The biblical mandate found in Exodus 20:16 (the Lamsa Bible) seems clear enough. There’s absolutely nothing cryptic about it. It’s not hidden in a thicket of esoteric symbolism. You don’t have to be a Carl Jung or a Joseph Campbell to understand it. It instructs clearly and to the point... “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.”

I know you remember it and where it comes from. It’s the ninth of the Ten Commandments . . . the Mosaic code of conscious conduct . . . a system of social values that demands impeccable obedience to its ethic as the price one must pay, as it turns out, to be spiritually prepared for receiving the liberating Truth of Jesus Christ. Remember, Jesus is recorded as having said, “Not one jot nor tittle shall be removed from the Law. I did not come to destroy the Law but to fulfill it.”

Regarding the specific area of the Law involving “false witnessing,” I’m suggesting that you simply aren’t ready to embrace the Jesus instruction to renounce attachment to the material domain, for example, if you are still stuck in the unenlightened practice of defining it inaccurately.

On closer examination, “bearing false witness” turns out to be a pattern of intellectual distortion so common it plays a major role in determining what we think, thus how we feel, about ourselves, each other and the world we live in. And each distorted impression created about the nature of reality carries the potential to manifest in our earth world as a totally unnecessary impediment to the joy of celebrating our humanity.

Case in point. Reading the local sports page last week, I noticed that one of the local team’s outstanding running backs had been ejected from the game in the second quarter for an offense called “taunting.” Reading further I discovered that the young man would also be ineligible to play in the next game as well. Being unfamiliar with that particular violation and impressed by the severity of the punishment, I called a friend of mine who knows the nature of these things and asked him to explain this egregious violation of football ethic called “taunting.”

Are you ready for this? It seems the young man had just scored a touchdown carrying a number of the opposing defenders into the end zone with him. Then, he leaped out of the pileup, arms raised, hands pumping the air, jumping and shouting. It has been decided, my friend explained, by the people who create the rules governing the game, that any such act shall be considered “taunting.”

Enter the penalty flag compliments of an “official” enforcing an arcane assumption that any kid acting thus is “taunting” the opposition. I trust you can see the “false witnessing” involved in the act of arbitrarily defining the kid’s actions as an attempt to “rub it in.”

Let me suggest that there is a distinct possibility that rather than “taunting” the young man was, in fact, caught up in the heady thrill of accomplishment, the adrenalin rush of a peak experience that inspired him to honor the occasion with a pure, unrehearsed moment of “celebration.”

Was he celebrating or rubbing it in? Only the kid knows for sure. Just understand that to honor the spirit of the commandment we’d be wise to stick to the Truth the moment reveals and describe the kid as “jumping up and down with a big grin on his face.”

To say more, to infer motive, for example, leads to what Jesus called “deception,” His way of identifying the tendency we all have to describe our world with thought forms that don’t come close to capturing the truth of the ever-changing scenario of form and circumstance we call our lives.

I’m convinced that when He said, “You shall know the Truth and the Truth will set you free,” He was referring to that time when our thinking gets so clear it accurately captures the reality of the moment, adding nothing, subtracting nothing, just bearing faithful witness to the IS and enjoying the Grace of liberation from the confusion and fantasy of the false witness.

In this instance there wasn’t any lasting harm done. A young jock and his parents and his coach and his teammates probably had to work through a ration of frustration and resentment, which, from a spiritual point of view is good work. Let’s remember that every earth experience can serve as a vehicle for our awakening when we understand awakening as a growing capacity to embrace the content of every moment of our lives with understanding, compassion and equanimity. If playing football has been “laid up as a treasure” so precious that not being able to play destroys our peace and serenity, then it is a grace to be confronted with that fact and given the opportunity to “get over it.”

But, the ninth commandment seems to be suggesting that we have a spiritual and ethical responsibility to use our minds skillfully so we don’t create the kind of situations that most of our brothers and sisters find difficult to embrace with compassion for the ignorance that gave them birth.

The kind of false witnessing that keeps a kid out of a football game is one thing. Sure, it’s a drag to work with, but it’s passing show and is soon forgotten. But how about the kind “false witnessing” that turns a human being into an instrument of death and destruction. Consider this.

In the late 1800’s a major in the U. S. Cavalry was testifying before Congress about a military initiative that has come to be known as the Sand Creek Massacre, the slaughter of 260 Native Americans, most of them women and children and old men. The major was describing how his troops had approached the Native American encampment before first light, hoping to surprise them and catch them asleep. He went on to reveal that the camp’s scouts had detected the troops and warned the camp’s occupants to run and hide.

The major said, “When we got there we could see them disappearing over the ridgeline, except for one “little varmint” who was having trouble running through the rough terrain.” The major went on to describe how one of his troops dismounted, drew a bead on the young child and said, “Watch me drop this filthy heathen.” He fired and missed and as he did so another trooper took aim and fired at what he described as a “dirty savage.” He also missed and a third trooper dropped to his knee, took careful aim and said, “Here’s how you make the frontier safe for decent folks.” He fired and the frantic child, desperately running for the safety of his mother’s arms, tumbled dead in the sagebrush and sand.

It is my conviction that “bearing false witness” was the act that gave these troopers a rationale for murdering a child that their souls could live with.

Any "varmints" in your life?  You might want to check it out.