            Back to the trials, stresses, strains,

            And problems which they had been able to happily forget about

            For the last couple of hours

Reverend Smith sat down,

            after another half an hour on the door,

And looked round at the small groups

            Still hovering in the corners

He thought back over the service

            Yes, it had gone well

                        The worship had been uplifting

            The music very professional

                        The sermon was one of his better ones

            Very challenging, and assuring people

                        Of God’s love for them

And suddenly it dawned on him

That through the whole time

            Not one person in the entire church

had demonstrated the slightest degree of honesty.

He had been operating out of a façade himself

            Forcing the pastoral smile

            While wanting to curl up and die inside

                        out of guilt at the things he had said

            only a few hours earlier

The congregation had, to a person,

            Not been honest with him or each other

If the answers to his often repeated “how are you today?”

            Were to be believed

            One hundred people were fine, not grumbling, and doing okay
            thank you for asking

Actually no, 99 were doing okay.

            John had indicated that he had a problem

            But there had been so many people queuing behind him

            That there had been no time to talk or pray with him.

            Or even to find out what the nature of his problem was

They had all rousingly sung the songs

            The volume of the singing

had been quite up to its usual standard

            if not slightly louder!

The Amens to the prayers had been resounding

            And the Hallelujah’s during the sermon

            Had been very inspiring

                        ………(Oh, nevermind!)

Well, thought Reverend Smith

            Is it likely that all those people

                        Were really able to worship happily today?

            Is it likely that they were able

                        To sing the happy songs

                        The songs which told God how much they loved him

            Is it likely that they managed to mean every word

Somehow Reverend Smith thought it unlikely

After all, if he was in pieces inside,

            And he was a Reverend

            Why should he expect more from the congregation

What if the truth was more depressing

What if two hundred people

            Had come together to meet with each other and with God

And had spent the whole time deceiving

            Each other

            God

            Themselves!

Surely this couldn’t be the case could it?

But what if it was?

What if the way the church was structured,

            the way they always did things

Forced people into behaving a certain way

            Smiling a certain smile

            Singing certain songs

            Praying certain prayers

When actually most of them could not

            In all integrity

            Mean a word of it!

What would it take for the worship of his church

            To allow people the space

                        to be honest about

            where they were before God

What view of God would be necessary

            For people to be able to own their hurt,

            Their anger, and their frustrations

            before God

What about those people who were angry with God

            For the way their lives had gone?

Was it really realistic to expect them to sit there

            and pray happy prayers, and sing happy songs?

And so Reverend Smith wondered…

What does the Bible say to people

            Who have had it up to here with happy songs?

Who feel that they never want to sing another happy song again?

And Reverend Smith’s thoughts turned to Psalm 137…

            That well-known psalm

            with the little-known ending

And it was especially to the last verse that Reverend Smith’s mind went

Psalm 137:1-9

    By the rivers of Babylon--

        there we sat down and there we wept

        when we remembered Zion.

    [2] On the willows there

        we hung up our harps.

    [3] For there our captors

        asked us for songs,

    and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,

        "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!"

    [4] How could we sing the Lord's song

        in a foreign land?

    [5] If I forget you, O Jerusalem,

        let my right hand wither!

    [6] Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth,

        if I do not remember you,

    if I do not set Jerusalem

        above my highest joy.

    [7] Remember, O Lord, against the Edomites

        the day of Jerusalem's fall,

    how they said, "Tear it down! Tear it down!

        Down to its foundations!"

    [8] O daughter Babylon, you devastator!

        Happy shall they be who pay you back

        what you have done to us!

    [9] Happy shall they be who take your little ones

        and dash them against the rock!

The people of Israel in ancient times were a people of Song

            They had rhythm in the blood;

            and their whirling dancing,

            their praises to the one true God,

            everything about the way they were

                        shouted praises to the one true God

They were famous for their praise songs

            throughout the known world

Other nations looked at Israel’s worship tradition

            with awe

But the people of Israel were now in Exile

The Babylonians had conquered them

            And exported them to a foreign land

And so they sat beside the rivers in Babylon

            Looking wistfully at the horizon

            Remembering their beautiful land

            Their beautiful temple

Knowing that it was all in ruins

Their places of worship destroyed

Their homes burned

They knew they were never going back.

