Mtr Mary Trainor

A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on. —Winston Churchill

Dear friend,

If I had to prioritize the Ten Commandments, I think I might suggest that lying qualifies as among the lesser offenses, certainly lesser than murder or stealing. I guess coveting could be a victimless sin, too. Maybe it’s a lesser one, also.

Today’s Gospel lesson from Matthew got me wondering about the commandments, and their relative worth, and our adherence to them.

Specifically, Jesus says: “Whoever  breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew is my least-favorite of the four gospels. He seems so heavy-handed when interpreting Jesus, offering up dire consequences for bad behavior: The outer darkness; unquenchable flames; weeping and gnashing of teeth.

So when he cites Jesus saying that whoever breaks even the least of the commandments will be sorted out to the least places in the afterlife—well, let’s just say, it doesn’t warm my heart.

And there’s more. Jesus says if we teach the breaking of commandments, we will also be assigned to lesser quarters.

Each time I encounter this passage, I am startled by the suggestion that I might actually teach someone how to violate God’s commandments. How preposterous is that?

Or is it?

While I’m sure that I won’t schedule a Zoom session any time soon, I do teach—everyone does—by the way we live our lives, the choices we make. My little white lies, they don’t harm anyone, right? In fact, maybe such inventions actually spare a person’s feelings. Isn’t that a good thing?

Maybe—yet someone in the same conversation, or an adult bystander, or a child standing near while we’re on the phone recounting the story—they now know: Lying is okay under special circumstances.

Is that the result I want?

—Mtr Mary