Gossip and Slander

It seems to me that each place we live has its own resident evil spirits—local demons assigned to stir up a particular brand of evil. There are a couple here named Gossip and Slander. You should recognize them from their many mentions in the Bible. They’re cousins and quite skilled at working together. We’re watching them damage lives every day, including our own. Their most effective skill is to convince people they don’t even exist, that our battle is actually against flesh and blood, against each other. Yeah, they’re real jackwagons.

I’m not immune. I find myself upset about Gossip and Slander, and so I gossip about who’s slandering. Super unhealthy, I know. Honestly, gossip and slander are not my worst vices. I’ve never really been bothered enough about how other people live to talk much about them. It’s true. John has accused me of caring so little about “keeping up with the Joneses” that I appear at times to not really care at all what other people think. It’s not true though. I do care what people think. I just don’t overly concern myself with what goes on behind their closed doors or with what they think about what goes on behind ours. I find the subject exhausting and would rather read a good book or dream about places we want to visit or how I’m going to landscape my new yard. Maybe part of that stems from years in ministry, where we get our fill of other people’s problems on a daily basis and don’t need to drum up discussions about them in our free time. No, Gossip and Slander are not my biggest problems, but I do sometimes have a pretty sharp tongue.

I’m a bit of a name caller. You might have picked up on that in the first paragraph. Instead of getting into a whole discussion about what other people are doing, I tend to just assign a nickname and move on, leaving the droning chatter to other people. I’m not proud of it, but in my attempt to call out Gossip and Slander for the trouble makers they are, I figure I can confess some of my own sin too. And this is hard. Name calling can be truly satisfying, like a crunchy morsel in an otherwise soft bite of food. The nicknames I use are never (well almost never) vulgar and never (truly never) about a person’s disability. I’m not a monster. But if you’ve ever been a jerk to me, you might have a nickname. Even my dog has one. I’m not partial.

For instance, I’ll call anyone a moron. Sadly and unintentionally, it’s become one of my go-to words. I usually pair it with “ridiculous” like a fine wine with cheese. My husband and kids recently challenged me to go one full day without using the words “ridiculous” or “moron.” Wow! You might as well ask me to go an entire day without coffee (which I have done for thirty days, albeit ten years ago, thank you very much). Well, I was certainly up for that challenge, because if I am anything it is disciplined (or so I thought).

John and I drove to Lincoln that day for some shopping. I was proud that I didn’t use one creative nickname the whole time—even though Twitchy at the gas station made me a little nervous, and I was tempted. As we drove out of town into the setting sun during rush hour on one of the busiest streets in Lincoln, we were surprised by two men standing in the middle of the road just over a hill. One was holding a bucket as he patched a hole in the asphalt, while the other attempted to divert traffic with a tiny orange flag. Now this set up might have worked during a less busy time of day on a less busy street, but I couldn’t imagine a more dangerous approach to street repair. Cars were careening to avoid the makeshift construction zone. I yelled out, “Morons!” It was like a reflex. (I really need to work on that.) Mind you, the windows weren’t down so I don’t think they heard that or what came next. “That is absolutely ridiculous!” John and I got a good laugh at my lack of willpower AND at the situation which was, in all fairness, quite ridiculous. Then he told me what I already knew, “You really need to work on that.”

Well, there you have it. I am not a stellar human being. But Jesus is and His Spirit lives in me, so I keep trying. If you knew me before I was a Christian, you’re probably proud of me right now for what I did not call those guys. But that’s not good enough. I want to do better. And, I’m asking you to as well. Gossip and Slander don’t just make people feel bad, they do real damage. I’ll give you a couple of examples.

Back when we were trying to raise support to move to Africa we were invited to speak at a church that was interested in helping. Shortly after meeting them we were informed that they would not be partnering with us because they heard we had stolen a truck from one of our previous churches. Now, as much as I would love to tell you there’s more to that story, that’s about it in a nutshell. They didn’t ask questions and, to my knowledge, they didn’t investigate the claim. The long and the short of it is that a generous car dealer from another church had given us a truck, and Gossip and Slander went to work. It was a truly bizarre turn of events in every way, and if I was making this up I promise it would be a much better story.

Another time after we already lived in Africa and had come back to raise more support so we could feed more kids, we were invited to speak at a friend’s church. After our presentation and picture slide show, one of the men in charge of making decisions accused us of being racist and not sensitive enough to black lives. I still sometimes wonder exactly which part of our presentation about feeding small starving African children was racist and insensitive. Anyway, Gossip and Slander packed a lunch and worked overtime on that one, handily shutting that door. I would be willing to bet that your other missionary friends have similar stories. These demons have a small playbook, but they are really good at their game.

If you have never considered that Gossip and Slander are living entities that work overtime to cause dissension and create factions among the members of God’s global church, I urge you to. If you think the devil is just an ideal or representation of evil and that he and his demons cannot actually hurt people, I challenge that notion. I’ve just given you two examples in which children who needed immediate aid did not receive it in time and died, and these are not hypothetical examples. We knew these kids. We just didn’t get to them in time to help. I hold Gossip and Slander responsible.

You may find this overdramatic, but unless you’ve met the needy children in a third world country, I would ask you to reserve that judgment. These demons are real and they’re causing real damage. The book of Romans lists those who do their bidding along with “haters of God.” James says their religion is “worthless,” and the Psalms say they will be “destroyed.” I pledge to work on my sharp tongue and to serve Gossip and Slander daily eviction notices. Would you do the same? This city—and every city for that matter—would do well to send these guys packing on the next train out of town. With the Spirit of Christ we have the power to do just that. Thank you for joining us in the fight.