In his book, Be a People Person, John Maxwell tells this story.

Mr. Myrick had to go to Chicago on business and persuaded his brother to take care of his cat during his absence. Though he hated cats, the brother agreed. Upon his return, Myrick called from the airport to check on the cat.

“Your cat died,” the brother reported, then hung up.

Myrick was inconsolable. His grief was magnified by his brother’s insensitivity, so he called again to express his pain.

“There was no need for you to be so blunt,” he said.

“What was I supposed to say?” asked the perplexed brother.

“You could have broken the news gradually,” explained Myrick. “You could have said, ‘The cat was playing on the roof.’ Then, later in the conversation, you could have said, ‘He fell off.’ Then you could have said, ‘He broke his leg.’ Then when I came to pick him up, you could have said, ‘I’m so sorry. You’re cat passed away during the night.’ You’ve got to learn to be more tactful.

“By the way, how’s Mom?

After a long pause, the brother replied, “She’s playing on the roof.”

Maxwell’s story addresses an issue that we all struggle with.  We struggle to be honest, candid straight forward with one another.  We either error on the side of being so blunt that it is perceived as being simply mean spirited or we candy coat the truth to where it is so sweet the person never hears it.

It isn’t like we don’t know what the truth is.  We waste no time telling everybody else what we are not willing to tell the person who needs to hear it.

I spend a good deal of time with couples who are preparing for marriage to help them communicate more honestly.  My first clue that they are afraid to level with one another is when the leave the question blank that read, “The one thing my spouse could improve on is……”

It is amazing to me the number of people who are not willing to put anything down.  Two years into the marriage and they will be asking if they can use the back of the paper to complete their list.

When I push them a bit on their reasons for leaving it blank their first line of response is, “No, really I can’t think of anything.”  Sometime at this point the other person will start creating the list for them – “What about the fact that I am slob, or I don’t like your mother, or I always leave the toilet seat up.”

Yeah, but those things don’t really matter.  Oh really.  You would be surprised on much they matter over the course of a life time.

The first response is denial – there is nothing I would change about you.

The second response is to minimize the truth – “It is no big thing” or “I feel stupid bringing it up.”

The third line of defense is to claim, “I was afraid if I said anything you would be mad or hurt.”

Jim Collins, the author of Good to Great, interviewed Admiral Jim Stockdale, the highest-ranking officer in the Hanoi Hilton prisoner of war camp during the height of the Vietnam War. Regarding the prisoner of war camp, Collins asked Stockdale, “Who didn’t make it out?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” answered Stockdale. “The optimists.”

“The optimists? I don’t understand,” responded Collins.

“The optimists. Oh, they were the ones who said, ‘We’re going to be out by Christmas.’ And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they’d say, ‘We’re going to be out by Easter.’ And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart. This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end which you can never afford to lose with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.”

The challenge with all of these responses is that the truth is left unspoken.  The truth is the most precious gem that exists in our lives.  It is why in our scripture lesson today Jesus is described as being full of the truth.  Later in John he is called the way, the life and the truth.  It is John who also reminds us that when we deal with the truth it sets us free.

I grew up with tension around truth telling.  My father taught me, “Son tell it like it is.  Call a spade a spade.  I never give him hell.  I just tell em the truth and think it is hell.”

My mother on the other hand would say, “If you can’t say anything nice it is better not to say anything at all.”

Our Bible Story today offers us a way out of this either or approach to truth telling when we learn that Jesus was full of grace and truth.  This is what St. Paul refers to as speaking the truth in love.  This kind of truth telling is hard work, done with sweaty palms but often yields great results.

I think of the time when Kim mustered up the courage to tell me, “I want you to know what I am about to say is not about blame, guilt or shame.  It is simply a reality.  The girls and I are no longer going to put our lives on hold because of your schedule.  We are going to choose to do things and if you can join us that will be a plus.  If not we will be doing them without you.”

Believe me I heard the truth but I also knew it was gracious truth and that is what made possible for me to hear it.  It also set our marriage free.  And I continue to wrestle with this truth.

