Once upon a time, in a small, but prosperous Russian village, there were several shopkeepers. One of them was known for being a very, very, VERY nice man. Everyone loved him, because when the people visited his shop, he always told them the news of the village. He told them who was sick and how many new calves the farmers had each year. He told his customers who had a new baby and who was getting married. He always knew who the new people in the village were, and where they had lived before, and he also knew what was happening in the outside world, who was fighting which wars, and whether or not the price of flour was going to be high or low this year. Plus, he always had entertaining stories about famous people and fabulous places and he could tell a joke in that special way, with that special timing that makes you laugh even if the joke isn’t all that funny.
One day, the very nice shopkeeper saw something happen with a friend of his who owned a shop down the street. It was very entertaining, so he told several of his customers that day and the next. But by the end of the week, his friend had noticed that nobody was coming to his store anymore. He asked a few questions and found out why – it was because everyone had heard about what he had done. But he didn’t find out where the story began.
So the second shopkeeper went to the rabbi in town and he sat and cried in the synagogue with the rabbi. “My business is destroyed! I’ll have to move or retire!”The rabbi promised to find out what had happened.
The next day, which was a windy fall day, the rabbi went to visit the very nice shopkeeper that everyone liked. As he walked up the street, the leaves were whissing all around him. Although the rabbi really had no idea where the story had started, he knew that the very nice shopkeeper would almost surely be able to tell him where he had heard the story.
When the rabbi got to the shop, he told the very nice shopkeeper about the visit from the second shopkeeper and how his business was failing because of the story going around town. And because the very nice shopkeeper was indeed very nice, he immediately told the rabbi that it was his fault about the story, apologized, and asked the rabbi what he could do to make it right.
The rabbi saw that the very nice man was sincere, so he asked him. “Do you have a feather pillow?”
“Of course I have feather pillows. I’m the most prosperous shopkeeper in town. I probably have ten feather pillows!”
The rabbi continued. “Just run home and bring me one of them.”
The very nice shopkeeper ran home and came back a few minutes later with a nice feather pillow. Standing in the doorway to the shop, with the wind and leaves blowing around his feet the rabbi took out his knife, cut a big slice into the feather pillow and dumped out all the feathers, which the wind quickly began blowing around with the leaves on that windy fall day.
“Now, put all the feathers back into the pillow and you will be right with your friend.”
“But….that’s impossible! I could get the feathers that fell in my shop, but those on the street – I’ll never catch them all!”
“And so it is with gossip, my friend. Once it is poured out, it can never all be recovered. And pretty soon, the feathers are being poured out all over town.”
(The above story adapted from http://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/812861/jewish/A-Pillow-Full-of-Feathers.htm .)
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Gossip and slander are spoken of quite negatively in Holy Scripture. The Proverbs 26 reading includes this verse:
20 Without wood a fire goes out;
without a gossip a quarrel dies down.
It speaks to the ability of those people who stand around gossiping to keep fights going. “I heard Bill say this… or I head that Gladys said that.” And the fight goes another round.
And can we have harmless gossip? No, because gossip is remembered. As the Proverb says:
22 The words of a gossip are like choice morsels;
they go down to the inmost parts.
I’m sure most of you have heard the story of the revival that shrank the congregation by half? It happened this way:
...
Gossip and slander are spoken of quite negatively in Holy Scripture. The Proverbs 26 reading includes this verse:
20 Without wood a fire goes out;
without a gossip a quarrel dies down.
It speaks to the ability of those people who stand around gossiping to keep fights going. “I heard Bill say this… or I head that Gladys said that.” And the fight goes another round.
And can we have harmless gossip? No, because gossip is remembered. As the Proverb says:
22 The words of a gossip are like choice morsels;
they go down to the inmost parts.
I’m sure most of you have heard the story of the revival that shrank the congregation by half? It happened this way:
The preacher preached a beautiful, passionate sermon for three nights, for two hours each evening, and on the fourth night, he preached for twenty minutes and gave an altar call. A beautiful, yet somewhat overly made-up woman came up to the altar and kneeled in prayer. The preacher went to her and asked her, “Have you accepted JE-SUS?” in a loud voice and handed her the microphone.
