LIE: Our hidden sins do not affect others

Lie: Our hidden sins do not affect others.

Truth: Our sins, both visible and invisible, do affect others, especially the ones we love.

No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee . . .  — from Meditation 17 Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions, John Donne, 1624.

Small children are often so transparent that no confession is needed. They think they’re getting away with that stolen cookie, but they’re completely unaware of the guilty look written all over their faces. As we mature we become better liars – we learn to control our faces, but to those we love, our deeds are known and felt by a hundred others signs: a slight distancing, a silence or a verbosity, an absence of eye contact, an inappropriate or uncharacteristic comment. The accumulation of these may actually be more felt than known.

This lie – that our hidden sins don’t affect others – gets at the bottom of things; it gets at how we affect each other in so many ways, both good and bad, but most of which we are completely unaware. Let me take a snapshot of my own life. Right now, as I sit on my back screen porch on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, my wife sits reading on our patio, 10 feet away. My 18-year-old daughter sleeps or reads in her bedroom; my other children and grandchildren are elsewhere, either in their homes or about town. Here and now, I am affected by them all simultaneously, although in ways I can’t fully comprehend. I’m affected by their moods, their recent experiences, their words, their plans, their hardships, the uncertainties of which they’ve spoken and their sins, most of which I am also completely unaware.

Paul taught the Corinthian church how interconnected we are:

And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. — I Corinthians 12:26

He also told the Ephesians the same thing in a slightly different way:

 . . . from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love. — Ephesians 4:16

and then exhorted them to act accordingly because of it:

Therefore, putting away lying, “Let each one of you speak truth with his neighbor,” for we are members of one another. — Ephesians 4:25

‘Okay,’ you say, ‘I get that we’re all mysteriously linked and that somehow halfway around the world people feel a butterfly’s flutter. But hold on, there’s another, more profound rationale that exists to expose this lie: I affect my loved ones because my sins affect me and my character, which in turn, affects them in a hundred ways both good and bad. We cannot NOT affect others, especially the ones we love.

For an example of this, let’s remember the aftermath of David’s sin with Bathsheba. Uriah, the victim, probably never knew who murdered him or why or even that he was murdered.

We all know the story —

It happened in the spring of the year, at the time when kings go out to battle, that David sent Joab and his servants with him, and all Israel; . . . But David remained at Jerusalem. — 2 Samuel 11:1

David reclined idly on his terrace and spied the beautiful Bathsheba bathing. The king summoned her and committed adultery with her, his first sin. This was not necessarily a secret sin, except that Uriah her husband did not know. So David wanted to cover it up and so brought Uriah back home for a reunion with his wife, thinking he would surely take the opportunity for a sexual reunion. This done, so the king thought, all would assume that Bathsheba’s baby was Uriah’s. The only problem was, Uriah refused out of loyalty and solidarity with his comrades in arms, and chose to sleep on his door step.

And Uriah said to David, “The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.” — 2 Samuel 11:11

We admire Uriah’s patriotism and loyalty to David and Israel, especially him being a native Hittite aborigine.

So David decided to go with plan B and gave the order to Joab to thrust Uriah to the front lines where he would surely see the heat of the battle. David knew what this meant; it meant a death sentence for Uriah. David was determined to cover up his sin and he was willing to commit the ultimate sin to do it: murder.

After Uriah was killed, Nathan the prophet asked for an audience with the king to tell him a little story. Here are Nathan’s words:

Then the Lord sent Nathan to David. And he came to him, and said to him: “There were two men in one city, one rich and the other poor. The rich man had exceedingly many flocks and herds. But the poor man had nothing, except one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished; and it grew up together with him and with his children. It ate of his own food and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom; and it was like a daughter to him. And a traveler came to the rich man, who refused to take from his own flock and from his own herd to prepare one for the wayfaring man who had come to him; but he took the poor man’s lamb and prepared it for the man who had come to him.” So David’s anger was greatly aroused against the man, and he said to Nathan, “As the Lord lives, the man who has done this shall surely die! And he shall restore fourfold for the lamb, because he did this thing and because he had no pity.
Then Nathan said to David, “You are the man!” — 2 Samuel 12:1–7a

The point in retelling this story is to give an account of what secret sin does to us. It changes us. And if we persist in it, it alters our character and that character in turn affects others. David was on track to become another lying, cheating, murdering monster like so many kings before him. But in his mercy, God arrested him in his downward spiral and he repented.

We too, if we persist in our hidden sins, refusing to repent, will take on the character of that sin. And that character, the character of a liar, thief, adulterer or idolater, will affect, knowingly or unknowingly, the people around us. The good news is, as long as we have breath, we have the opportunity to receive the grace and mercy of God and turn from our hidden sins and this subtle lie.

See also the introduction to this category: Lies about sin.