So what were they to sing now?

            How did their happy, renowned worship songs help them now?

And all the while the Babylonians tormented them

            “Come on… sing us a song

            “What about your famous worship?

            “What about your joyful dancing?

            “Come on… Give us a number!”

And the Israelites looked at one another in despair

            And there by the river, they wept

They wept with grief as they remembered their homes

            Their temple, their places of worship

They wept that all that had been so good

had been taken from them

They wept that God seemed to have abandoned them…

            How could they cope?

            What were they to do?

They cried out before God of

Their disappointment

            Their sense of bereavement

            Their loss

They asked how God could have allowed this to happen?…

And the Babylonians wanted them to sing a happy song of the Lord?…

So they hung their harps on the trees

            and said to one another

“how can we sing the songs of the Lord

            whilst in a foreign land”

They refused to sing their happy songs,

            because those songs were not the right songs to sing.

Not now, not here.

Singing happy songs now would be lying

            It would be mocking God

            It would be refusing to face up

            To what had happened to them

But they still sang…

They sang of their sadness

They sang of their anger

They sang of their disappointment

They were honest about their feelings

Not for them some effort to push their anger

            Deep down inside

            Where it would fester for years

            Before coming out to haunt them

Not for them some necessity to pretend everything was fine

            When actually everything was awful

They knew that God could take whatever they needed to throw at him

They knew that he could absorb their anger

            They knew that he could cope with their bitterness

            Meet them in their hurts

So they were honest before God, and with one another

And they sang before God

            “happy is the one who grabs the babies of the Babylonians

            and smashes their heads on the rocks”

---------

Well, you don’t get much more honest than that, do you?!

These people knew God well enough to know

            That he wasn’t about to disown them

Simply because they were honest with him about their feelings

Their relationship with God

            Was such that it could withstand

            The brutal honesty of emotions like this

And I wonder if we could usefully ask ourselves the question of whether,

if we hated somebody enough to want their children dead…

we would be prepared to admit it

            even to ourselves,

            let alone to others

            or to God?

Or would we still come along on a Sunday

            To meet with our brothers and sisters in Christ

            To meet with the living God

And behave like the congregation in Reverend Smith’s church?

            All smiles and happiness

            Fooling ourselves, others, and God.

What would it take for us to have a church

            Which modelled the example of the Israelites?

Where we could praise, and sing happy songs

            when we had things to praise and be happy about;

but where there was also the space

            To be honest and open about our darker emotions.

What would it be like to have a church

            where the voices from the dark underside of our humanity,

            could be heard from time to time?

What would it be like to have a church

            where honesty and integrity was more important than anything else?

How can we learn to be honest in worship?

            Honest with ourselves

            Honest with one another

            Honest with God

The first battle to be won here

            is probably learning to be honest with ourselves

A phrase from my days as a student at ministerial training college

            still sometimes returns to haunt me:

            “never underestimate our capacity to deceive ourselves”

It is all too easy to kid ourselves that we are doing fine

            to convince ourselves that we are coping,

            that our relationships are going well,

            and that other people can’t hurt us…

The reality for many of us is that when things get tough,

we don’t like facing up to the truth of what has happened to us

            or is happening to us

It’s much more comfortable to pretend

            that nothing is going wrong,

            not admitting even to ourselves the feelings we have

Possibly because they make us feel guilty…

If I wanted to smash someone else’s child’s head against the rock

            I think I’d feel pretty guilty about that emotion

Much more comfortable to ignore it, and

            Deceive myself into believing

            That I am doing fine.

Rather than admitting it to myself

            Facing the guilt

            And beginning the path towards healing

Of course, being honest with ourselves is only the first step

We may know deep down inside that things are far from right

But that doesn’t do anything about the public face.

            The happy smile

            And the twinkly eyes

            That belie the pain underneath

The problem with being honest with one another

            Is that we can’t be honest with one another all the time

We would never cope!

