There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the daylight, and what you have whispered in the ear in the inner rooms will be proclaimed from the roofs. – Luke 12:2-3

Today’s Scripture Reading (October 25, 2017): Luke 12

When George Orwell wrote “Nineteen Eighty-Four,” a dystopian novel he published in 1949, he probably never dreamed that his vision would, to no small extent, come to pass. In contemporary society, we have almost become accustomed to the fact that our picture is being constantly taken. It is hard to walk into a store and not realize that we are on video or to drive down a street and not realize that overhead cameras are watching us. We speed and run red-lights only to find out a week later that a camera caught our mischievous act and some entity has notified us with a fine sent in the mail. Or maybe he would have guessed that this where we would find ourselves. You have the right to fly on an airplane, but by exercising that right, you give up the right privacy over your own body. The act of flying comes with the reality of body searches and sometimes even photographs taken by invasive cameras. The internet is a vast reservoir of information, but not all of it is true. And we are, maybe more often than we realize, being watched as we log in. Satellites circle the earth; Google sends vehicles around the world taking pictures of where it is that you live (just take a look at your address on Google Earth if you doubt that).  There is no doubt that “Big Brother” is watching.

But maybe what would surprise Orwell the most is how voluntarily we have surrendered some of our deepest and darkest secrets. Blog posts, like this one, are often written without consideration for the kind of information that we are surrendering. We leave critical social media posts that are there for anyone to read. I still run into people who seem to believe that their Facebook posts are private, and yet the reverse is true. I was reminded of that fact the other day as people who were not friends of mine responded to one of my personal posts. As friends and then friends of friends post, the circle of people reading our Facebook posts gets wider and wider. Texts messages are recorded. Emails are forwarded. Our most embarrassing comments, often written in a moment of profound emotional angst, laid bare for the world to see. We are even willing to publish our most personal thoughts on social media in the hope of receiving a “like” or a “share” or a comment. “Big Brother” is watching, but we are the ones who are volunteering the information in unprecedented ways.

It almost seems that Luke was writing these words with us in mind. Everything done in secret will be known, and no acts committed in the dark will be hidden. And while Jesus may have been speaking of the fact that God knows what it is that we do in our most private moments, increasingly we volunteer that information anyway. And maybe it is time that we stopped.

I believe in the value confession, but not confession on social media to an indiscriminate public in a wild desire to find someone – anyone – who cares. God knows so there is no use in trying to hide things from him, and sometimes it helps to confess to a flesh and blood friend who we know will love us in spite of our shortcomings. But beyond that, some things are not meant to be shared. And no one beyond God really needs to know.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Luke 13