Sometime ago my wife came in from the hairdresser's.  "How do you like my new hair-do?" she asked with a smile and a bounce.     Have YOU ever been put on the spot like that?  And, in such a situation, what should you do?  Be truthful or be nice?

    Telling the truth sometimes can be dangerous.  That's why so many of us try to get by with little untruths or half-truths.  Society itself tries to DICTATE that, in the name of being polite, we must often hide the truth.  Sometime ago Time Magazine had an article on the town of Vidalia, Georgia, self-proclaimed home of the world's sweetest onion.  Time mostly praised the good folks of Vidalia.  But the writer also declared, "It is a region in which people, taking leave of one another, say either, 'Better come go with us' or 'Stay with us'. . . ."  And yet "The stranger who says 'O.K.' to either proposition is regarded as a nut."

    Well, if you don't mean it, don't say it!

    By way of contrast, consider a remarkable woman named Charlotte, the late wife of a Presbyterian minister friend of mine in North Carolina.  Throughout most of her adult life Charlotte suffered from the very worst kind of multiple sclerosis.  She was one of the most genuinely Christian folks I've ever known.

    Don't get me wrong.  Charlotte didn't wear her piety on her sleeve.  She didn't keep a well-marked reference Bible open on her wheelchair.  Or boast of the greatness of her prayer-life.  Or claim ecstatically to have seen any divine visions or heard any voices.  Charlotte's sincerity, instead, was visible in the way she minced no words about the Calvary she was passing through.  We first knew her and her husband when our children were young.  We'd see Charlotte at the church we attended in Raleigh, North Carolina, and say, "How are you?"  And she'd reply, "TERRIBLE!"

    At first it shocked us, made us uncomfortable -- because our greeting itself wasn't really sincere.  We weren't honestly asking Charlotte about her health at all, just acknowledging her existence.  But soon we learned to make our "How are you?" genuine.  And when she'd reply, 'TERRIBLE!" or "I'm having a bad day!," we found that a hug and an honest, "I'm sorry!" made things better--for us and, we hope, for her.

    Charlotte, you see, knew the PERIL of politeness. --The danger of being nice all the time.  Do you and I?
                       
    How much better is the Apostle Paul's advice to us in our Second Lesson today, from his Letter to the Ephesians, chapter four!    ". . . .Speaking the truth in love," he says, "we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. . . ."

    Yes, addressing the immature Christians of Ephesus (and of Broward and Palm Beach counties, Florida), Paul is telling us how to mature.  Not only how to grow as individual Christians but as a congregation of God's people.  And his advice isn't always to be polite to one another but to speak (to God, to our inmost selves, and to each other) "THE TRUTH IN LOVE. . .!"

    As I see it, the peril of being polite all the time is four-fold.  FIRST, it can reveal a LACK OF CONCERN FOR OURSELVES.  Some of the sickest marriages I've ever seen have been those in which one spouse or the other tried to be nice all the time.  In the name of love, in the name of duty (or whatever) the wife seldom or never crossed or disagreed with the husband.  (Or vice-versa--that's even worse, I think-- the old Dagwood and Blondie or Jiggs and Maggie syndrome, if any of you can remember back that far!)  In such a situation true feelings remain hidden.  Inevitably, buried resentments smolder instead of coming to the surface, where the couple can resolve them in healing and mutual growth!

    But being polite all the time poses a SECOND danger:  it can reveal A LACK OF CONCERN FOR OTHER PEOPLE. You know, we Americans are the "nice guys" of the world.  We're almost naturally gregarious.  And many of us, when we find ourselves in a crowded room or on a packed air liner, feel constrained to introduce ourselves to one or more people around us, to bring the crowd (or, at least, a part of it) together in conversation--usually on a superficial level.

    Where does this compulsion come from, anyhow? --Perhaps it's a residue from frontier times, when, amid those awful, empty spaces of the wilderness, we felt so sharply our loneliness that, in desperation, we reached out across the miles to one another -- in camp meetings, in church dinners-on-the-ground, in quilting bees, in barn-raisings.

    But our American gregariousness is both the admiration and the despair of the Europeans, who've never known a frontier and who are much more retiring than we.  In fact, Helmut Thielicke, the German pastor and theologian, declared, "The very thing which Americans possess to such a large extent, this art of human relations, . . .can be suddenly paralyzed and turned into its opposite when we no longer know who and what man really is. . . .Then one is no longer 'nice' because one has respect for human dignity, but rather because one desires merely for very practical reasons to eliminate as much as possible all friction from social intercourse and not allow any sand to get into the social machinery. . ."

    Friends, can't you and I take a lesson from Jesus?  Was Jesus a "nice guy"? --NO! --Not if we define being nice as being polite or "Hail Fellow, Well Met" or constantly "Fred Fraternity" or "Richard Rotarian."  But Jesus ALWAYS took people seriously!  In fact, he took them so seriously that, at times, he purposely was impolite, deliberately unmannerly, in his interactions with them.

    Remember what he did in the Temple at Jerusalem?  When he saw the money-changers there shamelessly taking advantage of the poor pilgrims who'd come from all over the Empire to worship God?  Cheating them?  --Jesus didn't try to reason with these greedy thieves.  He didn't say, "Now you guys know it's wrong to do this in the Temple precinct.  Stop it now!"

