Abuse of Honesty

Being honest can be wrong.
Saturday, my wife and I went to a picnic. It was for her high school reunion. A few people knew who I was, but there was precious little conversation for me. That was fine, because my brain always has things to do, things which take time. It was just as well I not sit there and speak to the air every thought crossing my mind. They didn’t gather to hear my latest rant. So I sat there mostly in silence.
We call that “civility” — not burdening others with an honest report of things which is none of their business, of no interest to them. Without that, we would have the most inane nonsense paraded before the world as if it really mattered, rather like Facebook, but worse because you can’t log out. We consider people who chatter to everyone that way somewhat deranged or missing some basic human capacity, if not simply incredibly rude and childish.
We struggle to teach children not to blurt out everything that crosses their minds. In a civil society, everyone is prepared to teach a child some small lesson in civility when the opportunity presents itself, rather like dogs are instinctively restrained when dealing with a rowdy and annoying creature bearing that distinctive puppy smell. We don’t want kids asking questions which are none of their business, and we want to them to learn when it’s not their business. We note our Postmodern American society is losing this civility restraint.
It’s not a sin to teach children the basic mythology of their native culture, either. Even when that mythology consists of fairy tales and Brothers Grimm stuff, and we know those things aren’t true, we rightly teach that lore as part of the language. We know they will eventually realize those things are fiction, but still part of our cultural heritage. Nor is it a sin to use sarcasm, saying the opposite of what everyone can tell you really mean. And God help the fool who believes hyperbole has no place in the English language.
The ancient Hebrew heritage is loaded with hyperbole. Indeed, the language itself includes a large collection of words with a dramatic, over-the-top imagery no one takes literally (except Pharisees). So when Jesus spoke what His people called Hebrew, a parabolic language used to tell parables, who would dare to suggest He was lying? Yet when He told people the literal truth, sometimes they didn’t get it because it was simply too foreign. There was a time when Israelis would have thought you were joking when you told them there was only one deity. Moses struggled against that problem, as did all his successors in national leadership, until the instinct for idolatry was broken during the Babylonian Exile.
God decided He was going to use me as a prophet. There are times I don’t announce that when people ask what I do. I have to remain sensitive to the Spirit of God and rely on Him to guide me. What portion of truth is going to glorify His Name in that context? Telling certain people I’m a prophet would be as harmful as an outright lie for personal gain. In most cases, if someone can’t tell there’s something different about me, it won’t do any good to tell them. Pearls before swine, again.
I’m in very august company. John the Baptist denied he was the Second Elijah, though he was indeed. That’s because answering “yes” to the question would have been deceptive, since they were locked into a set of false notions about what that meant. Instead, John gave them what they could use. Slop for hogs; milk for babies.
Yes, it means trying to act on God’s behalf, a sort of “playing God” with people who aren’t on the same wavelength as we are. It’s really demanding and you’ll get it wrong often. Still, all truth is God’s Truth. Sometimes you don’t give a fully honest account because it just doesn’t fit, doesn’t seem pertinent to His glory at that moment. Sometimes telling someone you think they’re stupid — an honest account of your thoughts — isn’t going to help matters at all.
Absolutism is a sin.
Sometimes it’s good and right to keep your mouth shut, because “truth” of that sort can be harmful.