St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, February 7, 2010

Mind Your Mouth! Rev. David Mundy

Deuteronomy 6: 6-21 James 3:1-6 Matthew 5:21-22

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Does the name Perez Hilton ring a bell for you? Just in case you aren’t sure of what I said, the name is Perez Hilton, not Paris Hilton, the socialite who is famous for being famous. Perez Hilton is the name which has been assumed by a young man who apparently never learned the expression “mind your mouth.”

He is a celebrity gossip who, thanks to the internet, has an enormous following. He started his online column, or blog as it is known, as a hobby when he was a college student. Every day he posts information and opinions and scuttlebutt on the famous and famous wannabees. Some of the stuff he offers up is factual, and a lot of it is what we used to consider nasty gossip. Today Hilton is a wealthy man and it is not unusual for more than a million people to check out his blog in the course of one day. Whatever we might think of him, here is someone who is an international figure, a star, because he gossips about other people for a living.

Is it my imagination, or are we living in an increasingly gossipy, nasty culture? There are many sources of trash talk about the rich and the famous these days. It used to be a few disreputable magazines but now it is television and the internet as well. As soon as someone stumbles and falls – or doesn’t – we hear about it. Brad and Angelina are breaking up you know. No they’re not...yes they are! There is no point is saying “who cares” because obviously millions of people do, and often is seems that the truth is not really all that important. When did rumours and innuendo and out-and-out lies become a principal form of entertainment in our culture?

The nastiness has seeped into the world of politics as well. Always a candidate-eat-candidate world, there doesn’t seem to be a shred of civility left on the big stage, with attack ads that should make the perpetrators blush.

Thank God that regular folk like us never get caught up in nasty talk!

We are continuing today with our series on the Ten Commandments and I would like to remind you of the five commandments you chose for sermons. Your number one choice was a surprise to me, I must confess, the commandment not to bear false witness.

One of the commandments tells us “no murder” and we assume that this means we are not to physically kill another human being. That wasn’t one of your priorities, but of course the commandment you did choose was the one not to get involved in character assassination, the murder of another person’s reputation and spirit. This one is probably much closer to our experience.

In the venerable King James version of the bible, it says “neither shalt thou bear false witness against thy neighbour.” That’s rather formal isn’t it, as though we should have one hand on the bible and the other upraised whenever we speak, as though we were in a court of law. And this commandment has been applied to perjury, of deliberate falsehoods uttered while under oath.

I think most of us imagine it as something a little more relational, so the Tennessee version from last week which said “ no telling tales or gossipin’” or the contemporary Message,“no lies about your neighbour” come a little closer to home.

Essentially, the ninth commandment is instruction to “mind your mouth.”Jesus felt that this was important as well and in his Christian manifesto delivered from another hilltop, what we call the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus warns against angry and destructive words. He says this right after he tells his followers that they are to be light and salt in the world. And did you notice how strongly Jesus feels about this? Jesus rarely spoke about hellfire and damnation but here he says that if we are insulting and demeaning in the things we say, well, we are toast!

Do you ever wonder why we do bear false witness against others whether it is in the form of half-truths, or outright lies, or what we may think is rather harmless and delicious gossip? When I say “we” I do so because it’s hard to imagine that anyone is without stain or blemish in this regard. I have asked a number of people why they think false witness or destructive talk is so popular, even though most of us would admit that it is wrong. The answers were varied.

We do it because it is fun! Talking about others can be very entertaining, and for some people it is a hobby. It makes us feel witty and clever until a couple of hours later when we ask why we took part. I would suggest to you that gossip is a recreational drug, an addiction that can be difficult to break.

We do it because it gives us a sense of power over others. No matter our age, we really aren’t that far removed from the schoolyard where there was a heady sense of power when someone else was the victim of harsh talk and not us. In the end no one really likes a bully, verbal or otherwise.

We do it because of petty jealousies, or deep hurts, and it is a form of “pay back” or revenge. Have you ever had that uncomfortable feeling around a married couple where they are always jabbing at one another verbal put-downs and pretending that it’s just a joke?