“Yes, yes I have. “
“Yes, yes I have. “
“Praise the Lord!” The preacher exclaimed. “Are you ready to confess your sin before God and this congregation?”
“Yes, yes I am.”
“Tell us your sin!”
“Well, I’ve committed adultery.”
“Adultery? Where?”
She turned to the congregation and began pointing. “At his house…and his house…and his house…and his house…."
And you know…for some reason, nobody could remember the sermon, but everybody remembered that list of houses….Gossip is INDEED like choice morsels, like wonderful pieces of chocolate - gossip is remembered.
Jesus even took up the subject of gossip and slander one day in a different situation, as told in Matthew 15:
It was a frustrating day for Jesus, He’d been up the night before walking on the water with Peter – and you’ve gotta know that walking on waves must be exhausting, with the water moving back and forth under your feet, and then He spent the morning healing people, listening to their complaints, their aches and pains, and dealing with their ailments.
Then, some of the Pharisees came down from Jerusalem and began complaining that Jesus’ disciples didn’t wash their hands before they ate. And let me be delicate, but I have to make this point…this was in a time before toilet paper and similar ways for people to stay clean. Remember, ancient Israel was largely desert, a land without leaves or Sears and Roebuck catalogs.
And so, the enemies were implying that the disciples were terribly dirty and nasty. And Jesus had had enough complaints for the day.
Jesus’ response was like bolt of lightning on a clear, sunny day. “Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?” and then He quoted from Isaiah and really burned them. "You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.'”
Then, speaking to crowd, he said:
"What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
Jesus was saying that it isn’t what you eat that makes you impure before God, but how you speak that makes the difference.
Naturally, Peter didn’t get it. Peter never got it. Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”
"Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
(The Bible records that Peter still didn’t get the message…in the Book of Acts, God has to send Peter a dream to get across the idea. See Acts 10 and 11 for when Peter finally understood.).
Why do we gossip? Jesus tells us that evil thoughts, like false testimony, and slander come from our heart.
We gossip because our hearts are not right. And the root of this is when we don’t truly accept that our friend is an image of God, just as we are. You would never think of destroying a real photograph or painting of Jesus or God, would you? You would protect it as the priceless piece of art that it is. Yet when we thoughtlessly gossip or slander, we are like little children drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa, like little boys throwing baseball at the church’s stained glass windows, like the men who rode into ancient cities and cut off the noses and arms of beautiful sculptures.
Gossiping is like putting water glasses on finely varnished walnut furniture, like sticking pins into burgundy leather chairs, like juggling fine crystal stemware. It is like taking a knife and carving your initials into a marble altar, like scratching the CD that holds every photograph and video from your wedding, like letting a herd of hungry deer loose in a beautiful flower garden.
"But Pastor, aren’t you making a bit much of a little gossip?" No, not according to Scripture.
Paul has the harshest words for gossips. In the first chapter of Romans, starting at verse 28, Paul writes:
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Harsh words! According to Paul, gossips have depraved minds, and are filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. And even though they know they deserve death, they actually approve of other gossips.
So how do we stop gossiping?
First, we need to turn to God. Like all the other things Paul listed, the root cause of all these evils is when we turn away from God. And so the solution is to turn back to God, recognizing that God actually cares about gossiping and the evil that it is a symptom of.
As with every other sin we are guilty of, we need to bow the knee to God and ask forgiveness. This is the beginning of our recovery – as with every other sin.
So how do we keep from gossiping after we've asked for forgiveness?
First, look around this room. Remember the halos that the old painters put over the saints? I want you to try something. As you look around the room, imagine that everyone here is a beautiful painting in a beautiful frame – an image of God. Halos glowing. Priceless. And everyday, as you greet your friends, perhaps for coffee or tea, as you sit in the kitchen, as you stand in the garage and talk to your friends, as you look at your fellow students or workers, look around the room at the most valuable thing there and understand that it is not a tenth as valuable as your worst enemy is to God. Look around your room again and see the gold of your friend’s hair or cheeks, the diamonds that are their eyes, the rubies that are their lips, the ivory that forms their fingernails and teeth. Imagine how valuable a piece of artwork they are – and how valuable to God the person you want to talk about is.
But what about necessary information? Is it gossip to say that so-and-so is in the hospital?
