September 13, 2009
Grace Church
Rev. Robert E. Hensley

Proverbs 1:20-33; Psalm 19; James 3:1-12; Mark 8:27-38

      Let us pray.  Gracious Savior, you have the words of eternal life. As the Scripture is read and preached in this hour, empower us to hear it with humility and openness, so that hearing it, we may respond with courage and conviction. Amen.

      There is an old saying about gossip that if I recall I have shared with you before, but think that it bears worth repeating.  In the secular world, if you are talking about someone behind that person’s back, we refer to that as “gossip”.  In the church, when we do that, we refer to it as “sharing”.  And if it what you are saying about someone in the next pew is really malicious, we call that “sharing with love.”

      Believe it or not, there are some recent studies that show that gossip may actually be good for you. In our letter from James this morning, the author offers a warning and an alternative.

      Gossip, as Walter Winchell observed, is the art of saying nothing in a way that leaves practically nothing unsaid. Perhaps that is why Oscar Wilde once famously said at a dinner party, “If you haven’t got anything nice to say about anybody, come over and sit next to me.” Of course, he also said, “There’s only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.”

      It is extremely difficult to resist a juicy bit of gossip, despite universal, transcultural (not to mention biblical) prohibitions against it. The Bible has plenty to say on the subject: “Besides that, they learn to be idle, gadding about from house to house; and they are not merely idle, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not say” (1 Timothy 5:13); and “He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth very friends” (Proverbs 17:9, KJV).

      And let us not forget that he or she who gossips to you will just as readily gossip about you.

      In this country we have a hard go of it in the gossip department because in our culture, gossip is a multimillion-dollar industry. From supermarket check-out line tabloids to TV shows and Web sites such as TMZ, to the millions of celebrity blog sites in cyberspace, it seems as though everyone wants to be in the know about the latest scandal, hookup, or who is or isn’t pregnant. Paparazzi risk getting punched in the face by stressed-out celebrities just to get a shot of them doing – well, doing something, anything.   And if they are not wearing clothes while doing it, all the better.  The chattering and nattering is in-your-face and incessant – all gossip, all the time.

      We have to ask, why the fascination? Well, for that we consult an expert: Bonnie Fuller, chief editorial director of Star magazine.   Fuller writes, “Our readers love good news about celebrities.” “They love to hear about romance, weddings, pregnancies, babies and births.” Why this new tendency to focus on the positive? Fuller suspects this is because a new type of woman is flipping through the pages of magazines such as the Star. “The readers are younger and more educated,” she says. “They’re working women who have jobs and families and kids. They view celebrities as part of their larger circle of friends. They want to read about drama in celebrity relationships because they relate to that in their own lives.”

      That’s a nice way of putting it. Here’s a more honest assessment by Laura Johansson, a New Jersey horse trainer, who enjoys discussing celebrity gossip with her friends around the hot tub. “You’re bonding with your friends, and it’s the one time you can be outrageously judgmental,” she explains. “When you’re learning about the misfortunes of jerks, it makes you feel good. And when it’s some good news about someone you like, you enjoy it vicariously.”

      But lest we think men are immune to idle gossip, any guy who’s been around a military unit, a sports team or any other close-knit group will tell you that the rumor mill is just as prevalent there as it is in the checkout line. Whether it’s men or women, celebrities or common folk, gossip seems to be a way of life.

      But…can gossip be a good thing?  Traditionally, gossip has been thought of as belonging to the realm of dirty little sins in which we shouldn’t – but do – indulge. Recently, however, some researchers have been trying to remove the stigma from gossip, claiming that a little secret swapping, “he said-she said” and rumor-mongering might actually be good for us and strengthen our social networks.

      I rank that right alongside things like being told that cigarettes, driving too fast and running with scissors are good for you!

      Frank McAndrew, a psychology professor at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, outlines the thesis. “[Gossip] is a social skill, not a character flaw,” he says. “It’s only when you don’t do it well that you get into trouble.”

      McAndrew set up an experiment with some of his students, asking 42 men and 98 women to read 12 brief fictional stories – the type that would be perfect for spreading around the dorm. Some stories had positive subjects, such as winning a major award or inheriting a large sum of money. Some stories revolved around negative themes, including drunken escapades, sexual promiscuity, gambling problems and classroom cheating.

      After reading each story, the students were asked to rank how likely they would be to seek out more information, depending on whether the scenario described a relative, a professor, an acquaintance, a friend, a stranger, an enemy or rival or a romantic partner.

      And the results, recently published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, show that the nature of the gossip controlled whether it was passed on. The students were generally more willing to freely share damaging, negative personal information when it involved a same-sex rival. They would share good news only if it were about a friend.

      According to McAndrew, we feel pleasure whenever we share savory scraps of information because gossip helps build relationships and bond people together. The study seems to imply that a little bit of gossip is actually necessary for the wheels of social convention to keep turning. Think of it as the transmission of a positive “buzz,” if you will.

      But even McAndrew acknowledges that gossip, when taken too far, can be a problem. “It’s important to share information, but not indiscriminately,” he explains. “It’s bad when it serves no purpose but to ingratiate yourself with a group by saying awful things about someone else.”

      In today’s culture, however, it seems as though that latter kind of gossip sells magazines, glues eyeballs to the screen and gets people to tune in to the vitriolic rants of talk-radio hosts and out of work politicians. That raises important questions: Is there really such a thing as innocent, healthy gossip, or is that just the first step down the road toward the deconstruction of a community of people? Is whispering secrets in the dark just a prelude to an even more sinister darkness?

      Is, then, keeping silent better than talking about someone?   When we read James’ epistle, we certainly get the impression that all forms of idle or venomous speech are strictly out of bounds for the Christian community. Chapter 3 is his famous treatise on the tongue, and there’s some serious wisdom here for us to think about before we open our mouths to share some “interesting information” about someone else, be it with or without ‘love’.

