truth v. deception

if you're a regular reader, it'll seem a bit redundant to start with this one. i just wrote about it a few weeks ago. but it is amazing how many times this particular tension has been evident in my life and writing.

i think one of our culture's constant invitations to us is to lie, and shut ourselves in a prison of our own making because of it: wear "age-defying" make-up = lie about your age. borrow more money = lie about your income. all advertising, in fact, must make you feel small, inadequate, or incomplete unless you buy their particular product or service or lifestyle. most of the episodes of Friends or Grey's Anatomy or Everybody Loves Raymond revolve around some sort of deception that is, in the end, discovered (with great comedy or great dramatic impact). the way the characters lie to one another is the crux of the plot, and it just feels semi-uncomfortably like a parody of my own relationships.

all in all, the invitation seems something like this: "be as deceptive as necessary in order to seem to be who you wish you were." and when we take it - when I take it - our contribution to the world becomes a Nothing. we conjure a person that doesn't actually exist, and then try to interact with the real world as that fictitious character. what impact can a phantom have on a solid world? what difference does an apparition make? in trying so hard to just pretend to be Something, we make ourselves disappear.

but the Lord offers quite a different invitation, doesn't He? the New Testament is busting with instruction and examples of ways that "the truth will set you free," and they are all counter-cultural practices. (they're also dangerous, but don't danger and freedom go together as much as safety and captivity?) i don't have time or knowledge enough to even scratch the surface of this theme woven throughout the Word. i'll stick to one example...

to me, one of the most frightening and hopeful verses in the New Testament is James 5:16. it begins with "Therefore, confess your sins..." evidently, it is important that we acknowledge and tell the truth about all the ways that we've blown it. WHAT?! why?! why would a person ever do that? go to your boss and tell him you've been getting paid for hours you didn't work. go to your spouse and tell them you flirted with someone else today. go to your children and tell them you treated then unfairly because you lost your temper. go before God and tell him you didn't love well today. logic says you'll lose your job, permanently wreck your marriage, lose the respect of your children, and further distance yourself from God. and yet somehow confession - telling the truth even when it is embarrassing truth - is part of His plan for us to live in freedom.

my theory is that confession does for the spirit what puking does for the body. you know the feeling - i hate to throw up, but when i do i will be better. your body feels the urge to throw up when it detects the presence of a poison - it is a defense mechanism in place to help keep you healthy. if you don't throw up, the poison has incredible destructive power over your body. the moment it is out, it is no longer powerful. gross, perhaps, but unable to do further harm. i think confession does something similar for our spirit - that God asks us to get the sin out where it is no longer powerful. gross, perhaps, but unable to do further harm...

i recognize it can be an empty ritual or abused in a very salvation-by-works kind of way, but i think we Protestants have tossed out the baby with the bathwater by abandoning the practice of Confession. i'm not sure that the way to regain it is to put our pastors in boxes with curtains certain hours of the day. i'm not sure that it's not, either. i just think we're avoiding something necessary to overcome a life of lying and to enter into telling and living truth...