Spend any time on social media, and you’ve seen the memes—those little sayings that stick in your head. Martin Luther King is popular if you didn’t know. And rightly so. He said so many beautiful things worthy of remembering. Justice. Equality. Compassion. All powerful.

But his stuff on silence sticks out to me. You know what I’m talking about, right?

“[The one] who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as [the one] who helps to perpetrate it. [The one] who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it.”

Or:

“In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”

Or:

"History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."

Among the other things Dr. King taught us, he helped us better understand that silence can be a form of lying, a way of avoiding having to take responsibility for your actions—or your lack of action. You can stand by while injustice is perpetrated without saying anything for fear of ”getting into it.“ And though you never say a word—by failing to own your life—it’s possible to commit a sin against the truth.

When you’re a kid, they tell you not to lie. Honesty is always the best policy. That’s what they tell you, isn’t it?

When you get older, and you start reading the New York Times, they modify the wording a bit: “The coverup is always worse than the crime.” It all means pretty much the same thing, though.

Life is always a lot easier if you tell the truth.

Except it’s not always easier, is it? It’s way more difficult to tell the truth. It’s easier to fire up the Wagon Queen Family Truckster and take off without leaving your insurance information.

It’s easier not to take responsibility, to let someone else take the blame.

It’s easier just to keep your mouth shut and let those who must bear injustice do so under the heavy load of your silence. Because, as Dr. King’s life teaches, speaking up can get you killed.

Honesty is always the best policy—unless you don’t get caught.

The coverup is always worse than the crime ... that is, unless nobody ever finds out about the plumbers and the Watergate Hotel—then lying looks like the most effective strategy. We have politicians who must have that embroidered somewhere on their underwear.

So, here’s today’s moral lesson from Uncle Derek: Keep quiet. And if you can’t keep quiet, lie. Lie your rear end off ... unless it looks like you’re about to get nailed. Then, by all means, sing like a canary. Roll over. Drop dime. Tell the truth.

Isn’t that what Jesus is getting at in today’s Gospel? Life is tough. If you get the chance, make it easier on yourself. Life is complicated enough. Following Jesus should be “user-friendly.” You shouldn’t have to put up with any more than is absolutely necessary. And, if anything threatens to get your world tied up in knots—don’t worry; Jesus’ll fix it.

That’s pretty much the gist of what Jesus is getting at, isn’t it?

No?