Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit.”
NL Daily Devotion for Monday, February 26, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
One of my favorite ideas from 12-Step recovery literature is this: Gossip is a polite form of murder by character assassination. (Paraphrased from The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, p. 67.) It’s so easy to tell another person’s story in order to feel better about ourselves, either by putting them down or by building ourselves up by association with them. It’s also easy, when telling another person’s story, to embellish it one way or another to further our own sense of self-righteousness. The psalmist reminds us that if we “desire life, and covet many days to enjoy good” (v.12) we should, basically, keep our mouths shut.
It's hard to do. Gossip is ingrained in our culture—even and maybe especially in church communities—as a way to express care for others. Everyone is in everyone else’s business ostensibly in order to be able to provide support for one another. But it has far departed from that noble idea in most cases. It truly is safer—kinder, more respectful, more healing—to stick to only one person’s story: your own. Unless you are specifically invited by another person to spread the word about a particular issue, of course. That’s what support is all about. Otherwise, though, the temptation is far to strong for our tongues to wander off into “evil” and “speaking deceit.”
When have I gossiped and regretted it?
