HONEST TO GOD 

Amanda Siegfried may be known to you as playing the daughter in search of her Father in Mama Mia – The Movie. I recently watched her in The Dropout on BBC i-Player and can recommend it as an enthralling performance within an intriguing story.
 
The title refers to the fact that Elizabeth Holmes, of whom this is something of a biopic, only lasted a short time at the prestigious Stanford University before leaving, dropping out of her course, to pursue a commercial career. Elizabeth had big dreams that would “help people”. That was her initial driving force, as a benefactor to the health system. Being needle phobic herself she wanted to find a way to undertake multiple blood tests for diagnosis using just one drop of blood similar to that extracted to assess blood sugar levels using a fingerpick.
 
The story, which I will not try to ruin for you here, builds over a period of about fifteen years from leaving university at 19 to the eventual fall of her, at that time $9 billion, company, Theranos. It is a story of philanthropic dreams giving way to power, greed, ruthlessness and deceit. Holmes and her partner Sunny Balwani were convicted of fraud and misleading investors. The unfolding story depicted is that many wealthy people were hoodwinked into believing in the product and its ability to generate profits while the scientists and product developers struggled in labs to bring the dream to a practical and safe reality.
 
The company may have risen to $9 billion but it never produced a reliable product.
 
Siegfried’s character portrays a youthful dreamer with a purpose that morphs into a controlling sociopath who no longer sees the truth but merely the headline that will justify her idol – the company. “Without the company we cannot help people”. Therefore, anyone who threatens the existence of the company (and her controlling role as CEO and majority shareholder) is either isolated or fired or silenced by legal action. Security becomes a means to operate as a company rather than just to protect the copyright and patents of the firm. Colleagues are inculcated with a culture that encourages turning a blind eye and informing on colleagues and everything is on a need to know basis.
 
Even long-term friends get shut out and eventually leading to tragic consequences.
 
So, while I can recommend The Dropout artistically, it’s not a feel-good programme!
 
But it does highlight a very important Easter principle. And that is the power of self-preservation and the temptation to deceit. And most importantly self-deceit.
 
Throughout the episodes we see Elizabeth create ever more elaborate lies that are practised, repeated and said with determined sincerity (eg by lowering her voice). And in the saying of them it becomes to her a truth. Even though often they began life as a way of covering up an uncomfortable truth such as “the product is not ready” or even worse “the product produces false test results”.
 
There are many self-deceptions. That the product can be produced on time. That firms have offered contracts to buy the product (as an inducement to other companies to commit). That the product produces accurate results (when in fact false ones are ritually deleted). That we can learn from this problem (when in fact the opposite is the case). And the big one, someone else must be to blame.
 
We see this at the very beginning of creation. It was Eve who was deceived by the serpent. She took the fruit. She then offered it to Adam and he eats too. When God then finds them and discovers they are now aware of their nakedness he knows that they have eaten the forbidden fruit and he ask them what they have done. Adam’s reaction is telling “¹² The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” (Genesis 3:12) He might as well have said “It wasn’t me God – it was her!”
 
But God knows. He also knows self-deceit. For he knows our heart, he knows our actions and he knows our thoughts. Our words cannot counter that.
 
David got himself in a real pickle over his amorous eye. Seeing Bathsheba, he wanted her, even though she was married, as was he. But he was the King and he had won all his battles so he wanted her and he would have her. Doing so she becomes pregnant and David, instead of taking responsibility, seeks to eradicate the problem by getting rid of her husband, Uriah. He succeeds after several attempts by implicating his military commanders who basically leave Uriah at the hands of Israel’s enemies on the battlefield and he is slain. David can now marry Bathsheba and raise his child. So, he thinks.
 
What was David thinking? How could he justify his adultery in the first place and then the cover up afterwards which meant now two of the ten headline commandments from God were broken – adultery and murder. How did he justify this to himself? This is self-deceit at its most heinous.
And self-deceit has a deep root in human survival. If I can blame someone else I do not need to face up to my own culpability. If I can make a problem go away and I do not need to acknowledge it then it will be ok. I can get on with my life without this thing disturbing me.
But self-deceit has a way of catching up on us. For Adam it was immediate judgement and punishment from God himself which we feel in our broken world today. “As in Adam all die..” For David, it caught up with him through the courage of another. The prophet Nathan had the task of revealing to the King what he had done. To hold up a mirror to his self-deceit. He told David the story of a rich man that took the one possession of a poor man, a ewe lamb, and gives it to a visitor. David is incensed by the injustice of the story and passes harsh judgement on this fictitious thief and bully. “You are the man!” Nathan pronounces. And in so doing reveals to David his self-deceit.
 
On hearing the judgement on him, through the prophets words, from the Lord, David simply says “I have sinned against the Lord” (2 Samuel 12:13)
 
Self-deceit can come from many sources. Often it is to protect ourselves. Truth hurts where it reveals our true heart to ourselves. Sometimes it is to protect ourselves from what others may have done to us. To deny or forget the harm might make living with it easier. Sometimes the self-deceit comes through believing untruths that have been told to us by others.
 
Scripture has much to say about this self-deception.
“Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart”. (Proverbs 21:12)
“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9)
 
And yet none of this is hidden from God. We can deceive ourselves but not him.
“For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)
 
And the Lord needs honesty from us to bring healing and renewal. David knew this and he captured it in his psalm of response to the calamity of Bathsheba and Uriah, Psalm 51…
“Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10)
 
He knew he could not do this on his own but seeking the Lord’s help was the first step in self-honesty.
 
Do you want to be honest to God? Then be honest with yourself first. Ask for his help.
 
Create in us clean hearts Lord, renew our spirits to be right within us.
 
That we might serve you, and others in your name, all for your glory.
 
Amen
 
Doug