Kind, True, Necessary
a sermon given by the Rev. Claire Phillips-Thoryn
on Sunday, October 28, 2007
at The First Parish in Lincoln
To listen to this sermon click here.
First Reading – Excerpt from Porch Talk by Philip Gulley, pages 16-17
Philip Gulley is a Quaker pastor, and has filled several books with his musings on life and faith. In this piece from his most recent book, Porch Talk , he reflects on the local hardware store, and its owner, a man named Charley.
I never visit Charley unless I have sufficient time to sit on the bench back by the cash register, drink a Coke, view the latest pictures of his granddaughter, and talk about pocketknives. Men wander in and out of the store, some adding to the coffers, others not, seeking Charley’s counsel on a plumbing or electrical matter.
I have met some hardware storeowners who lack diplomacy, who blab stories of home maintenance mishaps all over town. Charley is the pick of discretion, as tight-lipped as a priest after confession. Once while I was there, a man returned three times in the span of an hour, a tragic figure, cursed by a home repair project that had gone south.
“What’s his problem?” I asked Charley after he’d left.
Charley pretended he hadn’t heard me and deftly changed the subject. My admiration for him soared.
[…] I cannot separate Charley from his store; one without the other would seem incomplete, like a nut without a bolt. It’s their sum that is crucial. The hardware store is the community shrine and Charley its high priest with all his sacred duties—counselor, comforter, confessor, and friend. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of home maintenance, I fear no evil, for Charley is with me; his advice and unflappability, they comfort me.
Second Reading-- Ephesians 4: 25-32
When I was thinking about this intergenerational service, I wanted to say something that was meaningful for adults and for kids. And I was inspired by our Youth Circle last Sunday. One of the questions our high schoolers were asked was “What do you know now that you wish you had known when you were younger?” Several of the high schoolers mentioned that they wished, when they were younger, they had not said so many mean things. They said that in trying to be accepted, they put down other kids, and now, just a few years later, they regretted it and were trying to change. I thought that was very moving, and speaking kindly and honestly is something that people can work harder at in all the stages of life. Our second reading this morning is a lesson from the Bible, in the book of Ephesians, chapter four, verses 25-32.
Rules for the New Life
So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another. Be angry but do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger, and do not make room for the devil. Thieves must give up stealing; rather let them labour and work honestly with their own hands, so as to have something to share with the needy. Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear. And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were marked with a seal for the day of redemption. Put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, as God [in Christ] has forgiven you.
“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another.”
“For losing sight of our unity, we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.”
Recently the writer AJ Jacobs tried to live for one year according to all of the rules of the Bible. We are familiar with the 10 Commandments and the Golden Rule. But AJ tried to follow all the laws, hundreds of them, even the ones we are less familiar with, such as “Don’t eat fruit from a tree planted less than five years ago” and “Don’t wear clothes made of mixed fibers.” (That means no cotton-poly blends!) A few rules he just couldn’t follow, like “Kill magicians.” He did manage to stone an adulterer, however, thanks to some handy pebbles he carried around in his pocket.
Some of the most strict laws in the Bible are about how we speak. There are over 20 laws that tell us to avoid gossip, boasting, lying, and cursing. Instead, as Ephesians says, “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.” Gentle rebukes and warnings are okay, but AJ has to be careful to avoid saying anything scornful or mocking, made especially difficult because as he says in New York that is 70% of all conversation. 1 Right away AJ finds he is speaking less, and speaking slower, making sure that what he says is positive, useful, and true. It is one of the hardest practices he has to learn, much harder than changing his eating habits and trying not to covet. He finds himself falling into forbidden speech again and again. But he keeps trying, he begins again in love.
AJ was following a lot of laws, so many he had to carry around a laminated cheat sheet. But when we think about what we say and how we say it, there is a very simple test for guiding our speech. There are three things we can ask ourselves before we speak:
Is it kind?
Is it true?
Is it necessary?
Is it kind, is it true, is it necessary. 2 I didn’t make those questions up. You might be familiar with them already—they were first used in a poem in 1835, and the Rotarian 4-Way test is similar. Some people use the word “useful” or “helpful” instead of “necessary.” I think these three simple tests of our speech brings together the meaning and purpose of a lot of the laws in the Bible about right speech. Maybe the question of “kind, true, necessary” was in the mind of Charlie, the hardware store “priest” in Philip Gulley’s story. Charlie doesn’t answer Philip’s gossipy request about what a man’s problem is. He just changes the subject. And Philip immediately feels even more respect for Charlie.
“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another.”
“For losing sight of our unity, we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.”