      To understand James’ viewpoint here, we first need to look at how the cultures of the first-century world viewed speech in general. Whereas we’re constantly bombarded by words and idle speech every day in the form of gossip, advertising and the white noise of a technological society, all cultures of the first century, both Greco-Roman and Jewish, agreed that words and speech contained both power and peril in abundant supply. From the wisdom literature of Egypt to the writings of Plutarch and Seneca to the wisdom traditions in the Bible, ancient sages believed that silence was better than speech, that listening and not speaking was the pathway to wisdom and that all human speech should be guarded, never expressing rage or envy. A verse from the Apocrypha sums up this view nicely: “Honor and dishonor come from speaking, and the tongues of mortals may be their downfall” (Sirach 5:15). The book of Proverbs found in your Bible from which we read this morning is full of similar sentiments.

      Moreover, as Ken Frantz reminds us, the ancient world depended on a strong oral tradition for the transference of cultural identity and mores from one generation to another. “Who, after all, would be more aware of the harmful nature of gossip than those steeped in an oral culture?” he says. No written texts exist that are attributable to Jesus. The dissemination of the good news depended for some time on the veracity of oral accounts. Gossip, therefore, was considered to be oral conduct that was especially out of bounds.

      James employs a series of metaphors to indicate just how dangerous even a little bit of indiscreet speech can be. The tongue is a small part of the body, says James, but like the rudder on a ship or a bridle on a horse, the tongue can steer us either to the path of wisdom or toward destruction (3:1-5). It takes only a spark – a misplaced, unkind or untrue word – to burn down a community that has been nurtured and established like an old-growth forest (vv. 5-6). The tongue’s “deadly poison” is always just a word or two away from infecting an entire group (v. 8). The power of words to both bless and curse is a power not to be taken lightly, particularly when our words are directed at God and, more precisely, at people who are created in God’s image (v. 9).

      But James also recognized that there was a positive use for the tongue, and that is as a conduit for God’s own wisdom. “Who is wise and understanding among you?” he asked. “Show by your good life that your good works are done with gentleness born of wisdom” (v. 13). Our speech is merely the product of what’s inside us. If we are filled with the wisdom and Spirit of God “from above,” then our speech will reflect that. That wisdom is “pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy” (v. 17). If, however, our speech is laced with “envy and selfish ambition,” then that is evidence that our deeper motivation is “earthly, unspiritual, devilish” (v. 15).

      To put it another way, before we share anything with anyone we should listen to our inner voice. Before we use our audible voice, we should ask ourselves, “Is what I’m about to share here coming from a desire to build up the body of Christ and share God’s wisdom, or am I simply speaking to feed my own selfish ambition or to gain favor with the curious and caustic folks around me?”

      One time-honored way of dealing with gossip, with which some of you may be familiar, is called the “three-filter test.” Some say it dates all the way back to Socrates.

      • The first filter is Truth: Are you absolutely sure the statement is true?

      • The second filter is Goodness: Does the statement say something good about another person?

      • The third filter is Usefulness: Is the statement useful in some way?

      It is not necessary for the conditions of all three filters to be fulfilled. For example, a statement may be true and useful but may still say something bad about another person. While it could hurt the other person, there may still be some value in saying it.

      However, the three-filter test is most useful when none of the three conditions is fulfilled. Then it’s easy to discard the statement as mere gossip.

      But I want to get back to the original question: Is there such a thing as good gossip, particularly in the Christian community? Again, it depends on the motivation. William Willimon offers this assessment of how gossip can be good in the church: 

In church, gossip may be particularly important in what Reinhold Niebuhr called that never-ending task of “the increase of the love of God and neighbor.” Many times as a pastor I have taken pastoral initiative with people, knocking on their front door and saying, “Joe, Joan, I hear you’re having some marital problems.” Sometimes they would say, “Oh, we see that the church rumor mill has been hard at work” – congregational gossip making its nasty intrusion into their personal lives. “Call it gossip if you will,” I would counter, “but I heard this as the genuine concern of some fellow Christians who care about you and are not sure how to show their care.” More often than not, the information was accurate and the couple was grateful that we had made their troubles our own.Christians are members of a family, siblings by virtue of baptism who pledge to make their stories available to one another out of conviction that they become better people in the process. In baptism I “go public” with my life, offering it to the familial scrutiny of others, taking responsibility for the lives of others.

      It’s when we “go public” within our Christian communities that we’re able to embrace Paul’s advice to “speak the truth in love”  to another (Ephesians 4:15). In that sense, idle gossip is replaced by genuine expressions of care and, when necessary, correction.

      Says Willimon, “Our society makes strangers of us all, gives us the right to privacy without giving us anything to do with it and unjustly separates private and public ethics. The gossip of the church family, however, the talk of siblings by baptism, is sanctified. Gossip, as a church activity without malice, (and there’s the key) may well be, at its best, the moral casuistry of ordinary people, a primary means of congregational bonding, a source of utterly essential moral data about ourselves, an everyday means of investigating communally what it means to be baptized.”

      “The tongue is a fire,” said James (v. 6). The question is whether it will burn down our communities and churches or whether the word of God’s wisdom, speaking through us, will provide light and warmth for everyone. Amen. 
Sources: 
 
Carroll, Linda. “Here’s a secret: Gossip may be good for you.” MSNBC Web Site, July 18, 2007. msnbc.msn.com/id/19748142/wid/11915773?GT1=10212. Viewed March 9, 2009. 

Willimon, William. “Heard about the pastor who …? Gossip as an ethical activity.” The Christian Century, October 31, 1990, 994-96. religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=789. Viewed March 10, 2009.