No. But consider what your friend would say if he or she were here. If what you are saying would embarrass you or your friend if you said it in front of your friend, then don’t say it at all. It is ok to say “June was in a car wreck and is in Ruby.” It is not ok to say, “June was drinking the other night and wrecked her car.”
This is where Jesus would say, “Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?” Many of us have developed the tradition of gossiping under the justification of sharing necessary information for praying. But don’t we often share more than we need to share?
I actually attended a church in Atlanta of a couple hundred people who had a very strong “No Gossip” policy. One of my teenage daughter’s friends who attended the church was more than six months pregnant before my daughter or us found out. All we had heard was to pray for the teen’s mother, because “she is having a difficult time.” That was all that was necessary - and that was all that was shared.
Part of the way they controlled the gossip was an understanding among the people. When one person would begin to move from useful prayer information into gossip, one of the people would almost always say, “I think we’re moving into gossip” and the conversation would be changed to another subject. For you see, gossip is like adultery – it takes at least two people to commit this sin.
And as soon as I wrote that comment, my mind turned to Facebook. All the rules of face-to-face gossip apply to Facebook. If it would embarrass you or your friend in public, don’t write it. And if you see gossip on Facebook, the appropriate way to respond is always in private – never in public - with a politely worded request to reconsider the post. Not a demand. Not an accusation. A politely worded private request to “please reconsider if our mutual friend would want this posted.” As Paul writes in I Corinthians chapter four, ” When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly.” This is how Christians are to respond.
And what is perhaps the most single important way to remember not to gossip? Consider this: When you gossip, you almost always are giving a judgment on another person’s behavior or actions or speech. And there seems to be a law of the Universe: Those who gossip will be gossiped about, just as those who judge will be judged by the same standard that they judged another by.
As Christians, we live in the sure knowledge that there is another much wiser than we are who is ready to judge each one of us at the end of time. I’ve noticed in my life, that as soon as I condemn another person for an action, a situation, a weakness, or a sin, I will find myself with that same action, situation, weakness or sin within days, often within hours. God is jealous of His right to judge each one of us for our actions. And gossip usually contains a judgement.
We, on the other hand, are to focus upon our own transgressions, our own sins, our own shortfalls in holiness, working to improve ourselves and give others assistance – practical assistance to others in trouble. Gossip is never that assistance.
Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are fully able to make any person aware of when they are stuck in sin. The drug user, for instance, knows better than you do just how badly he or she is addicted to the drug. The man who cannot keep the four-letter words from flowing from his mouth is fully aware of his speech pattern. Even the liar knows just how difficult it is to keep lying. Yet because they do not have the Holy Spirit – or do not listen to the Spirit if they have the Spirit – they do not change for the better. No condemnation we give them will help with that change. Only our love and positive suggestions to find and listen to God, and our help in pointing out the direction to God will make a difference. And pointing towards sin is not pointing towards God.
Our job is to connect people with the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. Our job is to introduce people to Jesus Christ and together with Jesus, help our friends come to listen to the Holy Spirit. No one who is truly listening to the Holy Spirit will gossip for long – or continue in any particular sin. The difficulty is that we don’t like to listen to the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit speaks to us and focuses upon our issues. The Spirit doesn’t gossip about other people.
If we want to listen to the Holy Spirit, we first must accept the Holy Spirit, which is done through baptism. And then, we must make time for two-way prayer, finding a place of quiet to speak to God our wants and needs, and asking questions – and then listening for the still, small voice inside us that speaks back to us. And finally, we must do what the Spirit asks, knowing that the Spirit will never contradict Holy Scripture.
So instead of letting the feathers of gossip escape from our pillow of sin, let us send out feathers of love, feathers that lift up others, feathers that encourage other people, feathers that float off and touch other people with a gentle, wonderful touch, like the gentle touch of the Holy Spirit when the Spirit guides us to all things bright and beautiful. Let our words be the words of the Holy Spirit, the words of Christ, the words that give life to our friends and neighbors and family. When we are tempted to gossip or to listen to gossip, let us simply change the subject: “Let me tell you what God did for me yesterday…” Turn your gossip into praise!