We do it because there are so few consequences, at least on the surface. We easily talk ourselves into believing that speaking ill of others or being less than honest with our words really doesn’t do much harm, which, of course, is simply not true.

In the church we do it as we move into that grey area between genuine concern for others and unnecessary talk. We really don’t need to know everything about everybody – but we like too! And we start off by saying things like “Now I don’t know if this is true” or “I thought you should know,” as if that lets us “off the hook” for what comes next. The worst is “you might like to pray for . . .” followed by what is really gossip!

In our internet world false witness can be taken to malicious and dangerous extremes. Thanks to the internet slanderous talk has ruined reputations of regular folk and had even more dire consequences. There have been several incidents of young people taking their own lives after concerted campaigns to humiliate them online. In one case it turned out that the ringleader of the character assassination on one girl was the mother of another girl in the circle of so-called friends.

Everyone is fair game for gossip and hurtful talk, including clergy. Sometimes it is in the form of critical and unfair conversations that happen behind a minister’s back. But it can also be in the form of direct aggression. A couple of months ago I was in a conversation with a group of colleagues who were commiserating about some of the unfair and sometimes toxic things directed toward them through the years. Of course I had nothing to offer because you are the model congregation.

One fellow, one of the kindest and most pastoral ministers I know, mentioned that a few years ago he ended up having one funeral after another and when a funeral home called him to do the service for a nonmember, the sister of an occasional attender from his congregation, he respectfully declined. A few weeks later this person was ahead of him in the checkout line in the grocery store. She saw him and said, loudly, “there’s the man who was too busy to bury my sister.” What could be possibly say in his defence? He could hardly explain himself as he stood at cash register seven. And it was obvious that years later this incident was still hurtful.

We have all heard the expression “good news travels fast.” Well bad news travels faster, like a raging forest fire according to the writer of the book called James in the New Testament. It’s odd, but I have known people who swear and cuss and f-bombs are exploding everywhere, yet they never say an unkind word about anyone else. While they should clean up their potty-mouths, the people who engage in half-truths and slanderous words are probably far more dangerous.

So how do we observe the commandment not to bear false witness? How do we live out our commitment? The sermon title is “mind your mouth” and really all of us need to be aware of our thoughts and the expression of those thoughts in the form of our words. Someone mentioned to me that she had read a little prayer saying ”God, keep one hand on my shoulder and another over my mouth!” At times we just need to keep our lips buttoned rather than engaging in conversations which we know can come to no good.

It would be disappointing if the best we could say about this commandment is “keep your mouth shut!” While saying nothing at times is a good start there are other choices we can make as well.

There may be occasions when we need to summon up the courage to say to others that we don’t want to be part of negative conversations, or to simply to walk away, even though it may be awkward. Acting as a Christian can be awkward at times, yet it may make all the difference when it comes to putting out the wildfire of slanderous talk.

Rather than being false witnesses we can be faithful witnesses as Christ’s people. We can take on the spiritual practice of positive words for the purpose of building up rather than tearing down.

Some of you are wonderful encouragers, and I know this because I have been a recipient of your kind words whether face-to-face, or through handwritten notes, or emails. It’s all good, as they say. And I am aware that you are encouragers of others. I have overheard it, and know how important it is. This may be your particular ministry to others, but every one of us can be faithful witnesses through our words.

I’ll leave you with a prayer this morning which I saw for the first time recently, although you may already have seen it. Whatever the case, it’s good to have the reminder that we can pray every day for an outlook which builds up others, and the body of Christ, rather than tearing them down.

So far today, God, I've done all right. 
I have not gossiped,

haven't lost my temper,

haven't been greedy, grumpy,
nasty, selfish or overindulgent. 

I'm really glad about that.

But in a few minutes, God, I'm going
to get out of bed, and from then on
I'm going to need a lot more help. Amen!

We can be salt and light in our homes, and workplaces, and in our congregation. We are faithful witnesses rather than false witnesses, and for this we thank God.