A true story about honesty. Told by an 80-year-old woman. First Presbyterian Church in Bend, Oregon—where she had been baptized, married and had two children baptized—kept an unvarying Sunday morning schedule over the years: Sunday school at 9:30, worship service at 10:45. Last year a new pastor asked to change the service to 10:30.
“But it has always been at 10:45,” is how the members responded. “But why?” said the new pastor. No one knew but a search through the old session minutes found the answer. The streetcar – the one that stopped running 72 years ago—stopped at the church corner at 10:40 on Sunday mornings.

This morning we are finishing our fall series on Integrity – on wholeness, completeness – on living an undivided life with God at the center. Today we are going to talk about honesty.
We are going to talk about,
• Being honest with ourselves,
• Being honest with others,
• Offering this kind of honesty in love

Honesty is a funny thing for us human beings – often our bias clouds our ability to be honest – much like this church in Bend, Oregon. “But we’ve always done it this way,” never really stops to understand why – honestly why? Well for 72 years after streetcar stopped coming, worship continued at 10:45! You know what the definition of insanity is: “Doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.”

Honesty then is part of what allows us to move forward into the change that is happening, more fully able to get a handle on some of our behavioral patterns that divide, rather than unite, us.
If we are going to talk about honesty from a scriptural perspective, a great place to start is in Matthew 7:3-5 where Jesus speaks honestly about self-honesty. So if you’re able would you please stand for the reading of God’s Word.

Scripture: Matthew 7:3-5
Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your nighbor’s eye.

Sermon: “Honest to Self”

Depending on how you hear them — these words of Jesus — can be terrifying or incredibly freeing.

These words come from the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew, chapters 5-7. The earliest followers of Jesus were Jewish. They believed this particular sermon was Jesus’ commentary on their law — the Ten Commandments — that was so central to their faith. As the movement of those following Jesus became more diverse this open-air sermon delivered on a mountainside became the Jesus standard – if you will – for Christian discipleship. This particular portion of Jesus’ sermon begins with these words, in Matthew 7:1: “Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. How you judge others is how you will be judged.”

I don’t know about you, but isn’t it a bit terrifying for me to think about being judged the way one judges others? It makes me think about a similar principled line in the Lord’s Prayer, also taught in this Sermon on the Mount, the one where we ask God to forgive us, like we forgive others.

Conversely isn’t it a bit freeing to know that we do not have to be responsible for others behavior, but only our own? The point of this passage of course is not that we abandon any critical judgment about human behavior but that we examine ourselves – our own human behavior — so that we are honest enough to see ourselves accurately – which allows us to be honest with others – and honors the love God has for humanity.

It is a remarkable thing to be in the present of another who is honest.

I was talking with Eastern Sr. Desmond Cole this week. In one of his first games a freshman he ran for 200 yards against Weber State. Everyone expected stardom for him as a RB, but it didn’t quite work out that way. He got moved around from position to position.

Now as a senior he plays some secondary, but primarily contributes to his team by his play on special teams – on kickoff and punt returns. The coaches who worked with Desmond Cole and watched him wanted him to get some attention because of his incredible attitude that seemed to always put the team.

So I asked him, “What it said about him that he has been able to handle all that has come his way, by being a team guy?” His answer surprised me, because he was so honest about himself, through this honesty he expressed his heart felt love for his teammates.

Desmond: “Throughout my life I’ve made mistakes, I’ve done things most people wouldn’t have done. I lost my cousin who was closest to age to me when I was a freshman in high school. I look at life differently now. Life can be cut short. You want to give it your all. What if this is the last time walking on the field, or walking into the classroom to take that test? I just want to contribute to make the team better. I want to give it up for my guys. I wake up everyday and see their faces. I see what they look like when they’re running. I love them. They’re all my brothers and my family.”

Then I said, “some guys might say, ‘Oh it’s just special teams play,’ but Desmond Cole doesn’t say that.” He said, “Everybody watches film, everything shows up on film, “ We both started laughing, because I got what he knew. He wasn’t going to let me make him appear better than what he was – for that kind of false self-promotion – would also be dishonest. “Of course you want to do your best, because somebody is always watching,” he said as our laughter subsided. “Every now and then you have your days but its how you come back from those days that counts.”

