“Have you Heard that Luke is a Mess?- Jan. 27

“They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, truthless.” Romans 1:29b-30

The weather broke a little yesterday.  We made it above freezing so I thought I should make the most of it and clear our driveway and walkways of as much ice as possible.  In the midst of my toil, Luke Skywalker felt that I should give him some attention.  Luke Skywalker (aka Lukey) is our cat.  As you might surmise by his name, we got Lukey several years back when my son was in a heavy Star Wars phase.  Lukey is an outdoor cat who really thinks he should be an indoor cat.  He loves to lay on my lap and be combed and petted.

He has a very effective method of informing me that he feels he has received inadequate affection.  He will sneak-up on me; walk-up my leg so that he is standing on his hind paws, sink the claws in and just hang from my pants.  It is very effective.

I put my shovel down and picked up Lukey and proceeded to scratch him in all the places that he likes.  It provided me with an opportunity to tell him what I thought of him.

Winters are a little rough on long-haired cats.  I told him that he was looking horrible – his hair is starting to get all matted up.  His appearance is embarassing.  He really needs to do something about that.

As I have said, it has been very cold and Lukey hasn’t been too interested in going outside our garage.  He actually pooped in the garage.  I told him that his behavior was very uncouth and that I was gravely offended by how rude and gross he had been.   He really needs to get some manners.

When the cats are doing their job of hunting mice, they usually leave little tokens of their endeavors on our back step in the form of mouse remnants.  I have noticed a lack of remnants as of late.  I told him that he was getting pretty lazy and that he was getting too accustomed to living off of the system (me).  He really needs to get back to work.

I got the cats a mat that heats when they lay on it.  I had hoped that both cats, Lukey and Gray Kitty would share the mat. (Gray Kitty was a stray cat that adopted us.  She wasn’t our cat so we just started calling her grey kitty.  She decided we were her new home and her name sort of became, Gray Kitty)  Lukey is not very good at sharing and chases Gray Kitty away.  I told him that he was not respecting Gray Kitty; he was being very self-centered.  He needed to learn how to share.

I told Lukey all of this while I scratched him into feline bliss.  He took it pretty well.  He looked up at me through one narrowed, indifferent eye and leaned into my hand when I hit a particularly good spot and he let a giant glob of slobber escape the corner of his mouth to drip onto my lap.  Lukey is a sloberer.

He is a mess.

I will admit that my assessment of Lukey was not very kind or loving but he did not know what I was saying.  As far as Lukey’s concerned, he thinks that he is the king.  He thinks that I adore him – I drop what I do and acquiesce to his demands for affection.  I think that he would be shocked if he really knew what I was saying.

Does it matter that Lukey didn’t know what I was saying?

What if Lukey was not a cat but a person?  What if I told someone else all my opinions about Luke, the person?

It is all true.  What is wrong with speaking the truth – won’t the truth set you free?  Isn’t the truth cathartic?

I think that pretty much anyone would be gravely offended if I talked about them in such a way behind their backs.  No one likes someone to gossip about them.  Gossip is when we speak about someone in a decidedly unkind manner without them knowing.

Gossip is bad and it hurts when it is done to you. 

Just look at all the other characteristics that Paul lumps gossip in with: slander, God haters, insolent, haughty, boasters, evil inventors, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, and ruthless.  That is not good company.  Gossip is very serious.  Gossip is sin and it is a lot more serious than it is typically treated.

I think that it might be treated in such an indifferent manner because it is one of the easiest sins to fall into.

I am amazed at how quickly an innocent conversation can turn to expressing very unkind and critical opinions of another person.  I think that everyone has been in one of those conversations that turned with the phrase, ‘have you heard about “so-n-so’”.  The problem is that my curiosity peaks to a critical state with the words “have you heard”.

I haven’t heard about “so-n-so”.

What happened to “so-n-so”?

Maybe if I knew what happened to “so-n-so” then I can pray for “so-n-so”.

Gossip is so insidious because a conversation can turn from something good to something bad with an inflection, a hand gesture, body language, an overstated opinion, bluntness,…

Where does that line lie?  That is a hard one.  I rely on the second greatest commandment to be my guide regarding gossip:

“Love your neighbor as yourself”.

It seems to me that the issue comes down to loving your neighbor as yourself.  Will you feel loved if someone said those exact words behind your back about you?  It is not a question of whether you have a problem with someone saying something about you but whether you feel loved by them in their discussion about you.  How does your conversation stack up to that standard?

Gossip seems like the acceptable sin.  It is rarely preached about.  There are not a lot of Bible Studies on it. You don’t hear a lot of people asking for prayer in their struggles with it.  Yet, it seems like it is happening all the time.

I believe that our Christian communities will be healthier and emotionally safer if we were really living out the second greatest commandment – actually showing love and kindness to other people, rather than letting our opinions be known.   Let’s face it – my opinion doesn’t really matter that much.

I believe that we would be much better off if we were more concerned with loving God with all our hearts, souls and mind, setting on minds on the things of the Spirit, and focusing on our Savior, rather than focusing on other people’s failings.  You might be “better” than that other person but you are still desperately in just as much need of the grace and mercy of your savior as that other person.  You are not as good as you think you are.

We are all messes!

Let’s treat gossip for what it really is – sin.  It is then that we can start being the body of Christ that we were intended to be.

PRAYER: Lord, forgive me for not taking gossip as serious as you do.  Forgive me for not loving others as myself in my conversation.  Father, bring this sin to the front of my mind in all of my conversation.  Help me to be sensitive to my words even when they seem isolated.  Father, change my heart so that what is flowing out of it is love and kindness rather than criticalness, harshness, and indifference.  Lord, help me see people as you do and love them as you do.    Amen