February 7 - Lies beget lies
- Gary Fritsch
- Feb 7
- 2 min read
We often think of the web of lies as being an external thing. If one lies to one person, they have to make sure that all of the connections to that person are not able to contradict the lie. In order to preserve this, other lies might have to be told. Perhaps for most of us, we have left behind or even better, have never engaged in the building of a web of lies. For us, it might be mostly the stuff of romance novels and movie plots. Maybe it's just the little white lies.
Far more treacherous though, is the internal web of lies. The lies we tell ourselves, or even the lies that we believe about ourselves. I think that perhaps all of us have engaged in this little game of self-deception, and it is this web of lies that Herod finds himself in the middle of in today's Gospel. Because of his passion for Herodias, he tells himself the lie that it is OK to marry his brother's wife after she divorced him, despite already being married to another woman. When confronted by John the Baptist, he has to tell himself the lie that it is appropriate to imprison John, and to support the lie to his now wife Herodias that their marriage is perfectly fine, and that John is wrong for saying otherwise - he lies to himself that it is OK to have John beheaded - even though he is intrigued and attracted by John and his message, and believes him to be a holy man.
What are the lies we tell ourselves? Do we somehow justify treating others with contempt because they have acted poorly in our view? Do we deny that they are as much children of God as we are? Do we believe the lie that we are less worthy than others? That God might not be able to love us? That God might not want the very best for us? When we embrace these lies, others are sure to follow: I'm not called to be holy, that's for those 'other' people. There's no sense in striving to be free of sin, because I know I can't do it. Fill in your own self-deception here.
I don't pretend to know your own situation, but I do know that if you are part of the human race, you have engaged in believing the lies at some point. Ask God each day to keep you close to the truth - to speak truth to your heart, and to remember that truth is not a concept but a person - Jesus!
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