James vs. Gossip
Last week James came down hard on the rich. This week, we see James get himself even more worked up over something much smaller: our tongue. Now, it seems obvious that James is using “tongue” figuratively here. This isn’t about the organ itself. This is metonymy for speech and language. The tongue stands in for what it does, and at least for James, the tongue does a lot of trouble.
Not only does the tongue do contradictory things such as blessing God and cursing God’s children, but it also creates big problems for communities. It is “a restless evil.” It “sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell.”
These all appear to be some pretty extreme accusations of speech, which is an incredibly useful tool to most of us. What does James mean by all of this? Why is he so frustrated with the tongue? And what can be done about it?
We all know the positives of language, but let’s take a moment to consider the drawbacks. I’m sure we’ve all experienced gossip in our lives, whether we were perpetrators, bystanders, or victims of a vicious rumor. When we say bad things about another person, we are actually hurting a lot of people. Obviously the person whose name is being dragged is hurt. They may lose friends, or have trouble making meaningful connections with hearts primed against them. Furthermore, speaking ill of someone has the potential to flatten them. Humans are complicated, dynamic, deep creatures with behavior affected by context. Spreading rumors denies the depth of a person. When we speak ill of someone to people they don’t yet know, we create a different person in their mind. We reduce them to a single story. We become the author of a character that we project back onto a real person for whom they stand.
A reputation is like a mirror, and when we poison that reputation we fracture the mirror into shards of distorted glass. They neither accurately reflect the person, nor are they safe to touch. And while a person shouldn’t need to rely on a reputation, if they never get the chance to fully express themselves because of preset distrust, the broken shards of their reflection may be all others have to go on.
Of course, this analogy leads to problems for more than the person whose reputation is poisoned. No one is really safe with broken glass on the floor. Think about how many potential friendships have been sabotaged by bad assumptions. When people have only rumors of a fictional character to empathize with, they may have trouble interacting with that person. Furthermore, if some people in a community grow to care for a person, while others distrust them without knowing them, the entire community may grow divided.
Negative speech has the potential to not only ruin the subject but also the bystanders. Even the people who spread the rumor may turn and feel guilty for their part in it. They may feel compelled by social pressure or the simple thrill of spreading the stories and come to regret it later. There is really no advantage to anyone in doing this, and yet we continue to participate in rumor mills whenever we get the chance. We just can’t help ourselves.
It’s easy to see why James is frustrated here. This is so obviously destructive. We all know it is destructive. We all know it hurts everyone involved, but like James said, this is one beast that we have not yet been able to tame. Unfortunately, taming it isn’t easy.
Of course, the solution I want to give is to remember Luther’s interpretation of the eighth commandment in the Small Catechism. “We are to come to [our neighbor’s] defense, speak well of them, and interpret everything they do in the best possible light.” And this would certainly get us far in behaving better. However, there are two problems with this.
The first problem is the potential for toxic positivity and lack of validation. When someone comes to us emotionally distraught because they feel hurt by someone else, that probably isn’t the best time to defend the person who hurt them. If a friend comes to me crying because they feel like their significant other is being abusive, I probably shouldn’t immediately fire up a defense for their potential abuser. Sometimes, people need to vent. Sometimes, people need to hear that they aren’t crazy. There are real problems. Sometimes, someone actually has done something very wrong and we need to hold them accountable for the sake of their victims both actual and potential.
Those situations can be hard to navigate. How do we avoid throwing someone’s reputation under the bus in order to validate someone else? When do we listen uncritically and when do we offer pushback? When is it gossip and when is it really pain? As much as this seems straightforward, it is difficult to tell more often than people think. The best solution we have is to listen. Empathize with the person speaking, try to see where they are coming from, and help them process through their emotions before making judgments for yourself about what they are saying.
However, there is another problem with following the eighth commandment the way Luther wants us to: it’s really hard. I am a sinful person. When I am sinning, Luther’s Small Catechism isn’t the first place my brain jumps. When I want to speak ill of someone with whom I am frustrated, Luther is nowhere to be found. How do we remind ourselves of our higher expectations when the going gets rough? How do we remember to speak well of our neighbor when they are really getting on our nerves? How do we remember to interpret things in the best possible light, when we’d rather light up their strawmen and burn the effigies for our own light?
Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy solution to this one, but maybe if we start utilizing the eighth commandment in conversation when we are pulled into the rumor circuit, we will have a chance to break out. The tongue can destroy communities and set fire to relationships. Maybe it is time to fight fire with fire and unleash the power of the Holy Spirit and the Commandments God has given us. Maybe James is right. Maybe we can’t tame the tongue, but God can.