And so we come back once again to God. Our solution to escaping the sin of gossip is to listen closer to the Holy Spirit, to read the Word of God more often, to always keep our connection with the Holy Spirit active during the day. And if we do that – listen to the Holy Spirit and read the Word of God more often – we will find that we will rarely be the subject of gossip, but will become the subject of a quiet praise from our friends, a good example to be pointed to, a holy saint that God will commend one day: "Well done, good and faithful servant."
Then, some of the Pharisees came down from Jerusalem and began complaining that Jesus’ disciples didn’t wash their hands before they ate. And let me be delicate, but I have to make this point…this was in a time before toilet paper and similar ways for people to stay clean. Remember, ancient Israel was largely desert, a land without leaves or Sears and Roebuck catalogs.
And so, the enemies were implying that the disciples were terribly dirty and nasty. And Jesus had had enough complaints for the day.
Jesus’ response was like bolt of lightning on a clear, sunny day. “Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?” and then He quoted from Isaiah and really burned them. "You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:
'These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.'”
Then, speaking to crowd, he said:
"What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”
Jesus was saying that it isn’t what you eat that makes you impure before God, but how you speak that makes the difference.
Naturally, Peter didn’t get it. Peter never got it. Peter said, “Explain the parable to us.”
"Are you still so dull?” Jesus asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of a person’s mouth come from the heart, and these defile them. For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what defile a person; but eating with unwashed hands does not defile them.”
(The Bible records that Peter still didn’t get the message…in the Book of Acts, God has to send Peter a dream to get across the idea. See Acts 10 and 11 for when Peter finally understood.).
Why do we gossip? Jesus tells us that evil thoughts, like false testimony, and slander come from our heart.
We gossip because our hearts are not right. And the root of this is when we don’t truly accept that our friend is an image of God, just as we are. You would never think of destroying a real photograph or painting of Jesus or God, would you? You would protect it as the priceless piece of art that it is. Yet when we thoughtlessly gossip or slander, we are like little children drawing a mustache on the Mona Lisa, like little boys throwing baseball at the church’s stained glass windows, like the men who rode into ancient cities and cut off the noses and arms of beautiful sculptures.
Gossiping is like putting water glasses on finely varnished walnut furniture, like sticking pins into burgundy leather chairs, like juggling fine crystal stemware. It is like taking a knife and carving your initials into a marble altar, like scratching the CD that holds every photograph and video from your wedding, like letting a herd of hungry deer loose in a beautiful flower garden.
"But Pastor, aren’t you making a bit much of a little gossip?" No, not according to Scripture.
Paul has the harshest words for gossips. In the first chapter of Romans, starting at verse 28, Paul writes:
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Harsh words! According to Paul, gossips have depraved minds, and are filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. And even though they know they deserve death, they actually approve of other gossips.
So how do we stop gossiping?
First, we need to turn to God. Like all the other things Paul listed, the root cause of all these evils is when we turn away from God. And so the solution is to turn back to God, recognizing that God actually cares about gossiping and the evil that it is a symptom of.
As with every other sin we are guilty of, we need to bow the knee to God and ask forgiveness. This is the beginning of our recovery – as with every other sin.
So how do we keep from gossiping after we've asked for forgiveness?
First, look around this room. Remember the halos that the old painters put over the saints? I want you to try something. As you look around the room, imagine that everyone here is a beautiful painting in a beautiful frame – an image of God. Halos glowing. Priceless. And everyday, as you greet your friends, perhaps for coffee or tea, as you sit in the kitchen, as you stand in the garage and talk to your friends, as you look at your fellow students or workers, look around the room at the most valuable thing there and understand that it is not a tenth as valuable as your worst enemy is to God. Look around your room again and see the gold of your friend’s hair or cheeks, the diamonds that are their eyes, the rubies that are their lips, the ivory that forms their fingernails and teeth. Imagine how valuable a piece of artwork they are – and how valuable to God the person you want to talk about is.
But what about necessary information? Is it gossip to say that so-and-so is in the hospital?
No. But consider what your friend would say if he or she were here. If what you are saying would embarrass you or your friend if you said it in front of your friend, then don’t say it at all. It is ok to say “June was in a car wreck and is in Ruby.” It is not ok to say, “June was drinking the other night and wrecked her car.”
This is where Jesus would say, “Why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?” Many of us have developed the tradition of gossiping under the justification of sharing necessary information for praying. But don’t we often share more than we need to share?
