December 5, 2003
Humorist Dave Berry says “The most destructive force in nature is gossip.” He may be right. We’ve all seen rumors and gossip get out of hand and cause a great deal of damage, even here in our own parish.
In the first reading today, Isaiah prophesies that Lebanon will be turned into an orchard. I’ve never been to Lebanon myself, but I don’t think it’s a great place to grow fruit. They grow mostly sand and oil and camels there.
He says that the deaf will hear and the blind will see. He goes on to say that the evil doers will be cut off. The poor will rejoice.
Evil-doers are a pretty big group. But, who does he specifically single out? The tyrants, the arrogant and those whose mere word condemns a man. Nothing here about prostitutes or thieves or murderers. According to Isaiah, those who condemn with words are at the top of the list.
And, that’s too bad. As far as I know, nobody here is a prostitute. None of us are thieves or murderers. But a lot of us are pretty good at hurting people with words. You’ve done it. God knows I’ve done it. And, here’s Isaiah telling us that as sins go, it ranks right at the top of the list.
We know that Jesus forgave just about every kind of sin, except the sin of being judgmental. And, it’s no fun to be judgmental if we can’t talk about it. The two just naturally go together. Thinking bad things about somebody doesn’t give us nearly the satisfaction that we get when we share the bad news with someone else.
So, what are we going to do about it? Bad habits are hard to break. We have a Weight Watcher’s group here in the parish that’s lost close to 200 pounds. Overeating is a hard habit to break. But I’m afraid that gossip may be even tougher. A lot of times, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. And once we’ve started a rumor, a runaway train would be easier to stop.
They say it takes three weeks to replace a bad habit with a good one. It’s just one day less than three weeks until Christmas. What if we all make an effort to avoid gossip and rumors between now and Christmas? Even if we don’t break a bad habit, we’ll probably help the people around us have a merrier Christmas.
In the first reading today, Isaiah prophesies that Lebanon will be turned into an orchard. I’ve never been to Lebanon myself, but I don’t think it’s a great place to grow fruit. They grow mostly sand and oil and camels there.
He says that the deaf will hear and the blind will see. He goes on to say that the evil doers will be cut off. The poor will rejoice.
Evil-doers are a pretty big group. But, who does he specifically single out? The tyrants, the arrogant and those whose mere word condemns a man. Nothing here about prostitutes or thieves or murderers. According to Isaiah, those who condemn with words are at the top of the list.
And, that’s too bad. As far as I know, nobody here is a prostitute. None of us are thieves or murderers. But a lot of us are pretty good at hurting people with words. You’ve done it. God knows I’ve done it. And, here’s Isaiah telling us that as sins go, it ranks right at the top of the list.
We know that Jesus forgave just about every kind of sin, except the sin of being judgmental. And, it’s no fun to be judgmental if we can’t talk about it. The two just naturally go together. Thinking bad things about somebody doesn’t give us nearly the satisfaction that we get when we share the bad news with someone else.
So, what are we going to do about it? Bad habits are hard to break. We have a Weight Watcher’s group here in the parish that’s lost close to 200 pounds. Overeating is a hard habit to break. But I’m afraid that gossip may be even tougher. A lot of times, we don’t even realize we’re doing it. And once we’ve started a rumor, a runaway train would be easier to stop.
They say it takes three weeks to replace a bad habit with a good one. It’s just one day less than three weeks until Christmas. What if we all make an effort to avoid gossip and rumors between now and Christmas? Even if we don’t break a bad habit, we’ll probably help the people around us have a merrier Christmas.
posted by Mike at 12:17 PM
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