Gracious truth telling is done with a tremendous amount of respect and care for the person to who the truth is directed at.  Gracious truth telling is intended to help a person come to grips with their denial or blind spots.   It is not about trying to put the person in their place or a game of power where the truth teller walks away saying, “I really told him.”

What is interesting in our culture is we often pay counselors lots of money to help us either speak the truth or hear the truth.  And what is humorous is when a person spends several months in therapy and then reports to the family some great revelations that the family has spent years trying to tell the guy.

Why didn’t you listen when I told you the same exact thing?

It is not like the boss that I once had who would say, It is clear to me that God clearly understand that what you and I need more than anything is life is to get a full dose of gracious truth.

What is a truth about your life that you need to have graciously dealt with?

What truth is it you need to graciously share with another?

And the word became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth.

Peace, Gretchen

Sermon Luke 4:21-30

Then Jesus began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’ All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’ He said to them, ‘Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, “Doctor, cure yourself!” And you will say, “Do here also in your home town the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum.” ’ And he said, ‘Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s home town. But the truth is, there were many widows in Israel in the time of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up for three years and six months, and there was a severe famine over all the land; yet Elijah was sent to none of them except to a widow at Zarephath in Sidon. There were also many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed except Naaman the Syrian.’ When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff. But he passed through the midst of them and went on his way.

This past Thursday, a great voice was lost from our world.  JD Salinger died at the age of 91, and I believe he died just as he would have had it – alone in his house, as a recluse.  Salinger, author of the famous, “Catcher in the Rye,” hated movies, hated celebrity, and really loathed, as his angsty hero Holden Caufield was fond of calling them, “phonies.”  Through Caufield, we can hear Salinger rant: “I’m sick of just liking people. I wish to God I could meet somebody I could respect.”  “Grand. There’s a word I really hate. It’s a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.”  “All morons hate it when you call them a moron.”

Salinger may have been eccentric and over the top, but he was very clear in his dislike for inauthenticity, and very good at spotting “phonies.”  Why is it, in our society, we have such a need to duck and cover from the truth?  We cover hurtful things with “little white lies” that can become for more damaging than the truth in the first place.

This week at staff meeting here at church, we were discussing performance evaluations.  Just the thought of performance evaluations makes my skin crawl.  I hate the idea of being graded for my job, or of finding out that “While Gretchen is a charming speaker and fantabulous GRAND musician, she is a complete slacker in the following areas…” (Phonies!)  Here’s what I think it is: Everyone fears being told something true about themselves that they don’t want to face up to.  People are scared of the truth.  Even more, people are scared to tell the truth.  What if someone gets offended or hurt?  What if I irreparably ruin a friendship or a working relationship?  I remember as a little girl, shopping with my aunt, and receiving this etiquette lesson: If you’re shopping with a friend, and she comes out of a dressing room wearing the most horrendous thing you’ve ever seen (“I wouldn’t wear that to a dogfight!”), the appropriate thing to say is, “How interesting!” Really?  No.  Not interesting.  More like, “How phony!”

Jesus, in a few short years, had become a celebrity.  A well-known healer.  A rabble-rouser among the authorities, both religious and state.  But he didn’t start out that way.  Jesus was just a guy, just a carpenter, just Mary’s son.  He was an average kid.  But when he went away, he learned things, and he changed, dramatically.  He began preaching, and teaching, and healing people.  Stories of his accomplishments started to filter back through to his hometown.  “Have you heard what Jesus has been doing?  He’s healing the blind, and cleaning up lepers!”  “Not our Jesus!”  “Yes!  It’s hard to believe, isn’t it?”  So when word came to town that Jesus was finally going to be making a stop back in Nazareth on his grand tour of the Diaspora, you would have thought that Bruce Springsteen was going to play in New Jersey, or Ben Gibbard was playing the Crocodile.  There was a line around the block to get in to the synagogue.  You could see the priests and rabbis looking at each other saying, “Wow, we’ve gotta get this guy to preach more often!”  Jesus starts to teach, and the people are expecting a lengthy presentation, hours even, perhaps about Abraham, or maybe about Moses.  Jesus is handed the scroll of Isaiah from which to read.  He reads the text, and then makes a one-sentence pronouncement.  “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”  And put the scroll back.  There was dead silence.  And then, one person looked to another, and a murmur started running through the hall.  “That’s just… brilliant!  Brilliant!”  Some people were amazed.  But some said to one another, “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?  We’ve known him forever.  This can’t be right.”