I actually attended a church in Atlanta of a couple hundred people who had a very strong “No Gossip” policy. One of my teenage daughter’s friends who attended the church was more than six months pregnant before my daughter or us found out. All we had heard was to pray for the teen’s mother, because “she is having a difficult time.” That was all that was necessary - and that was all that was shared.
Part of the way they controlled the gossip was an understanding among the people. When one person would begin to move from useful prayer information into gossip, one of the people would almost always say, “I think we’re moving into gossip” and the conversation would be changed to another subject. For you see, gossip is like adultery – it takes at least two people to commit this sin.
And as soon as I wrote that comment, my mind turned to Facebook. All the rules of face-to-face gossip apply to Facebook. If it would embarrass you or your friend in public, don’t write it. And if you see gossip on Facebook, the appropriate way to respond is always in private – never in public - with a politely worded request to reconsider the post. Not a demand. Not an accusation. A politely worded private request to “please reconsider if our mutual friend would want this posted.” As Paul writes in I Corinthians chapter four, ” When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly.” This is how Christians are to respond.
And what is perhaps the most single important way to remember not to gossip? Consider this: When you gossip, you almost always are giving a judgment on another person’s behavior or actions or speech. And there seems to be a law of the Universe: Those who gossip will be gossiped about, just as those who judge will be judged by the same standard that they judged another by.
As Christians, we live in the sure knowledge that there is another much wiser than we are who is ready to judge each one of us at the end of time. I’ve noticed in my life, that as soon as I condemn another person for an action, a situation, a weakness, or a sin, I will find myself with that same action, situation, weakness or sin within days, often within hours. God is jealous of His right to judge each one of us for our actions. And gossip usually contains a judgement.
We, on the other hand, are to focus upon our own transgressions, our own sins, our own shortfalls in holiness, working to improve ourselves and give others assistance – practical assistance to others in trouble. Gossip is never that assistance.
Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are fully able to make any person aware of when they are stuck in sin. The drug user, for instance, knows better than you do just how badly he or she is addicted to the drug. The man who cannot keep the four-letter words from flowing from his mouth is fully aware of his speech pattern. Even the liar knows just how difficult it is to keep lying. Yet because they do not have the Holy Spirit – or do not listen to the Spirit if they have the Spirit – they do not change for the better. No condemnation we give them will help with that change. Only our love and positive suggestions to find and listen to God, and our help in pointing out the direction to God will make a difference. And pointing towards sin is not pointing towards God.
Our job is to connect people with the Holy Spirit through Jesus Christ. Our job is to introduce people to Jesus Christ and together with Jesus, help our friends come to listen to the Holy Spirit. No one who is truly listening to the Holy Spirit will gossip for long – or continue in any particular sin. The difficulty is that we don’t like to listen to the Holy Spirit, for the Spirit speaks to us and focuses upon our issues. The Spirit doesn’t gossip about other people.
If we want to listen to the Holy Spirit, we first must accept the Holy Spirit, which is done through baptism. And then, we must make time for two-way prayer, finding a place of quiet to speak to God our wants and needs, and asking questions – and then listening for the still, small voice inside us that speaks back to us. And finally, we must do what the Spirit asks, knowing that the Spirit will never contradict Holy Scripture.
So instead of letting the feathers of gossip escape from our pillow of sin, let us send out feathers of love, feathers that lift up others, feathers that encourage other people, feathers that float off and touch other people with a gentle, wonderful touch, like the gentle touch of the Holy Spirit when the Spirit guides us to all things bright and beautiful. Let our words be the words of the Holy Spirit, the words of Christ, the words that give life to our friends and neighbors and family. When we are tempted to gossip or to listen to gossip, let us simply change the subject: “Let me tell you what God did for me yesterday…” Turn your gossip into praise!
And so we come back once again to God. Our solution to escaping the sin of gossip is to listen closer to the Holy Spirit, to read the Word of God more often, to always keep our connection with the Holy Spirit active during the day. And if we do that – listen to the Holy Spirit and read the Word of God more often – we will find that we will rarely be the subject of gossip, but will become the subject of a quiet praise from our friends, a good example to be pointed to, a holy saint that God will commend one day: "Well done, good and faithful servant."
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