The Minor Details

Yeah, yeah…technically, it’s July 6, but I thought this is as good a time as any to wish all ya’ll a happy Independence Day! Happy Birthday, America!

 “We all stumble in many ways. If anyone is never at fault in what he says, he is a perfect man, able to keep his whole body in check. When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole person, sets the whole course of his life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell. All kinds of animals, birds, reptiles and creatures of the sea are being tamed and have been tamed by man, but no man can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be. Can both fresh water and salt water flow from the same spring? My brothers, can a fig tree bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Neither can a salt spring produce fresh water.” -James 3:2-12

I heard a story today, and it’s because of this story that I feel compelled to write about what’s on my heart. We all know the old rhyme, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” It’s a great rhyme in theory, but the sad truth is that words do hurt. In some cases, they hurt the most.

This story is about a person who is enduring something someone should never have to endure. You see, a couple years ago, this Christian girl (we will call this individual “Jamie”) chose to rebel – against family, friends, and most importantly, God – and indulged in a life of sin. Jamie did drugs, had sex, drank alcohol – and turned on God. But our Lord, being so full of incomprehensible grace and love, never gave up on Jamie, and when she realized that she was in the middle of a downward spiral, Jamie asked God for forgiveness. She was given a second chance, and she chose to make the most of it. Jamie repented and began to seek more active involvement in her church, teaching Sunday School and becoming a youth leader, growing in God.

However, as hard as she tried to escape her past and the mistakes she made, the rumors lingered. Her peers remained quiet, unsure about how to approach her. Two years passed. Every time she came to church, she felt as though she was being watched, talked about – judged. One day, she became friends with someone she felt was beginning to head down the same path she had traveled, and she opened her heart, telling this person everything she did and how it negatively affected her life. She tried to share how the decisions she made could have been avoided if her relationship with Christ was stronger, trying to convince her new friend that she was heading down the wrong path. As good as her intentions were, however, the talk didn’t go as planned.

Word began to spread around the church about her past transgressions. The congregation became worried, and started to become more direct with their assessments of Jamie. Some parents even called the pastor, worried that Jamie was “a bad example” for their children because of her mistakes. Judgments were coming from left and right, overwhelming Jamie with shame. Instead of love, her church showed her wrath, and Jamie, over come with emotion, eventually left her church, unsure of where to head next, and leaving her with serious doubts about her life, her church and about her God.

We’ve all heard this story in one form or another. More than likely, we all probably know someone personally who this story could be about. Someone who has lived a difficult life – one bad decision that leads to another, which makes another one easier, and the process continues like a snowball. Then we start hearing the rumors, which turns into the “G word” – gossip.

Gossip has been around since the fall of man. For some reason, our sinful nature includes the capacity to speak ill of each other behind each others’ backs. If someone is irritating us, we talk about him/her to other people. If someone has done something they regret, people make sure everyone knows about it, thinking that informing others about how “bad” someone is, it may make them look better in comparison. In the church, gossip is one of Satan’s most destructive weapons – it may even be considered one of his own “weapons of mass destruction.” How’s this for “WMD”? – Words of Mass Deception. Gossip turns friends against each other, divides groups into factions, and escalates arguments into irrational incidents. Gossip feeds our competitive nature and our primal feelings of jealousy, anger, revenge and hate. It turns best friends into worst enemies. It’s amazing how destructive words can be, isn’t it?

In the passage above, James is trying to portray, through a series of metaphors, how gossip has absolutely no place in a Christ-based church. It goes against everything Jesus is about. One word of gossip is like a small spark in a dry forest – one speck of flame can lead to ultimate destruction. It is a “restless evil, full of deadly poison.” That’s a pretty harsh comparison to something that seems so harmless at first, isn’t it? A church, one of the places that should be considered a safe haven, a sanctuary, a holy place of God for all who choose to believe, can be thrown into chaos by gossip.

It may seem that I am coming down hard on churches. Make no mistake about it – I am. I have seen first hand the damage that gossip can do and the people that it hurts. The pain it causes is psychological, emotional and takes a long time to heal. However, the first, and perhaps the most important, thing to realize is that no one of us is perfect. We have all been guilty of sin. Not one of us is righteous, especially with our tongues. All of us have been around people who have gone through struggles in their lives and made mistakes. We’ve all been around people that have rubbed us the wrong way, irritated us or wronged us. Instead of raining down judgment on them, we need to nurture them with the love of Christ, show them love, and offer them assistance, so that they may grow closer to God.

It really sickens me how so many churches (and no church is 100-percent innocent of this) create a “rumor mill” and gossip about people’s struggles to others. How utterly unfair and hurtful! At the same time, it mostly sickens me because I know I am guilty of it myself! “Out of the same mouth comes praise and cursing.” As James says, “this should not be.” The same mouth that we praise God with is the mouth we use as a weapon against each other. How is that possible? According to God, it shouldn’t be!

So what do we do? Simply, love. Like Christ, take opportunities to help those who are struggling. Instead of spreading rumors about people, we need to trust God to give us opportunities to help. Many people, more than we probably know, are struggling, whether it be alcoholism, depression, sex (and the consequences that come with it), and a host of other issues. We need to block our natural instinct to shun these people and make an extra effort to love them, help them and show them Jesus. We need to burn this rumor mill to the ground!

I’ll try my hardest to live by these words. I hope you do too.

Holding my torch as high as I can,

Adam

So it turns out that in the credits for the new Batman movie, “The Dark Knight,” the producers will include the following message:

In memory of our friends
HEATH LEDGER
&
CONWAY WICKLIFFE

Pretty cool if you ask me. Oh by the way, Wickliffe is a stuntman who died on set during production in Chicago.