Truth in the summer of 2021. The intertwined catastrophes of accelerating climate change and the surging Covid 19/Delta pandemic have been made much more deadly by lies. Leaders in many fields found out daunting truths, and then decided to lie to the rest of us about it.
The decision to lie--day after day, year after year--how could they do it? how could they live with themselves?
They looked in the mirror each morning and decided, again and again, that it worked for them. They kept on deciding that lying was necessary, whether for their financial performance or for their social status or for their comfort level or for their sense of self worth.
Their lying worked for them. It fixed their temporary, privileged, personal problems. But it did not work at all for our democracy, for the health of our global human community, or for the well-being of the divine creation called planet earth.
The writer of Ephesians has help to offer whenever we get into a deadly predicament like this. As Professor Aaron writes, "The call to truthfulness here invites reflection on why we lie." Further, he points out that "the rationale for speaking the truth in Ephesians 4 draws on the relationship of love and trust within the church: "we are members of one another." (4:25)
We are members of one another. And not just within a religious congregation--but also within the whole body of humanity whom God created and is still calling into being. We are always already together and beloved and at home in God's heart.
All of us. Already members of one another. This is not something we could achieve or pull off.
This, by the grace of God, is our deepest, most enduring, most exciting reality. And our most profound inspiration to know and speak the truth.