I lie. You lie. The underlying philosophy of the character Dr. Gregory House, played by the astonishingly American Brit Hugh Laurie, in Fox’s television show House is that every body lies. No one can be trusted because everyone always wants to do what is best ultimately for themselves whether it be because they want others to see their good behavior or because it makes them feel good, they have accomplished or done therefore they love themselves more. Well this is true: in the unreal reality of the television show House we can learn and wonder.
First I like to think, ‘I don’t lie, lying is for cowards and wimps.’ It IS for cowards and wimps and I, unfortunately, find myself swimming in that water. When we think of lying it is most often Richard Nixon, Michael Vick, and Enron type stuff. The big things. The costly things. But what about the insignificant, small and unimportant? When I find myself misplacing the truth and finding some falsity it is usually when I have no reason to. So maybe I added a for more yards to my career rushing in high school when I tell my kids, maybe the food wasn’t that good, maybe I wasn’t that excited when I saw him. Brad Paisley sings about bending the truth a little bit and he concludes—or at least whoever wrote the song—that bending the truth is love.
Why do we lie? The easy answer is that we’re liars and liars lie. But what is the point of telling a lie? As far as I can tell it is masquerading who we are or what we can do and projecting something more exciting and more appealing and impressive to those around us. We work on the micro level: we don’t need to lie on our taxes or lie to a whole nation, rather a small group of people who we can be more than. Of course, I’d never verbalize such a thing and that is mostly due to the fact that I do not see it that way . . . until I actually think about it and it becomes obvious. Why do we lie then? Maybe because we’re scared of what we are, who we are, and what we are capable of doing. We’re not satisfied with who we are in reality so we broadcast who we are fictionally to people who don’t know otherwise.
What’s so scary about who we are? We could be sitting in the execution chair if we had different parents, grew up in a different part of town, and hung around different people. The truth is we are capable of worse things than we cover our television with and that is frightening. This however is the wonderful news of Jesus dying on the Cross in the way he did then raising from the dead: our abilities, our identities are completely changed. When you entrust yourself to Jesus it is only when you realize you are the Father’s child, Jesus’ brother and friend and no longer who you were that you have no need of lying. If you are a follower of Jesus you have no need to alter reality. All that is truly helpful and good in the world already is with you and for you, the only reason you would lie is to impress nobodies who only exist to harm. Again, it is only out of a transformed heart that loves Jesus and his words and his life that one can live in absolute security in his identity: God loved us while we were still cheats and murderers, pedophiles, rapists, drunks, addicts, lesbian, arrogant, rude, hateful, and a liar.
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