    Instead, Jesus grew so angry that he totally violated any "nice guy" image by taking a whip and chasing them OUT of the Temple, all the while screaming, "It is written, 'My house shall be called a house of prayer,' but you have made it a den of robbers!"
                    
    This brings me to a THIRD peril of being polite all the time:  it can reveal a LACK OF CONCERN FOR INJUSTICE AND HUMAN SUFFERING.  Some years ago, in one of my regular pastorates, in distinction from my interim ones, I was visiting an elderly lady (let's call her "Mrs. Jones") one of the pillars of the congregation, whose ill health had just compelled her to move into a local nursing home.  As we sat in her room there, discussing the adjustments she was having to go through, an attendant in uniform entered.   And she began to speak to Mrs. Jones in baby-talk, as if Mrs. Jones were an infant.   I frowned severely at the attendant but, to my lasting regret, said nothing.  And ever after, I wish I'd have had the presence of mind to take the attendant out into the hall, out of earshot, and told her, "Mrs. Jones may be frail and a bit slow.  But she's at least four times your age and has three times your education.  And you'll not talk baby-talk to her!"

    Yes, the peril of politeness! --Being polite all the time can be dangerous because it can make us reluctant to take a stand against injustice and abuse of the highly vulnerable!

    But look briefly at the FOURTH and FINAL peril of politeness:  It can reveal a LACK OF CONCERN FOR GOD.  Tell me, is God always a "nice Guy?"  --Sadly, many folks  (I'm afraid) have the mistaken idea that God is.  Popular ideas of the Deity picture a sentimental chap who is at our beck and call.  Just consider the dreadful lyrics of that song called "He," popular back in the 1950s and 60s:  "Though it makes Him sad to see the way we live, He'll always say, 'I forgive!'"

    In other words, "Don't you worry about God!" "God's a nice Guy!  You can't possibly offend Him (or Her)!"  NONSENSE!  That's the Santa Claus god, NOT the God of the Bible!  That's the god of "cheap grace" whom martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned us about, NOT the God of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

    Some years ago, on one of my trips to Germany, we boarded a passenger boat for a few hours' cruise down the romantic Rhine River.  As we passed the famous Lorelei Rock, where, according to legend, a beautiful maiden once would sit and, by her charm, lure boatmen to their deaths in the rapids, over our boat's loudspeaker came the "Lorelei Song," that all Rhine passenger boats, by tradition, play when they pass this rock.  NOT, however, from 1933 to 1945; for the author of the words to the Lorelei Song, the 19th-century German poet Heinrich Heine, was Jewish.  And Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler banned all Jewish songs and writings from his so-called Third Reich.

    Now Heinrich Heine was a great wit as well as a poet--and a thorough skeptic!  In 1856, when Heine lay on his deathbed, in Paris, someone bent low and said to him, "Pray to God, Heinrich.  He'll forgive your sins."  To which Heine, opening one eye, replied, "Of course He will; c'est son metier--that's His profession."

    Well, I certainly hope that Heine wasn't disappointed!  How many people glibly say, "Forgiveness is God's profession!  Is God just a Good Guy? --NO!  God is emphatically the God of truth and justice and righteousness!  To make the Lord into just a "Good Guy" is blasphemy!

Yes, the peril of politeness!  ". . . .Speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. . . ."

    Friends, will you join me in trying, difficult as it is, always to speak and do and live the truth in love?  And thereby remain true to yourself, true to other people, true to the quest for goodness, and (above all) true to God?

Prayers:
    O Gracious Spirit, teach us to speak the truth in love.  Grant unto us the mind and will and strength of Christ, that we may always proclaim your truth to YOU, to OURSELVES, and to OTHERS, in his name.
    We believe it to be your will, O God, to bless in answer to prayer.  So hear us now as we pray:
    For the whole world, for all nations and their governments, that freedom, peace, and plenty may prevail in all parts of the earth-especially in the Middle East, in Liberia, and other troubled areas.  Make our own nation just and humble.  implant in our leaders a genuine desire to be peacemakers.  Bring your freedom, harmony, and reunification to Korea.
    Hear us also as we pray for the Church in all its branches, including this congregation, that your people's zeal may be rekindled, their faith renewed, and their unity restored;
    For one another, that your Spirit may draw us closer together in the bonds of communion and that, especially, any in this holy place today who may hurt in body, mind, or spirit, may know your deliverance;
    For the sick-and especially for your servants Darrell Siers and Dorothy Simmons, who are ill or hospitalized.
    For those who sorrow, that they may know hope and healing, peace and joy;
For our homes and families, for our neighbors, and for the places where we work and those we meet there, that in the encounters of each day, others may learn through us of your Son's love for them;
    For the schools and the universities in our community, that in them our children and young people may prepare themselves in mind and spirit to meet the opportunities and face the confusion of our times.
Finally, O God, receive our thanks for all who, having been faithful to you on earth, now live with you in heaven.  Keep us in fellowship with them until we, too, come into your perfect presence;
    For we make these, and each of our prayers, in the strong name of XP, our Lord.  AMEN.