When people had settled, Jesus went on… “I’m sure you’re hoping that I am going to do here for you, what I have done in Capernaum.  But let me tell you this, no prophet is accepted in his hometown.  The truth is this: Elijah didn’t take care of everyone in Israel in the time of famine, just one widow.  And Elisha didn’t heal all the lepers in Israel in his time, but only one.”

And there was a pregnant silence in the hall.  What he said began to register in the minds of the people.  The people became inflamed, and the hall erupted.  How dare he?  Who does he think he is?  They formed into a mob, and threw Jesus and his friends out of the synagogue.  The mob drove them out of town, and to the edge of a high mountain cliff, where they were surely going to push him down, and kill him for these words.  But Jesus somehow managed to pass right through them, and to slip away.

Looking at this story, the overwhelming question I see is this: How did Jesus get away?  You can’t just *leave* when people are trying to kill you!  “Oh, sorry about that man, things just got a little heated.”  Noooo!  This is a situation for a miracle.  Confirmands?  What are the five signs of a miracle?  1. Disregard minor situations. 2. Look for a lack of predictability. 3. Evaluate the outcome – is it good? 4. Look for divine agency – what is God doing here? And 5. Wait and see.  (Credit to The Lutheran Handbook.)  Looks like this just might be a miracle!  God must have been with Jesus, backing him up, seconding the things that he was saying, even though those things clearly weren’t what the people were hoping to hear.

Jesus took a stand.  He said what needed to be said, despite a dire outcome in the end.  He was not afraid because God was with him.  What Jesus was saying was real, and important, and had depth.  He was righteous.  Righteous!  And so what does this mean for us? God wants us to be truth tellers.  God wants more than anything that we be honest with one another, speaking the truth in love, and hearing that truth with open ears.  God wants for us to listen, learn, forgive, grow, and heal.  And all of that starts with the truth.

You know a place where people really get off on truth telling?  Marriage retreats.  Yah! Couples who have been married for 10, 20 years go on these marriage retreats, and you know what they ask you to do?  It’s life changing, ask anyone!  They want you to write a letter to your spouse.  Write a letter!  And in that letter, say a few endearing things about your spouse, and then a few things that you would like to work on together.  That’s it.  And it’s this huge revelation!  Some of these people haven’t spoken to each other in years, clearly.  How is it that we have such a hard time talking to each other, speaking the truth in love, that we can go for eons without having a more meaningful conversation than about who’s picking up the kids and when you’re hoping to get to the grocery store?

Truth telling needs to happen in every part of our lives.  It needs to happen with our families, with our colleagues, with our friends, with our God!  And it is so scary.  And it is so hard.  But God calls us to this.

One of the sister readings for this Sunday is from the book of Jeremiah.  In it, God tells Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” ⁶Then Jeremiah said, “Ah, Lord God! Truly I do not know how to speak, for I am only a boy.” ⁷But the Lord said to him, “Do not say, ‘I am only a boy’; for you shall go to all to whom I send you, and you shall speak whatever I command you, ⁸Do not be afraid of them, for I am with you to deliver you, says the Lord.”  We are Jeremiah.  Jeremiah is us.  We are afraid to speak.  But God is with us.  How quickly we forget.

When we have something difficult to say or do, something that goes against the societal grain, we can tend to hem and haw, and hope that it just goes away.  We do nothing.  But the example that we are being shown by Jesus, the example given to us as “Little Christs,” is that we should say what we mean, and be not afraid!  We need to stand up for what we know, and not hide behind our fear.  God’s face will show through our own, and what we’re saying will be heard!  People are going to get angry, of course.  But our God is with us, and has promised to be by our side as we pass through the waters and the fire.  And even more, we will reap the fruits of that truth in spades.

SPEAK THE TRUTH IN LOVE.  GOD HOPES THIS FOR US, SO HIGHLY.

AMEN.