Do you know what Desmond’s honesty did to me? It took me back to my personal statement of faith – the one that had to be approved by Presbytery as part of the process of becoming a minister of word and sacrament.

“I believe God’s Holy Spirit may encounter us at any time, in any place. This is radical nature of God’s grace, found in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.” Why was I thinking of this, even as I was laughing in delight at Desmond’s transparent honesty? Because his honesty helped me remember my own. I wish I would’ve kept a copy of the first words I wrote about God’s Holy Spirit, about God’s grace, about Jesus – I don’t remember exactly what I wrote – because of the editing process that this statement of faith went through in the communal process of becoming ordained. But it was basically something like this – “God reached out to me when I was in my darkest place” and now to borrow from Desmond’s words, “When I made my worst mistakes.”

• Wouldn’t it be great if we could be honest like this inside the walls of the church? Or if we could hear the walls of the church talking right now speaking honestly to us about ourselves?

• Wouldn’t it be great ff we were honest enough with ourselves to always remember to lead out of our own weakness, and our own brokenness?

• Wouldn’t it be great if we were willing to be in the process of continual seeing of “the log in our lives rather than focusing on the speck “ in lives of those next to us?

If we start honesty with ourselves it gives us the freedom to lead with the compassion of God’s grace, rather than with our own arrogance, or superiority, when being honest with others.

This is the gift of insight that Desmond Cole that gave to me, that Desmond Cole received from his parents, when they were being honest with him, “My mom and dad, I could talk to them about anything,” he said even as he spoke of his own weakness, they always gave me constructive feedback, that was so important..”

Presbyterian Steve Doughty who I met a conference this summer in Salt Lake City has written a wonderful little book called To Walk in Integrity, Spiritual Leadership in Times of Crisis. In this book he talks about how he first heard Jesus words, “Take the log out of your own eye you hypocrite.” “It sounded as if Jesus were barking these words out to me like an overstressed supervisor,” Doughty writes, “but as I got older the words became gentler, Start with yourself, it is only out of self honesty that you will be able to speak an authentic word about the need for honesty in the lives of others.”

This of course is what Jesus did. He started with himself in the desert, the emerged knowing enough about who he was (God’s beloved) to speak honestly about what he saw happening around him. These were not always welcome from the two competing factions within his religious community.

• The Sadducees favored a literal rigid interpretation of their holy scriptures, insisting for example on the literal execution of the law of retaliation: “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” They rejected certain beliefs of the Pharisees interpretation of their holy book – increasingly rejecting some of the claims including a belief in the resurrection. How did Jesus respond to these rigid literalists? He honestly scolded them for not knowing the power of God.”

• The Pharisees were a bit more eclectic, popular and more democratic as we understand it. They believed they had been set apart to live lives of purity, in part through their Rabbinic interpretations of Holy Scripture. How did Jesus respond to these traditionalists? He honestly criticized them for neglecting both the justice and love of God.

Jesus was also honest with human beings speaking – to borrow Steve Doughty’s words – “STUNNING TRUTH” about who we are, and how God works:

• You are the salt of the earth.
• You are the light of the world.
• The kingdom of heaven belongs to children.
• The woman who put in two coins gave the most.

Jesus cuts through the confusion, through the rigid literalism and tradition of the religious community, through the false – dishonest – religious and spiritual devotion – gently calling us to enter into a path of honesty wide enough for us to ride the log in our eye so that wholeness – our ability to live undivided lives – may return.

Where in your life do you need to be honest with yourself?
How will this help you when you need to be honest with others?

Remember God offers divine grace to you, to us, to me – most astonishingly it often comes in our weakest, darkest moments, so that we can lead out of our brokenness.

It can be terrifying at first to see ourselves honestly. As God’s consistent gentleness wins us over, may we move in freedom to love ourselves, others, and each other with this gift of honesty.