Gossip can be very malicious—telling lies, or secrets about someone to anyone who will listen. But the word gossip was not always a negative word. The word gossip came from the early English word “God-sibb.” A god-sibling, like a god-parent, was a member of your religious community, someone who shared your faith. You were truly kindred in God. So the original meaning of gossip, literally was speech within your church. 3 So if it seems like a lot of gossiping happens in church…you are right! The poet and writer Kathleen Norris, known for her books on faith, writes on gossip:
The tales of small-town gossip are morally instructive, illustrating ways ordinary people survive the worst that could happen to them; or conversely, the ways in which self-pity, anger, and despair can overwhelm and destroy them. Gossip is theology translated into experience….When we gossip we are praying, not only for them but for ourselves. 4
Like Kathleen Norris, Richard Lischer, a Lutheran minister and religion professor, writes of the small church he served in Illinois:
Gossip is the community’s way of conducting moral discourse and, in an oddly indirect way, of forgiving old offenses. In our town all desires were known, no secrets were hid, and every heart was an open book. Every life was gossiped by all, and all were gossips.
Richard Lischer and Kathleen Norris see ways that gossip can be good. In their opinion gossip is the way a community tells its story. Gossip can be the way that people get the help they can’t ask for, the forgiveness they didn’t know they needed, and the affection that comes with being loved with all your faults.
In searching for information on gossip, I also came across a book on evolution that argues that gossip is the human way of grooming each other like chimpanzees! Over time we evolved a complex language, and we started living in towns and cities so large we couldn’t groom all the people we came into contact with, like monkeys and apes do. Since we don’t stay connected to the people around us through touch, we do manage to stay connected through this amazing ability to use language. 5 And most of our language is used to talk about each other, to bring up what is going on socially.
So not all “gossip” is bad. Some of it is just sharing stories and connections so that we humans can better care for each other, and better understand the world we live in. The difference between good gossip and bad gossip, I think, comes when we ask ourselves,
Is it kind? Is it true? Is it necessary or helpful?
It is kind, true, and necessary to let your minister know when a family member or friend is in the hospital. It is kind, true, and very helpful to share family history or town stories with someone who is new and hasn’t heard them. It isn’t kind, true, or necessary to add on a level of speculation or snarkiness to the stories. “Let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up, as there is need, so that your words may give grace to those who hear.”
Many ministers begin their sermon with the words from Psalm 19: “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, O God.” Roger modifies it a little to say “the meditations of all our hearts.” We can go from there to pray that the words of all our mouths are acceptable to God, as well. The book of James in the New Testament talks about how we use our mouth:
With it we bless God, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so. Does a spring pour forth from the same opening both fresh and brackish water? Can a fig tree, my brothers and sisters, yield olives, or a grapevine figs? No more can salt water yield fresh. 6
In part what James is saying, is that when we use our mouths to speak mean, unkind things about our god-siblings, our sisters and brothers in this world community, we also take the meaning and power away from the good things we say. Our words, our gift of language is sacred, and we have great power to heal and to hurt. Our prayers and our praise mean less when we also use our language to spread cruel gossip, to put down someone, and lie.
“So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbours, for we are members of one another.”
“For losing sight of our unity, we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.”
I am a universalist, and I believe that God loves everyone and forgives everyone and that the spark of the divine is in everyone’s soul. And so in my belief, we are all god-siblings, akin to all of humanity, all in a community of faith and hope and love together. What we say to and about each other matters. We won’t always succeed in only sharing kind, true, and necessary words with each other, but they are words we can live by and strive to achieve. We can avoid sharing mean gossip and try to share holy gossip—gossip that tells stories of praise, truth, admiration, and hope. 7
We are members of one another, kindred with all we meet.
May we forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.
May the words of all our mouths be a benediction and a blessing to those we encounter.
May what we say be kind, true, and necessary.
Amen.
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1. A.J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible , 99-101.
2. From Brewer’s Famous Quotations :
In George Seaver’s Edward Wilson of the Antartic (1963), it is stated that Wilson’s widow had this motto printed on her mantelshelf to remind herself to curb her sharp tongue. In the Dorothy L. Sayers novel Gaudy Night (1935) it is said (with the first two queries reversed) by that arch-quoter, Lord Peter Wimsey. As such it bears a certain resemblance to part of the Four Way Test “of the things we think, say or do” that Rotarians in the US devised in 1931: “Is it truth? Is it fair? Will it be beneficial to all concerned?” The most likely origin, however, is a poem called “Three Gates” written in 1835 by Beth Day and said to be “after the Arabian”:
If you are tempted to reveal
A tale to you someone has told
About another, make it pass
Before you speak, three gates of gold.
These narrow gates: First, “is it true?”
Then, “is it needful?” In your mind
Give truthful answer. And the next
Is last and narrowest, “Is it kind?”
And if to reach your lips at last
It passes through these gateways three,
Then you may tell the tale, nor fear,
What result of speech may be.
Many others have had basic saying of “Is it kind, true, necessary” attributed to them including Ann Landers, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the guru Sai Baba. However, it seems to have been in the public realm long before their time.
3. Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, 72; and the Oxford English Dictionary
4. Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography , 76
5. Robin Dunbar, Gossip, Grooming, and Evolution
6. James 3: 9-12
8. See the Oct/Nov 2007 issue of the MACUCC newsletter for more on this.