We don’t really want to hear everybody else’s problems

We are too damaged ourselves

            To be able to cope with everyone else’s honesty

But one thing that is worth thinking about here

            Is that one of the main criticisms of Christians

            By people outside the church

            Is that we are a bunch of hypocritical, self righteous whatsits

And if we go round giving the impression that we are eternally sorted

            Always having a happy smile

            with all our problems in the past

Who can blame people for finding that off-putting?

A bit of honesty from time to time

            Would go a long way towards rectifying this

If we could be honest about he fact that

            All we are is a bunch of sinners

            Who just happen to be forgiven

Maybe others wouldn’t find God so intimidating

Jesus, after all, didn’t hang around with the religious, sorted, people.

He said that they didn’t need him

Jesus hung round with prostitutes & foul-mouthed fishermen

                        He took drinks with adulterers

He spent time with people

whose sinfulness was so obvious

            that it offended the church-going types of his day.

And I fear that sometimes we are so dishonest with each other,

            in our attempts to appear holy and happy,

            that we alienate those who Jesus died for?

And my worry is that if this is so,

            we might find Jesus not wanting to spend much time with us

                        Leaving us to our singing

            Whilst he is off spending time with those who need him

But the truth, of course

            Is that we need Jesus just as much as anybody else

                        We still sin

                        We still hate people

                        We still have broken relationships

If only we could find a way of being honest about it

For some of us that place of honesty

            will be found through involvement in a small group of Christians who meet regularly,

a place where we can build the kind of close relationships

            where honesty becomes possible

and where we can find the support from our sisters and brothers

            That will help us through the tough times

Some of us will find the place of honesty as we meet with another Christian for prayer

            Being honest together about what we hear God saying to us

My own journey has found great honesty in the wise counsel of my spiritual director…

            a companion on the journey…

            who has helped me to learn to be honest with God

            and so to grow in my relationship with him

At a simple level, we can find honesty in the opportunities for prayer

that are on offer at church week by week.

            If only we learn not to leave, pausing only to pick up at the door

            our coat and the burden we put down when we walked in

            If life is awful, be honest with someone.

            Get some help, ask for some prayer.

Maybe in these and other ways

            We can be able to learn how to be honest with one another.

And a word of caution.

If someone trusts us enough to be honest with us

            We must treat them sensitively

            Because there but for the grace of God we go

But finally, let us seek to be honest with God.

            And in many ways this is the hardest thing

Being honest with ourselves is tough, and with others is difficult

But admitting our darkest feelings before God

            is a terrifying prospect

How is God going to react

            If I tell him I want to kill my enemy’s baby?

Well, the Israelites told him

            And he didn’t disown them!

Let us look at how we relate to God

            And consider what the opportunities

for honesty and dishonesty are…

What about our prays?

How we pray, and whether we pray,

            may tell us a lot about our relationship with God.

Do we always seem to be saying the same stuff to God

            or finding ourselves not bothering to pray any more,

            or only praying in the same old ways?

Maybe we might start to pay attention

to what it is that we are not saying to God

We may find that we are not being honest with God

            About some area of our lives

Maybe the time is upon us to own up to who we are before him

            And to receive his forgiveness and healing

Again, I have often found that talking to others can help here

            as we seek to understand how we are relating to God

And what about in our Sunday worship

            How do we do there?…

What are the opportunities for honesty or dishonesty

that Sunday presents us with?

We may not be quite up to Reverend Smith’s congregation’s standards

            But I wonder if we often we come close!

Many Christians have a tendency

            to expect victorious, joyous, Christian living

Which is fine - until their lives fall apart.

So sometimes we need to get real ourselves

            and ask just why we think we’re here on a Sunday.

Is it get an emotional lift out of the service

            that will see us through until at least Monday lunchtime?

Or is it to meet in honesty

            with ourselves,

            with others,

and with God

Who loves us, and longs to forgive us

            to heal us

            to renew us

            to refresh us

            And to comfort us

And to teach us to worship him

            in Spirit and in truth.