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PSSST! HAVE YOU HEARD THE LATEST?

In his book, The Ten Challenges, psychologist Dr. Leonard Felder tells about a client named Rita, who sought him out for some therapy.

“She came to me for counseling,” he writes, “after being laid off from her job as a university instructor. Rita is a highly intelligent, very articulate woman who enjoyed working as an associate professor of literature at a nearby university. Unfortunately, her verbal brilliance sometimes got her in trouble in her career and in her personal relationships.”

Without breaking any doctor/client privileges, he goes on to relate how this woman had one simple problem: her smart mouth. She loved to gossip. She loved to use her biting wit to just skewer people in the throat. Rita was generally kind of popular wherever she worked, because, unfortunately, most of us are drawn to a clever gossip, but it just continually got her into trouble.

“At [my] last job I was at a meeting,” she told Dr. Felder while in session, “with several colleagues and we were exchanging vicious stories about the director of the department, a major bozo with an ego the size of Alaska. Little did I know his best friend, who was in the room at the time, would decide to go and quote me in great detail to the boss. I was ostracized for several months and eventually laid off.”

Her slicing wit also helped break up her own marriage. Even so, when Dr. Felder offered to provide her with therapy and some solutions to her addiction to gossip, she was actually reluctant to get the help.

“Sounds great for someone else,” she said, “but not for me! I’ve always survived by being a verbal warrior, and if you take away my barbed tongue, what will I have left?”

Well, friend, you may be wondering how we got from the city of Ephesus, and the Apostle Paul’s letter to the simple folk living there, over to Dr. Leonard Felder’s upscale psychiatric practice in downtown L.A. Yesterday we were in Ephesians 4:25 — Therefore each of you must put off falsehood — and today the issue is gossip? Is there a connection?

Interestingly, this book by Dr. Felder — I already mentioned the title was The Ten Challenges — is based explicitly on the Ten Commandments of Exodus chapter 20. Using his skill as a therapist and author, Felder helps us to understand, from a rich variety of religious backdrops (not just Jewish or Christian), how the Bible’s Decalogue is actually a marvelous blueprint for sound mental health. In fact, here’s the dust-jacket blurb:

“The Ten Challenges: Spiritual Lessons from the Ten Commandments for Creating Meaning, Growth, and Richness Every Day of Your Life.”

And then we were surprised by this: when Dr. Felder gets to the Ninth Commandment, “Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,” he devotes the ENTIRE CHAPTER to the malady of gossiping. Usually preachers focus pretty exclusively on honestly and lying — that’s what we studied yesterday — but this gifted writer and Ph.D. scholar spends 19 pages telling his readers that the ninth challenge is this: “Reducing Gossip and Hurtful Talk in Your Daily Life.”

We sometimes quote just a bit of Hebrew or Greek here on the broadcast, and as an observant Jew, Felder is well qualified to give us some Old Testament nuances. The Hebrew expression, Lo ta-eed, he tells us, doesn’t just translate, “Don’t TESTIFY falsely against your neighbor,” which would sound like a courtroom edict by the judge or bailiff. No, the Torah actually says Lo ta-ahneh, which is more along the lines of: “Don’t answer, respond, or repeat against your neighbor.” Period. Which takes us right into the temptation to gossip, or as some of us sing in church: “I Love to Tell the Story”!

Let’s remind ourselves again that here in Ephesians Paul is reminding us, over and over and OVER, that the Christian community is a family. We’re all one! When we gossip, we’re hurting our own flesh and blood, our brothers and sisters. In Felder’s book — all ten chapters are excellent, by the way — he shares some of the devastating results of gossip and destructive talk, and then poses this question:

“What would be your first reaction if someone told you, ‘Keep your mouth shut when friends, neighbors, co-workers, or relatives ask you for the inside dirt about someone else’?”

