The Joy of Transparency

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There’s a great scene in an episode of one of my favorite television series, White Collar, in which a father and son are guests at a friend’s house. Wanting to be gracious and properly mannered, the father and son do their best to eat the entrée, but it is obvious the meat is a little tough. They surreptitiously slip portions of the meat to the dog under the table. Of course, they are not fooling anyone, and, finally, the hostess busts them for it.

The kicker came when she explained that it was not her, but her husband, who had prepared the entrée. What a relief - everyone had a good laugh at the cook’s expense. The mood was lightened, and the conversation opened up from there.

That scene (and others like it, for it happens all the time all over the place) came to mind I read today’s words from Luke’s gospel, chapter twelve, verses one through three, which are as follows:

Meanwhile, when the crowd gathered by the thousands, so that they trampled on one another, he began to speak first to his disciples, “Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees, that is, their hypocrisy. Nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. Therefore whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed from the housetops.

Jesus had just gotten done calling out the Pharisees (that is, the good little church people who pride themselves on having dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ’t’ with respect to following the law completely to the letter as written. He calls them out, to their face, for their blatant hypocrisy. 

So as to make sure the point is not lost, he then turns to his disciples and uses this exchange with the Pharisees as an object lesson about the truth of how these sorts of things work. He is saying to them, and, by extension to those of us eavesdropping almost 2,000 years later, that God pays attention to the ways in which our thoughts, words, and deeds testify to the true condition of our soul.

Now, I do not believe for a minute this should not make us all take pause - for are there any of us who do not have some thought, word, or deed that we would like to make sure never sees the light of day? Is there amongst us any who can say they are without blemish of some sort? Often, I think we live in fear of being ‘found out.’ Probably with good reason in many instances.

What if I told you that transparency is a blessing and not something to fear?

By teaching us that there is nothing we can hide from God, Christ is offering us a glorious opportunity to be totally transparent - warts and all. There’s nothing, as Paul reminds us in Romans 8, that will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Maybe rather than living in fear of being found out, a move to transparency might allow us instead to GROW in our faith because the depth of our desperate need for divine grace, peace, mercy, love, and healing is now out there for us to deal with in a completely forthright manner.

Let’s not forget what I mentioned at the beginning - the mood lightened and conversation flowed when the father and son’s efforts to slip the dog the tough meat was exposed. It’s amazing how transformational coming out from hiding might be for us all.