According to this writer, it’s about as hard as giving up chocolate or desserts. You can actually feel edgy and restless when you try to go cold turkey and not participate in the so-called “water-cooler talk.” He then shares with his readers six reasons why people are addicted to this particular form of commandment-breaking. First, it helps make you feel equal to or ahead of the people you tear down. Number two, it’s a way of getting revenge against people you think have hurt you or treated you unfairly. Three — and let me quote this one directly — “A sense of bonding for groups that have a common adversary or ideological opponent.” You know the old line: “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

“Quite often,” Felder writes, “you’ll hear conservatives trying to find and spread dirt about liberals, or liberals seeking and dishing dirt about conservatives. As left-wing journalist Andrew Kopkind wrote in his book The Thirty Years War about why he took great pleasure in gossiping about a specific reactionary politician, ‘Gossip serves as justice in a corrupt world.’”

So sometimes we gossip as a way of getting our little piece of due reward. Here’s #4: It’s essentially voyeurism when we peek – via gossip – into someone else’s private life. Five: It’s fun and pleasurable to be the first to know some juicy thing. We get a feeling of satisfaction if we can be the person who knows something titillating, even if it’s just a half-truth or even a completely inaccurate fabrication. Felder shares a Spanish proverb: “The person who knows only a little says very much.” Isn’t that the truth?

Finally, gossiping can be a commoner’s “subtle way,” Felder writes, “to enforce codes of behavior.” If someone in authority isn’t following the corporate rules, the others below will try to shame him or her into compliance by gossiping. Sometimes it’s a form of subtle blackmail, Felder suggests.

“By saying hurtful things about the rebellious outsider, the family, group, or organization implies to its members, ‘Don’t be like him or her, because then we’ll gossip about you, too.’”

Well, friend, do we recognize ourselves in that hard-to-hear list of six? I’m afraid we all do. But you know, the Bible shares not only this Ephesians warning, but also a clear, Scriptural prescription or procedure to follow in preventing gossip. Maybe you’ve had someone say, in the middle of a colorful discussion about someone, “I guess we should try to abide by Matthew 18.” We’ve sometimes had to look behind us here at the Voice of Prophecy and say with reddened faces: “Oh no. We neglected Matthew 18. We did this out of order.” Well, what does Jesus invite us to do in Matthew 18? Here it is:

“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you.”

That’s one on one, just the two of you. You don’t talk to co-workers, you don’t post it on the Internet, and you don’t call the National Enquirer.

“If a fellow believer hurts you,” says the Message paraphrase, “go and tell HIM — work it out between the two of you.”

Let’s continue . . . and back to the NIV:

“If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’” That’s quoting from Deuteronomy 19. Jesus continues: “If he refuses to listen to THEM, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector.”

In that era, a tax collector was basically a cheat or an extortionist, so we need to understand that reference.

But friend, let’s notice two things: first of all, this is a four-step process before you finally sever the ties. And it starts with one-on-one, with confidential. It’s also extremely important to notice that there are two sides to this. If someone come to me, in obedience to Matthew 18, to point out MY error, then it’s incumbent upon me to respond with humility and repentance. Did we pick up that point? Sometimes we’re tempted to push Matthew 18 in someone’s face, and protest because we feel under the gun of a whole group of Christians, not just the committee of one. And then we look back and realize, to our chagrin, that when someone DID come to us, one-on-one, to discuss, we were hostile or cynical or unrepentant. And Jesus is very clear here that when we respond with disdain, that person has the right to move it up a notch and bring in spiritual reinforcements.

Do you know what’s ironic? And yet also a beautiful challenge? This tough-as-nails Matthew 18 passage about working out our difficulties and refraining from gossiping is followed IMMEDIATELY by the well-known promise:

“Where two or three come together in My name, there am I with them.”

In other words, the presence of Jesus’ and the answered prayers of Jesus HINGE — they absolutely DEPEND — on our ability to get together, live together, love together, and solve together. And keep it out of the pages of the National Enquirer.